#coppermobile

FinTech or Financial Technologies is a sector consisting of platform-based financial services and associated products. Several FinTech companies worldwide are shifting their focus to end-to-end financial solutions to automate processes and generate way more revenue. Looking back at the last two years of the pandemic, since 2019, the rise of FinTech has exceeded all expectations.

Today, the global FinTech market is estimated to reach a value of $309.98 billion by 2025. Based on multiple FinTech Venture Capital reports, a total of $254 billion was invested globally into 18,000 startups through Venture Capital funds, which was an exponential increase of 46%. Initial reports again point down to a slowdown in funding levels in the first half of 2020. The same financial investment pattern is observed across different sectors of the fintech industry. In addition, the global fintech market is estimated to $127.66 billion in 2018, with an annual growth rate of 25%.

In this blog, we shall highlight the major factors contributing to such a rise of the FinTech sectors, the sectors gaining immense popularity, and mobilization to cater to the growing needs.

The two key factors contributing to the evolution of FinTech companies are:

The new technologies that fueled innovation in this arena (e.g., artificial intelligence and cyber defenses) are also maturing.

Many funds are invested in the first generation of companies trying to capitalize, reaching the end of their lives. They are thus getting their houses to return money to their investors.

FinTech Sectors Gaining Immense Popularity

Interestingly, only four categories of Fintech stocks make up 73% of the fintech app ecosystem’s top 100 apps. These are, as ranked, Banking, Payments, Crypto and Investing. Several companies are looking for the right FinTech app vendors or partners to get their own apps out in the market. In this section, we shall cover the major sectors of FinTech that attracted investors’ attention in recent years.

Government entities can range widely from regulators, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and authorities that grant licenses and can actively influence the financial sector.

FinTech companies that provide financial services and their core products: For instance, giants like Uber and Amazon work tirelessly to enhance their dominance in the Financial sector. They have a team of engineers working towards products that are relevant in the same industry.

Professional investors can be categorized based on size (small or large fund), stage (seed, late venture, private equity, etc.), and finally for the source of funds, such as pension funds, strategic investors, family offices, etc.

New, disruptive companies are operating in several different sectors, covering in one of the following sections. These companies often got their start by “unbundling” one of the services provided by an incumbent player.

Mobility: The Future of FinTech Companies

As predicted by several Finance experts, here’s how the future looks for Financial technology sectors. With open banking being available almost anywhere globally, even more challenging times are upon financial institutions. Along with that, the rise of robotics in 2021 is also taking hold of the Fintech world. Several top-notch companies like N26, Monzo, and Abe have already started catering to the huge potential. We don’t expect that artificial intelligence is going to take over traditional banking advisors anytime soon. But still, its inclusion in the industry will help save a lot of workforce resources. This section will cover the taxonomy of emerging categories, adding some insights and examples to each category and some fintech trends.

1. Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning-powered platforms:

These platforms are mostly used to manage business operations and processes. The tools built help in dealing with the complexity of services and managing data-intensive work.  With apps built from AI, organizations can easily analyze data and help in their decision-making activities.

2. Personalized advice Fintech platforms:

The focus here is providing an improved user experience that is scalable. This can happen because simple processes power the improvements, simple decisions to make on the client’s part, simplified reporting, and all presented with a captivating UX/UI design. This approach is mainly used to address processes like wealth management, life insurance, or loan subscription.

3. Lending and crowdfunding platforms:

Another new sector of lending and crowdfunding platforms are marketplaces that help the two sides of the transaction by standardizing the process and assisting with marketing and legal materials. They mostly utilize enhanced strategies powered by data analytics, offering seamless process steps between subscription, data collection, and analysis. Many developing lending platforms aim to simplify the process and reduce the lending time (from loan application to disbursement).

4. Blockchain:

Another major category of apps is around contracts with features like identity management and onboarding processes. One good thing about this category is that no major player has emerged in this category yet, so there are many potentials.

Read more about the latest FinTech trends here.

In every industry, having a customer-centric culture has become a matter of survival for businesses. We are living in a data-driven world that requires digital agility and long-term digital transformation. Focusing on retail technology, where digital transformation is rushing, retailers leverage AI to get deeper insights, identify customer needs, and deliver proactively to customers across every touchpoint. From contactless delivery to cost optimization, retailers are responding to covid-19 by building adaptable business models.

Businesses are reprioritizing their plans for digital investments to prepare for large-scale transformation. For example, moving forward with digitalization, Amazon will soon avail Pay-over-Time option at checkout to its customers. In addition, Shopify merchants now have their OMS App to track their sales, inventory, orders, transactions, fulfillment routing, and service flows. Through this, Shopify retailers can extend their superior customer experience beyond the storefront.

Customers’ digital expectation is growing, and so is the pressure on brands. They need to reimagine their digital experience and evolving Martech stack or tech-stack. Lockdowns have led to significant changes in consumer behavior. In 2020 alone, more than 12,200 big retail chains closed their stores permanently in America. Despite that retailers are planning to open more stores in 2021 due to the rise in the percentage of online sales of their brands. In America, E-commerce has grown from 11% of retail sales in 2019 to 14% in 2020.

The World of New Retail Technology

Digital transformation in retail or retail technology is changing the way business is done. Be it any segment of retail such as pharmacy, grocery, apparel, personal care and wellness, sports, all are seeing bulk in actions and are expecting strong sales growth. In addition, location-based services, data analytics, and mobile apps bring significant changes to the retail industry.

Digital transformation does not have an endpoint. Your website and app should be updated as per the customer’s behaviors and expectations. Small businesses, medium-sized B2B merchants, and large corporations will benefit if they take digitization seriously. While transforming, retailers should be able to consider every aspect of their business. They must have a digitally efficient and effective workflow, including inventory management, sourcing, employee management and training, and customer experience management.

Remodeling has not been a cakewalk for businesses. Challenges faced by them while remodeling cannot be ignored.

Potential Challenges on the way:

a. Change management – Retailers are unwilling to implement new ways of working because the whole internal system gets disturbed for once.

b. Commitment – Sometimes, the retailer does not take the change seriously. They lack commitment while their mobile apps or websites are not able to satisfy customers.

c. Complexity – transformation is quite complex, and some businesses should look up to a trusted partner for outsourcing to create that transformational impact on the customer.

d. Technology – It is essential to evaluate and choose the right kind of valuable technology for the business. Hence, selecting suitable technology that can bring value is a challenge for the retailer.

Retailers should have a good understanding of how a digital transformation can make their business successful. To bring that considerable impact, they should collaborate with trusted partners and leverage their strengths to pass through the challenges easily.

Newer Trends Comin’ Up!

a. Touchless Experiences – Providing touchless experiences gives a sense of sanitization and safety. But along with that, the personalization and loyalty of retailers for customer satisfaction.

b. Moving towards the Omnichannel way – Convenience plays a significant role in deciding the value of online shopping. The omnichannel should be such that it allows the customer to browse, research and pick their products with convenience. It is a multichannel approach that provides a seamless shopping experience to customers.

c. Mobile-based Payment Applications- Mobile-based payment applications are on the rise. We can integrate them with mobile wallets like apple wallet, google wallet, amazon pay, Samsung pay, etc., which makes it an easy and shopping experience online. For retailers, it works as a competitive edge, reduces operational costs, and increases efficiency.

d. Social media and content marketing molds customers’ buying behavior – Millennials are highly motivated by user-generated information and reviews. Social media increases the presence and exposure of retailers. Retailers can use top social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, youtube, etc., to sell the products.

e. Reverse Showrooming is Beneficial for Retailers – As per a Business insider, 69 % of people have done reverse showrooming in the U.S. This offline and online mix of experience allows retailers to understand customer buying behavior, making it easier for retailers to serve them personalized in future purchases.

f. IoT (Internet of things) for business efficiency and intelligence – sensors are deployed across the retail value chain to track and collect the required data. The commonly used sensors are card readers, cameras, scanners, NFC tags, smartphones, etc. These sensors give detailed insights into buying behavior and other important information.

g. Voice Recognition and Virtual Reality – Various voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assist are used by consumers for faster search results. Hence retailers should work fast towards ensuring that speech-led voice assistants quickly suggest their products.

h. Beacons in Retail: When retail apps detect the beacon technology, it sends location-specific information to the store’s server, such as the department the customer just passed by. This data, coupled with other details in the customer’s profile, triggers specific actions, for instance, sending personalized promotions/discounts for visitors to make a purchase.

Are you looking for Android 13 updates ?

Are you looking for the emerging technologies?

Are you looking for latest tech news?

Presenting Tech Pulse : Discussing latest 5 technology news.