Fintech has met the COVID-19 challenge, like everyone and everything in 2020, managing through the uncertainty. Perhaps, the financial services industry could have looked quite different but was rocked by the global pandemic. Now, having proven its resiliency and adaptability to the needs of the time, economics, and market Fintech is a red-hot industry of 2021.
As half of the year has passed, we decided to share our observation on Fintech trends and prospects. So, without peering into the crystal ball, check up on opportunities and the future of the financial service industry.
In blockchain we trust
Social distancing caused extensive demand for reliable digital channels for payments, credits, transactions with security included. Blockchain has totally fulfilled this need, as its use makes operations safer.
According to PwC Global FinTech Survey, 56% of survey respondents (financial managers and banking representatives) admitted the importance of blockchain, and 77% of officials in the top management aim to utilize blockchain as part of a production system in the nearest future. Besides, blockchain is a long-lasting trend, and here are 4 reasons why:
- Firstly, as we’ve already mentioned, for the sake of security. A highly fraud-resistant system protects practically any kind of transaction.
- Secondly, speed. Blockchain reduces processing errors that cause delays.
- The third reason: blockchain could make Fintech’s infrastructure far cheaper, as it reduces intermediates that applied to validate the authenticity.
- Last, but not least — versatility, this technology could be utilized for an unlimited range of financial services.
AI, ML, RPA are taking over
The mix of AI, ML, and robotic process automation (RPA), no matter what the industry is, provides several advantages at once. Fintech benefits from this combination in:
- Operational improvements
- Betterment of customer experience
- High-level accuracy and personalization
- Smarter fraud detection and risk management
According to the report AI in Fintech Market — Growth, Trends, Forecasts (2020–2025) the value of AI in the industry is expected to rise by 23.37% (CAGR), reaching $22.6 billion within the next four years.
Open and Digital-only banking
There is no surprise in the fact, that digital banking became the primary money management system for most mobile users. Customers crave convenience, hence this trend is gaining momentum.
Accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and cashless economy growing, digital banking services raise popularity thanks to their accessibility and ease of use. The fully digitalized process has already led to the closing of many brick-and-mortar banks.
Speaking about Open banking, it’s a request of today. The technology can be defined as a collaborative cloud-based model in which banking data is shared through APIs between two or more unaffiliated parties to deliver enhanced capabilities to the marketplace. Among its main benefits are:
- Transformation of customer experience
- New finance business models
- Increasement of finance market
- Reduced costs for financial operations
- Bank-as-a-Platform — a unification of financial services
Mobile banking goes mainstream
The Datereporal study for 2021 reveals that there are 5.27 billion unique mobile phone users in the world today, and the number of smartphones in use is growing at an annual rate of 7 percent, with an average of more than 1 million new smartphones coming into use every day.
Actually, traditional banks had no choice. Embracing mobile technologies is a necessity of 2021. It’s a good opportunity for businesses to broaden capabilities, functionality, be friendlier with the clients. And for consumers, installing mobile banking applications ease operations and interaction with service providers.
Mobile banking is coming up with innovative concepts and numerous gains:
- Enhanced customer service and UX
- Biometric security
- Ungraded payment system
- Higher quantities of transactions
- Speed and convenience
Regtech
With the quickly changing Fintech landscape that continually invents new and new business models, 2021 became a year of interaction between fintech providers, legislators, and regulatory organizations. They collaborate to build a safer financial industry for users. Regtech is applied to maintain the compliance activities required by Fintech and provides the tools required to:
- Risk management
- Protecting data
- Producing up-to-date reports
- Accessing real-time data
Takeaways
Today Fintech is up-and-coming. People and business organizations strive to get more convenient and secure alternatives to current systems and traditional banks.
Rolique had an opportunity to observe the financial service industry’s evolution and be part of this process through work on a product for small business bookkeeping.
Our primary goal was to build robust and intuitive software. We started the work by designing the product’s architecture. Then, by moving through the product roadmap, we produced the small testable batches of functional units.
Solutions we delivered:
- Complex architecture with robust CI/CD flow
- Microservices architecture
- Fast debugging
- Transparent monitoring of user’s activity and auto-testing
- Easy and fast onboarding for new users
- A single place for storing documentation
- Intuitive invoice processing
- Integration with financial data processors and payroll processing tools
The impact we brought:
- The application uptime — grew to almost 99% due to infrastructure improvements
- The transaction number per month — doubled
- The number of paid subscribers has risen and continues to do so
- The number of errors decreased by more than 300% due to the monitoring system
- The detection of errors and fixing time was minimized thanks to logging and notification systems
- Bookkeepers and customers wasted less time on routine activities due to the document center
Thanks for reading so far. We hope, this article was useful for you.
Want to know more about our Fintech expertise? Don’t hesitate to contact us, then.
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