What is The Importance of Usability?

Before we jump to what usability involves, it is essential to understand as to why it is important. Well, many a time, it happens that a user browses through a particular website but does not proceed with purchasing. The reason for such an action is quite simple; the product is not usable, and hence, the UX is terrible. If the users are unable to attain their goals effectively and are dissatisfied; they will undoubtedly move to the competition to achieve their goals. This is why usability matters.

Any product or business would not want to lose its customers to competitors. Thus, the designers of any product, website or app aim to ensure that their products are usable and are at lesser risk to the abundant alternative solutions in the market. Usability is a result of a user-centric design approach that determines in what way and why a user would accept a product and based on this, evaluates a product for its use.
For a product to be usable, it must have these characteristics:

• Effective- That is when a product supports the user while working. For example, while filling up card details in the payment section; the user is prompted only for a valid debit card. This helps in reduced data entry errors and assists users with correct task completion.
• Efficient- This term might confuse users with effectiveness, but it has a lot to do with the speed of the task performance. Efficiency is how easily a user can navigate through product and find it usable to access. The user can browse through any device, desktop or mobile.
• Engaging- This is solely dependent on how attractive and gratifying a product is for the user. Here, the aesthetics plays a very crucial role. Well-set page layouts, readability, and easy navigation takes user in the right direction; making the product highly interactive and engaging for the users.
• Ease-of-learning – If any business aims to make a product bestselling, the key is to provide a good product learning experience to the user. Almost every product comes with upgrades and newly added features for the comfort of users. The more a user is updated and learned about the product, the more likely he/she is to use it.

Usability of the Payment Process

Mobile devices, high-speed data communication, and online commerce are creating expectations that convenient, secure, real-time payment and banking capabilities should be available whenever and wherever they are needed.

– Jerome Powell

Since we now understand what usability is, it will be convenient to get to the element which assists in enhancing usability. Online payments these days are not a new thing, but the way it is escalating; usability matters a lot. Every user wishes to make payment conveniently, especially when it is through mobile devices or desktop applications, and this is why a simpler and convenient payment solution is required.

Payment usability is a critical element for online businesses. It is difficult to find customers, market them the products and persuade them to the checkout process; but what is more difficult is to keep the user spirit throughout the payment process. It is reported that a non-user friendly payment checkout-page leads to shopping cart abandonment. This shows why it is essential to provide users with an effective and efficient check-out solution. The manner in which a checkout page is designed can significantly impact the customer experience.
Statistics reports that almost 21% of the online users abandon their online shopping due to long and tedious check out process. Also, 24% of the online buyers are reported to get distracted while making payments. This clearly defines that payment and usability are more closely connected than one can think.
If the users find no way to pay, they will have no way to buy.
Hence, it is advisable for online businesses to accept payments through various payment methods be it a credit card, debit card, net banking or UPI for that matter. This ensures that the user can pay through any option they are comfortable with.
Previously, banking institutions were the only secured check-out (offline mode) option but with the technology getting its root in online purchasing & payments; mobile wallets, payment through wearable devices, tokenization, mobile payment apps are some of the secured payment mediums available for the ease of users. To keep up with the interest of users in fast payment, all a business needs is an improved payment experience with a considerably lesser number of transaction steps. This is the reason why one-click payments are trending these days, making payment process effective and efficient.
Providing users with a bunch of payment options might complicate the checkout process. Hence, here we enlist the ways to instantly improve your payment usability:
1. Check-Out Design for Users
Many a time while shopping online, a user is navigated to a third party page for the checkout process which may cause trust and credibility issues. A checkout section that is designed in line with the website theme enriches the transaction experience. The elegant & modern user interface with customer perspective tells that the checkout page belongs to the particular website; thereby building trust and user satisfaction.
2. Single-Click Payment
This is one of the most effective and the very basic of payment usability. Reduced number of steps to the payment process may lead to an instant conversion. These days, the conversion is very much possible with the “one-click payment option”, which is available with the option “remember my card details” for faster checkout. Selecting this option saves customer data and recalls the next time a user makes a payment.
For example, if any user pays through credit card the first time, he/she can choose to save credit card details (credit card number and card expiration details). The next time when the same user makes a purchase, the saved details are loaded and asks for CVV number to authenticate the transaction — this single-click payment option assists in faster conversion and better user experience.
3. Automatic Logo Display
When a user inputs first four digits of his/her card number, the logo corresponding to the card type appears automatically, with security logos. This display of familiar logo ascertains the user that the transaction or payment method is acceptable. This enhances the likeliness of payment completion, saves time and ensures more friendly payments. The security logos or security badges also add to the trust of the user during payment processing.
4. Auto-filled forms
When you ask for too much of information from user every time they visit your site for purchase, you are likely to lose a customer. It is advisable to endow customers with a quick and easy check out process. Elements like pre-fill or auto-fill based on pin code, city, and state, can make the process easy for returning user. Also, auto filling the name field of credit/debit card section also makes it simple for customers to transact. Ask for only the essential information, and you will never drop out a customer.
5. Clear Error Indicators
While check-out, if the user needs to enter information multiple times and only a red outline appears asking to re-enter the field; may cause a user to abandon the checkout and move to competition. Hence, it is recommended to provide explicit error instruction aside the red error box so that the user understands what is wrong with the input. For some errors like wrong password, merchants can also provide a hint that helps to enter the correct information.
6. Always Display Amount
Some e-commerce websites hide the actual payment amount while the user enters payment information at the checkout section. And when the actual payment appears or is deducted, it can annoy the user. Hence, it is always recommended to display the actual amount to be paid by the user, so that there are no surprises for the user.
7. Clear Call-to-Action buttons
A generic call to action such as “Go” and “Ok” does not explain well. Instead, use a call to action that explains the process such as “Pay Now”, “I’m ready to pay”, “Proceed to pay” etc. Such call-to-actions eliminate distractions and helps in faster checkout.

Some Other Aspects of Payment Usability

Mobile Experience

With the rise in mobile phone usability, users now not only purchase from desktops but prefer smartphones for convenience. This user behaviour has connected payments through mobile devices, and here too payment usability is utmost important. With almost every e-commerce merchant supporting mobile channel, users look for simpler mobile payments options. In this case, speed and usability along with less information input are essential to users.
For anyone who is aiming business growth, the best of mobile payments experience for a user is:

• One-click payment
• Minimum inputs
• Less typing in small screen
• Eliminate extra steps
• Mobile friendly design and navigation

Customized Payment Gateway

If you are a business that feels that your payment form is unpleasant, but at the same time you do not wish to spend on redesigning it as it is an expensive affair, a customized payment gateway is your option. A tacky checkout section may reduce conversion and hence, you should look for a payment gateway that is responsive and can be easily integrated with your website. A responsive payment gateway allows the user to pay from any device and can be easily customized to fit your site.The more natural payment process is the likeliness of returning users exponentially improves. While choosing a payment gateway provider, always look for the one that:

• Provides fastest and easiest checkout
• Supports payment form with multiple languages
• Allows to pay on your site instead of redirecting to the third party

The simple checkout for users impacts any business. Payment usability not only concerns user experience but also assist in conversion growth. Many businesses lose their customers at the end of purchase cycle; hence it is mandatory for a business to provide users with a smooth checkout and a better buying experience. For a smooth and flawless payment screen, all a business owner needs to take care of, other than the above-mentioned aspects, is to carry out usability tests for bugs and unexpected crashing of apps.

Applications Offering Smoothest Checkout UX

Many ecommerce websites offer a smooth checkout feature and are considered the finest for payment usability aspect. A convenient checkout allows either one-time registration or allows check out as a guest user, making it easy for the user to pay.
Here goes our list of some of the finest ecommerce checkout sections:

• Amazon – The frequent users of Amazon would agree that the checkout process with a desktop as well as the mobile app is truly convenient. Like all other ecommerce sites, it requires user details such as billing and shipping address, preferred payment method at initial purchase. But once you are registered, it’s just a three-step checkout.
• Myntra– This Indian fashion accessories and online clothing store offers a great UX. It also offers users with a three-step checkout similar to Amazon. However, the difference is Myntra checkout section displays almost all the payment methods available credit/debit cards, net banking, UPI, mobile wallets and even cash on delivery mode. For UPI payments and net banking, it redirects the user to a secured payment gateway which displays theme similar to Myntra theme retaining user trust and credibility.
• Dominos– One of the most technically sound and well-adapted ecommerce application is that of Dominos. The app is timely updated and works well with the changing customer behaviour. The best part of Dominos checkout is that it does not ask for registration, save payment details for returning customers. Along with this, if a user forgets the password, it can still order using email id. The application does not force to reset the password and then continue to order.

The Final Word

Having mentioned all the aspects of payment usability, it is quite evident that your checkout page is the crucial part of your online business. Unless you convert your users into customers, you cannot achieve sales and revenue online. The payment stage is level where trust is essential. A slight distraction or error can have a serious impact on your online store sales. Along with aesthetics, user feedback too plays a vital role in minimizing errors, reduce friction on the page and optimizing checkout section.
The key to better payment usability and the best of user experience is to streamline the checkout page. Ensure that as an online store, you offer all the available payment options to customers endowing them with the smooth user journey throughout the buying cycle- from initial user visit to sales conversion.
Our solutions have helped our customers scale their business to tremendous heights. Our dedicated team ensures that customer’s requirements are addressed at each and every step of the development lifecycle.

Check out our portfolio, right here! 
Leverage our solid domain expertise in developing elegant and simplistic payment gateways for your products and Contact us right away, if you are on the lookout for a tech-partner.

Handpicked Content for You:

• How to Build an Awesome eCommerce App?
• 15 Tips for Designing a Mobile Friendly Ecommerce Website
• How Much Does Mobile App Development Cost?

The post How to Enhance Your Payments Usability- Instantly! appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

“You have to, to serve these markets, re-imagine how money can be managed and moved because there’s going to be more change in the next five years in financial services than happened in the past 30.”

– Dan Schulman, CEO PayPal

Thus, there is absolutely no denying the fact that technologies will continue to invade the age-old financial industry. Riding on the fintech bandwagon, many millennials and innovators have reinvented their businesses and made a hefty profit in the transition.
But, how do you even start?
With tons of startups entering the market every month and billion-dollar giants running the show, it can be quite hard to get your piece of the pie.

The 5 Best Fintech Startups and Their Recipe for Success

What’s better than to learn from those who have already made it big, so before delving into the recipe for success, let’s first look at some trendsetters in the current fintech setting, and what has been their secret ingredient.

1. Stripe

• X-Factor:
  • Ease of Integration
  • Tools
  • Competitive and Crystal Clear Pricing
  • Customized
  • Better Customer Support
• Niche: Online Payment Services
• Funding:
  • Raised a total of $685M in 9 rounds.
  • Now valued at $20B.

Stripe’s impeccable functionality and meticulously designed API has helped create the best possible product for the consumers. It has undoubtedly become a one-stop destination for the creation of subscription services, crowd-funding platforms, an e-commerce store and more. This tech company has been able to build an economic infrastructure for the internet by helping out businesses of almost every size. It combines a payment platform with applications that put revenue data at the heart of business operations.

2. Robinhood

• X-Factor:
  • Laser focus on target market (millennials)
  • Viral marketing strategies
  • Clutter-free interface
• Niche: Trading and Investments
• Funding:
  • Raised a total of $539M in 5 Rounds
  • Now valued at $5.6B

It could easily be touted as the top fintech company of this year. In order to keep the fees down, the company abstains from opening storefronts and renders no additional tools. Aptly named after the popular fictional character, it is helping the less economically privileged grow by using and betting on rich people’s money. The fintech app has eliminated all brokerage fees that have traditionally been associated with initiating a buy or sell. It earns money through its Robinhood Gold accounts for premium members and by collecting interest from cash holdings and stocks just like a bank. The app is clutter-free and straight-forward, making it easy to use for everyone.

3. Lu.com/Lufax 

• X-Factor:
  • Broad product offering
  • Diverse liquidity avenues
• Niche: Peer-to-Peer Lending and Financing platform
• Funding:
  • Raised $1.7B in 2 rounds of funding
  • Now valued at approx. $10B

Lufax has grown to become China’s largest fintech company in less than four years. It is considered to be China’s most innovative non-SOE financial institution. The number of registered users on Lufax surpassed 14 Million recently. Lufax takes complete advantage of the latest big data and IT offerings, and clouts the most advanced risk assessment models and risk control systems.

4. Paytm

• X-Factor: 
  • Extremely high brand awareness
  • Strong marketing campaigns
  • Word of mouth
  • Strong investments from big-wigs
• Niche: Online payments
• Funding:
  • Raised over $2.2B in 4 funding rounds.
  • Now valued at approx. $15B.

Touted as India’s largest mobile commerce platform – it has 80 Million active monthly users and processes around 5 million transactions every day. Paytm tries to maintain an open culture where everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. Paytm’s team spends hours designing each new feature and obsesses about the smallest of details.
Paytm’s approach is quite simple – To design something they’d use.

5. Klarna

• X-Factor: Business Model
• Niche: Online Payments
• Funding:
  • Raised $681.7M in 13 funding rounds
  • Now valued at north of $2.5B

According to its CEO, Klarna’s mission remains the same, even after 12 years of its formation – To make paying as simple, safe and above all, as smooth as possible.
This simple vision has helped Klarna become one of the largest banks of Europe.
Klarna’s pay later policy has proven to be a tremendous success across Europe. Try it first, pay later, lets users pay 14 or 30 days after delivery depending on the store. Besides, there is also an option of paying in installments for its users.
They have a user base of almost 60 Million and has some 90,000 registered merchants on their platform.

So, what is it specifically that differentiates these exceptional startups from the rest of the crowd?

You might have observed that some of the words used to describe all of the listed products were – “simple” or “easy.” This can’t just be a coincidence.
Simplicity and ease-of-use are powerful differentiators that can separate any product from their competitors. The simplicity of these products gave them a competitive advantage over other established giants.
Mentioned below are the 7 steps you need to consider in order to establish a successful Financial Technology startup.

STEP 1: Identify your Niche

Fintech is a broad term and has a lot of dimensions to it. The classification of Fintech really depends on various circumstances.
It may refer to a specific set of start-ups and companies, or it may apply to initiatives enabled by technological innovations that contribute to the development of the financial segment.
There are many domains in fintech to consider, here are some of them:

• Fund Movement, or transactions by giving or receiving payments.
  • Currency
  • Payment Solution
  • Remittances
• Fund Placement, or the financing of planned or unplanned financial regulations.
  • Saving
  • Investing
  • Borrowing
  • Alternative Financing
    
• Data Management, to get insights for improving decision making
  • Financial Management Tools
  • Research and Data

For starting a fintech company, one must be crystal clear of the target market and the problem they are looking to address. Besides choosing a domain, your product should cater to a specific audience, e.g., a country, a state, a city or a particular demographic. However, it is always better to launch your startup locally first and expand to the global market later if needed.

STEP 2: Know the Regulations

The banking and finance industries are highly regulated ones’ and for obvious reasons. The regulations are why financial service industries can be tough to break into. Several laws have been put to place to ensure that these sectors are protected from frauds. Also, these regulations can immensely vary depending on the country, state or region you want to operate in.
The arrival of Fintech has ushered in new ways of handling and making money, and thus, have created a grey area for regulations. This has been drawing the attention of lawmakers. 
So, whatever domain one wishes to venture in, it is of vital importance to thoroughly understand the regulatory measures that apply according to the demographics and geography.

STEP 3: Discover your Edge

Every unique product or innovation that has been able to disrupt a sector successfully has always been the one that has done something differently.

There couldn’t be a better example for this scenario than Robinhood. With their unique business strategy and viral marketing campaigns, they were able to successfully disrupt the trading and investments domain. Their distinctive business offering, like charging zero commission proved to be an instant hit amongst millennials with limited pocket.
The fintech industry is getting crowded. Many innovations are already underway. Still, a critical entrepreneurial question to ask is if your product/venture will be able to offer something unique and of high importance.
The danger for startups is to become a “me too.” If there is already an entity that is established and doing well in your niche, then you should divert your focus to something new and innovative.
Thus, it is vital for new-age fintech startups to focus their attention towards developing a product that offers a service or a feature that is exclusive to them. There needs to be some sort of nuance that your solution must provide.
This distinction would serve as the disruption that you might have been looking for.

STEP 4: Hire the Right Talent along with the Right Tech Stack

• Hiring the right talent
A successful enterprise is made from its people. Therefore, hiring crème-de la-crème from amongst the crowd is of vital importance. If your city has a limited talent pool, then attracting good talent becomes quite tricky.  
In such cases, the best decision for a startup would be to hire a software development team offshore (consider India!). This not only cuts significant costs for up-and-coming startups, but also provides a solid team of specialists with specific domain knowledge and relevant experience.
If you are on the lookout for creating a great product and are considering hiring a software development company, then look no further, we have compiled a list of the best financial app development companies.
• Choosing the right tech stack
It is must for every fintech product to have a customized software. No decent startup relies on third-party CMSs or frameworks to handle their transactions. Additionally, no ready-made solution can match the performance capabilities of a custom designed software.

With finance, comes along the risk of data breach. Therefore, data safety is one of the most critical aspects of Fintech App Development.
Every startup needs to ensure that their product is secure and all the sensitive data is encrypted and stored in the cloud.
Recommended Read: How Much does Mobile App Development Cost?

Step 5: Start by creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

I strongly recommend starting with a Minimum Viable Product first.
For beginners, an MVP is a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with just enough features to suffice for the early users of the product. The final product, with all the elements, is only designed and developed once the feedback is received from the initial users.

There are numerous advantages of following this process, primarily:
1. Cheaper: An MVP saves you a considerable amount of investment because you’re not required to develop extra functionalities that may have compromised the product anyway. These cost saving are essential because you don’t know for sure whether the consumers will like the product. Through MVP you can test the waters and then dive into the deeper end of the pool.
2. Effective: Using the MVP approach means you end up with only those features that you require the most, so, there is comparatively less façade, and your product turns out cleaner and simpler.
3. Faster: Another benefit of an MVP is the Speed of Development. You’re not trying to create a perfect product right away; it serves as a platform to implement the idea, study its use, make amends and then proceed further. This makes the entire process a whole lot faster and easier.
4. Reduces risk: A startup with a Minimum Viable Product is more likely to receive funding from the investors, this is because an MVP gives you an opportunity to test the waters without directly building the final product. It allows developers to test the viability of your product amongst the target audience without requiring huge investments.
The lower the risk of the investment not paying off, the more likely investors are to fund your idea.

Step 6: Get Funded

Starting a fintech company is a costly affair. Making an incredible product requires talent, and talent isn’t cheap. As traditional organizations are trying to acquire fintech talent for themselves, startups would inevitably face competition in hiring. If your venture isn’t looking to partner with professionals who can create the entire product range, then stay prepared to shell out a reasonable amount for talent.
Now, if you don’t have deep pockets, it becomes quite difficult to stay afloat in this volatile domain. Thus getting an investor onboard becomes essential to not compromise on the product quality.
What entices Investors?
With the current wave of excitement around fintech. The global venture capital investments have crossed almost $17B. This, however, could also be a bane for early age startups, because the competition for funding is snowballing exponentially. VCs are getting more and more selective, and are seeking out companies with truly game-changing offerings.  
Thus, it is required to make your value proposition more and more enticing.

Step 7: Build Partnerships

It is as essential for up-and-coming fintech startups to develop alliances with relevant institutions, as is getting funded.

Partnering is an excellent approach to build muscle in innovation and transformation. In which you can learn at minimal cost and minimum risk. The primary reason for partnering pertaining to this specific domain is, ‘Credibility.’
It could be hard for users to trust an emerging entity, and that too in such a volatile domain. Thus, when you are associated with a relevant name, it becomes comparatively easier to sail through those hurdles. Financial institutions also bring along a large customer base and comprehensive customer data.
Thus partnering can provide a considerable boost to startups and together they could improve product efficiency and build highly accessible products.

Wrapping Up

Fintech may not be the easiest industry to target. With all the pitfalls in consideration – It takes sweat, time and effort to create a successful fintech company. It demands expertise, creativity, and honestly, a lot of grit to launch a startup in such a frivolous and competitive domain.
There are numerous opinions highlighting the supposed discord between the slow-evolving realm of finance and the highly disrupting world of technology. The pressure on tech companies to deliver huge results rapidly is immense.
Still, if you believe that you will be able to solve financial issues for your users through innovative means, go ahead. You will also need the right people by your side. A team with strong technical skills and impeccable domain expertise will definitely help in building something great.

Just be shrewd with how you do it.

After all,
Fortune favors the bold.

From helping organizations like BankOpen to dozens of startups worldwide, we at EngineerBabu have a track record of building highly successful fintech products.
And several have even gotten funded!
That’s precisely why we understand the ins’ and outs’ of this realm and how to scale a business to tremendous heights.
So, If you are on the lookout for solid domain expertise and a trusted name in the industry, contact us right away.

Recommended Read:

• FinTech in 2019. Trends to watch out for the next big year!
• Digital Transformation in Finance

The post How to Start a FinTech Company – 7 Things You Should Know appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Many find them similar but Digitization is the process of storing, converting, processing or transferring information in a format recognized by computers.
Whereas, Digitalization is the change in social, business and economic behavior on the adoption of new technology.
The essence of digitalization is the way consumers, businesses and the government adopt & incorporate technology to collaborate with systems, processes, people and the entire business community.

One of the best examples of digitalization is the Apple watch.

The Apple Watch is a perfect specimen to understand digitalization, it shows how a normal watch can be transformed into a watch with a phone, messaging and internet capabilities.
Another good example is the mobile numbers linked with Aadhar Card (Unique Identification Number for residents of India) which in turn is coupled with the financial account of consumers.
However, it is not only technology but the changing corporate scenario, business processes, and operating culture, that drives digital transformation to success.

The financial projects eyeing digital transformation are long-term, massive in scope and comes with risks too. Though many consider digital transformation a hype or the confusion, it does involve a sincere & serious change in business spectrum. Since the time digital transformation entered the finance domain, there have been many surveys and research to understand the importance or impact of the same. Digital transformation technology calls for an investment in hardware, software and sometimes even in products or services.
Gartner survey with financial executives from huge corporate establishments revealed that 62% feel digital transformation is a management initiative while remaining consider it as a part of optimization. Also, many companies are keen on investing in technology that can speed-up their businesses. In fact, companies opt for investing in digital transformation to differentiate from their competitors.

Impact of Digital Transformation on Finance

Digital disruption has heavily impacted a variety of habits and behaviors of the professional world. Technology combined with smartphones and the internet provides numerous benefits to the customers as well as to financial establishments. Previously the implications of digital transformation were unknown as people were concerned about the transition from manual to the digital world. However, the scenario has changed now. With tighter regulations and changing customer demands, the financial applications and systems have become nimbler and progressive.

For financial establishments, digitalization is more than just adopting technologies such as cloud, big data, social media or mobile. It is aimed more towards creating new business models to develop an eco-system where all markets & consumers could participate.
Thus, organizations focus more on capitalizing with new and emerging technologies that help them in positioning and transforming the teams into high performers.
Digital transformation enables digital tools to enhance productivity & efficiency and change of hard paper documents to secured PDF or HTML formats. The days with an application form and product sheets are gone. The sales team & field officers are now empowered with smartphones and other portable devices where information can easily be displayed. Many financial services providers have embraced digital transformation. However, many companies have taken hold up approach of observing the developments and then decide on investing in digitization.
Digital transformation comes with its share of risks, and hence a setback approach is a safer route.
Digitalization has positively impacted the economic growth and has accelerated the growth of innovations. Many are on for a debate that there is no economic growth, but the signs of potential positive impact are quite visible; the best examples are the mobile banking apps, mobile money, and e-wallets.

Enlisted here is the importance of digital transformation on financial sector:
1. High Standardization: Finance functions are always considered as high performing. When these are integrated with technology systems with standardized processes and data; leads to a high standardization.

2. Highly Automated functions: Adoption of new technology tools lead to higher process automation for services such as money remittance, procurement orders, invoice generation, and KYC verification.

3. Faster Performance: With the adoption of big-data and other machine learning tools in finance, it is easier to predict and forecast budget allowing teams to finish month-end cycles before time.

4. Insight-driven functions: Digitalization has modified financial models in such a way that the resources concentrate more on deriving insights rather than focusing only on transactions.
5. Improved customer and employee experience: The same level of information is available with customers and employees and thus less chaos in transactions.6. Better Service Delivery: The legacy systems integrated with new technologies have changed the finance’s operating model. The structured processes have improved service delivery.
Along with the high importance, the major priorities & challenges for financial services and banking establishments over the world that would impact their business includes strategies listed below:

1. Acting in line with the regulatory requirements
2. Reduced costs or improved margins for retail business operations
3. Improved customer segmentation
4. Enhancements in services, product designs, and promotional channels
5. Migration from physical or legacy channels to a digital platform
6. Integrating the legacy systems with new technology following all compliance and guidelines

Financial organizations now implement these strategies and they can digitally transform and automate their processes. The impact is such that there has been a drastic improvement in performing customer operations in a lesser time-frame. The automation has lead financial companies to meet regulatory deadlines, achieve operational and transactional risks and still stay competitive by investing in technology.
Digital transformation has assisted in automating monotonous tasks, management of compliance and accounting & operations functions which include accounts, reports & analysis. Digitalization also reduces the possibility of cyber risks and minimize errors that occur due to the execution of robust strategies.

Critics response to Digital Transformation

Despite the positive impact of digital transformation, critics believe this is a wonderful opportunity for tech vendors to restyle their services & products and sell them in the name of digital transformation.
Well, another critical point to note here is that none of the tech guys spend their working hours digitally transforming or innovating, but instead spend time in programming, coding, and development. However, critics do not realize that this coding, programming, and development is what makes a system perform in a particular manner. The technology drives these systems and hence the transformation.

Why digital transformation matters in finance?

Digital transformation may only seem to be a buzzword, but as they say, there is more to an iceberg than appears on the surface, there is definitely more to our story of digital transformation as well.
The concept of digitalization assists financial service executives in altering the already set rules, and the economic growth is quite visible. The customer-facing mobile apps are the best examples. The increasing number of people relying on the mobile and online banking applications, the financial and banking services are on a race towards digital transformation. The more convenient an application is for customers, the more is the digital transaction and financial growth.
For banks and credit card companies, providing a mobile customer experience with no downtime and faster transaction process is of higher importance. The other financial establishments such as capital markets, funds, and equity market utilize big data and automation tools for data analysis and high-performance computing to track milliseconds of transaction data.

A closer look at both the examples reveals that the business is capitalizing on technology to improve customer experience.
The primary aim of digital transformation in the financial sector is to be more customer-centric.
In financial services, competition is not just with other financial services providers but with anyone offering a real technology and consumer experience. The focus while digitizing financial services or while developing financial mobile applications should be to make the customer’s lives easier. Here, it is essential to make a point that digital transformation is not a technology strategy but a business strategy that makes business swift and quick to respond to the market.
Digitalization has unlocked newer opportunities in the banking, credit and capital market functions of the financial domain. There are multiple branch locations, and it is hard to keep a branch right next to the consumer; hence mobile apps that keep your office straight in your hands. Having said this, many financial institutions still rely on their legacy systems that run on IBM frames and are built on COBOL.
These systems, however, cannot be upgraded or updated as the developers too have moved to the newer technologies. It is a considerable challenge for some financial services companies to pull out the data and get on to the modern technology-based system. Other than the integration of the legacy system with advanced technology, the keenness to embrace digitalization by company workforce was also a challenge. But with the disruption in existing services and products, it is essential for companies to focus on acquiring new skills and technology.
The key to surviving in a digital environment is to adapt and adjust to the changes. CIOs take this responsibility to adopt the changes and lead the transformation. Though the right technology will outgrowth the efficiency, it is the workforce that ensures successful implementation.

Digital tools meant to support financial functions

The digital tools meant for financial services industry focus more on improving and updating the existing competencies and core systems. There are other exponential tools too that are intended to deliver new capabilities.
The growing technologies disrupting the financial system includes:
Cloud
The benefit of adopting cloud in finance is unquestionable. Cloud brings further acceleration and swiftness. Cloud technology in financial services expedites new digital workflows enabling effective interdepartmental collaboration or collaboration between business and third parties. The financial institutions use SaaS-Based cloud applications for business processes such as HR and accounting. As the workforce and the team heads get comfortable with the application, it gets integrated with the core systems.Financial services/solutions find security & compliance as crucial problems.

However, with cloud-enabled applications, it is easy to scale data for critical functions such as credit scoring, consumer payments, statements and billings for essential account functions. Also, data speed is vital for financial firms to stay competitive and in effect. Financial services industry is the primary target for cyber criminals, owing to sensitive personal information. The quickness of cloud safeguards the critical data, digital financial assets, and user information while protecting the employee performance.
Robotic Process Automation
One of the hottest entry in the financial services vertical is the robotic process automation. Financial establishments work on multiple technology systems and process robotics assist in automating transaction processing and communication across various systems.

Process robotics address the key challenges of the financial sector and can be effectively utilized for:

• Billing and collections operations & accounts receivable functions
• Journal entry, allocations & adjustments, inter-company transactions
• Reporting-financial as well as external
• Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting
• Treasury processes

Process robotics will enhance the functionalities of legacy systems by lessening inefficiency and addressing the manual intensive activities. Although Process Robotics is at a testing state at a few organizations but is working exceptionally well to support legacy systems.
Data Visualization
When it comes to communicating across multiple departments within the financial organization, data visualization is the key to attain insight. Business executives have an enormous amount of data but communicating in regards to same was an issue.

However, with data visualization, one can easily track and predict organizational performance. The financial sector is considered as the data hub. With data visualization, the analysts can explain complex data, trace intersections of information and present details based on this analysis that helps in forecasting organizational performance.
It is estimated that more than 65% of people are visual learners. Data visualization technique provides decision makers with detailed visual data illustrations so that they can understand the analytics through visuals and make informed decisions.
Data visualization can also help the financial sector in identifying new and additional trends for interactive features and more profound insights. In fact, data visualization is used by the financial leaders to track KPIs- financial and non-financial both. Also, these financial leaders improve team performance by correlating the KPI metrics and data analysis.
Advanced Analytics
Today, there are several different channels through which the customers interact with their financial services provider. Because of the multiple channels, there is a load of customer data being collected by financial organizations. This data can be effectively leveraged using Artificial Intelligence or advanced or predictive analytics to gain insight into consumer behavior. Advance/predictive analytics can assist financial establishments to optimize their processes thereby reducing costs.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive Analysis is best used in applications such as Fraud Detection. The dashboard of predictive analytics reports prompts and provides notification on anomalies in transaction data. Other than detecting the anomalies, the advanced analytics software can assist in collecting, cleaning and analyzing raw data. The analytics also assist in identifying customer trends by predicting marketing efforts and analyzing customer past and present online behavior using machine learning algorithms.
Advanced Analytics improves a variety of finance functions and assists financial leaders in achieving insights such as:

• Improving supply chains
• Revenue Forecasting
• Identifying the trouble spots
• Fraud detection

The combination of human judgment with automation and advanced analytics provides an ethical oversight to the business.
Cognitive Computing
Cognitive computing is yet another constant disruption in finance. It is the technology that makes use of natural language processing, machine learning, speech recognition, and computer vision to stimulate human thinking. For financial organizations, it is essential to collect, analyze and use data to improve decision making. 

Some of the basic elements of cognitive computing are:

• It enables financial organizations to obtain personalized information about the customers and use the same to notify about payments, bills, and other reminders. Cognitive computing also offers suggestions regarding exceeding customer payments and other intelligent automation services.
• The cognitive computing also ensures the creation of conversation interfaces for placing customer queries and responding to them. Chat-bots are the best example of AI-powered digital assistants, developed to respond to customer queries thereby improving consumer services and CRM.
• Robo-advisors too are a part of cognitive computing but are not AI-powered. The Robo-advisors use algorithms to read through data and come up with a suitable suggestion.
• Cognitive technology works similar to human thinking but is considered as key to security. Protection of financial data is vital; hence cognitive computing is the solution.
• With complex laws and regulations within the financial sector, poor knowledge of data policies can make finances a challenge for customers. With cognitive computing, real-time updates on rules and real-time implementation of the policies help in keeping policy documents updated and encourage good compliance.
• Cognitive computing has enabled real-time trading analysis and improved trading systems so that customers can be served faster and better.

Cognitive computing has been beneficial for both the company and customers. Apps enabled with algorithms, machine learning, digital advisors and improvement in cyber security have positively impacted customers to manage their finances.
In-memory Computing
With financial companies dealing an enormous amount of data, higher transaction volumes and increasing compliance; there arises a need to address real-time data analysis challenge. If it is finance, it has to be high performing, but with enormous data load, the efficiency can be at stake.
The massive amount of trading and accounting data calls for a robust infrastructure, with high speed of transactions and in real-time. In-memory computing platform addresses these challenges. The information is stored in the main random access memory of specialized servers. This means that it eliminates the delay while retrieving data from servers.
The 24-hour mobile banking pile up huge data and at the same time the regulations, exchange rates, interest rates, share prices, etc. are also required to be updated. The in-memory computing platform offer users with real-time information and calculation. It also provides information around commodity trading in real-time at an excellent speed for the users to experience a never before financial experience.
BlockchainOne of the most trending digital tool these days is Blockchain. With the advent of Blockchain technology, the financial services industry is considered to have entered into a new digital era. This new technology has changed the way we think about transactions and has revolutionized the economy. Blockchain technology stands out of all the technologies that have disrupted the finance vertical.
Blockchain powers decentralized digital currency also called as cryptocurrency.
Recommended Read: How is BlockChain Revolutionizing Finance  
In Blockchain technology, encrypted blocks of data are considered as currency and are shared during transactions. Blockchain technology makes use of advanced encryption techniques to verify currency and transaction. Blockchain technology ensures that only the authorized users who own the part of Blockchain can edit the data using the private key.
Smart Contract is one of the most attractive applications of Blockchain technology. It automates the execution of commercial agreements and transactions. As Blockchain technology entertain no middlemen, smart contracts are considered more secure than the traditional agreements that adds up cost for the middlemen. It is also believed that the Blockchain technology will assist in fraud reduction, enable one time KYC process, efficient & cost effective trading, and many more.
The technology may sound a promising one, but still many challenges need to be addressed to transform the finance and banking sector with Blockchain technology completely.

Concluding View

It is just a matter of time before we see the described technologies disrupting the financial sector. With consumers becoming smarter and more demanding,

It is essential for commercial establishments to undergo digital transformation to appeal, capture and maintain the attention of consumers.

The post Digital Transformation in Finance appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

As Mr. White used to say – “I am the one who knocks”.
This new explosion in IT is definitely the one that is knocking on every VCs and investors doorstep. This could be precisely said because the overall investment in Financial Technology has already surpassed the 2017 results in mid-year itself.
Let’s take a look at some of the major breakthroughs that occurred in FinTech this year,
• The acquisition of WorldPay
WorldPay (now WorldPay, Inc) was publicly listed payment processing platform which provided online services for accepting electronic transactions by a variety of methods such as credit card, bank based or direct transfer. It also offered a range of merchant services and operated in an extensive demographic (400,000 merchants in 146 countries) across the globe. It was acquired by Vantiv, a leading provider of payment processing services and related technology solutions for financial institutions. The $12.9 billion acquisition came as a significant step forward for the two giants.
WorldPay which competes with the likes of VeriFone, PayPal, Stripe and several others gained significant momentum after the acquisition.
• The Funding of Ant Financial
It didn’t come as a surprise to many when China’s Ant Financial raised about $14 billion in its last seed round. After all, it is backed by one of the biggest names in the industry (Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.).

The funding made Ant the world’s leading FinTech firm. The funding undeniably equipped them with enormous resources for expansion. The affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is alreadyChina’s biggest online payments service and even controls the world’s largest money market fund.
“Now, with the help of our partners, we are going to accelerate our strategy,” Ant’s CEO Eric Jing said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Recommended Read: Top 10 FinTech Companies Transforming Finance in USA

Analyzing the above developments we could accurately predict where FinTech is headed in 2020.
Let’s take a sneak peek,

Fintech Trends in 2020

1. RegTech is here to stay

Compliance, Complexity, Cost and Bureaucratic processes have always stifled the development of the finance industry. The long and tedious processes have proven to be a bane for the industry. This led to the reincarnation of a morbid industry that never saw a significant thrust since the spurt of the dot-com bubble. Consequently, we are seeing a lot of financial firms shifting to Regulatory Technology (RegTech) to bridge those gaps.
One must wonder- What exactly is RegTech??

It is essentially