Online retailers have several advantages #over their brick and mortar counterparts. They have lower costs, plus a place on the smartphone screens (and in the hearts) of younger shoppers. In a recent Piper Jaffray survey, teens’ favorite website was Amazon (43%), followed by Nike (5%). Yet the bulk of shopping still takes place in brick and […]
Bank Innovation
Now that #banks and #fintechs have learned to coexist, we see new players emerge (or older ones re-emerge), most with a new focus on partnering with FIs for the better. Keeping track of emerging players is the best way to stay up to date on the current market trends, and Bank Innovation is here to help. Here […]
Bank Innovation
Why build your own network for your IoT products, when you could just partner with #Starbucks? It’s worked for Apple, #Amazon, Facebook, and WeChat so far. In fact, Starbucks is planning to keep up the momentum of its WeChat #gifting feature — introduced in February &8212; launching a social gifting feature for Apple’s #iMessage. “This […]
Bank Innovation
The P2P market is set to #grow to $ 318 billion by #2020, thanks to increased consumer desires for faster services, #more convenient payment methods (such as mobile), and a decreasing interest in cash payments. According to a report by Aite Group’s analyst Talie Baker, P2P payment volume will hit $ 178 billion by the end of […]
Bank Innovation
#Bitcoin: $ 1,252.91. #Gold: $ 1,239.20. Guys. That’s right: currently, bitcoin is #worth #more #than an ounce of gold (but you should probably keep buying gold). Gold, upon which we pretty much based our entire system of financial exchange. The only other time this has happened since bitcoin’s creation by anonymous #cryptocurrency legend Satoshi Nakamoto—who may or may […]
Bank Innovation
#Wells #Fargo’s #mobile user numbers are higher than ever—but that’s not thanks to new activity by consumers. According to the retail banking numbers the #banks released today for the month of January, its customers aren’t opening as many accounts—are, in fact, closing #more of them—and aren’t applying for as manyRead More
Bank Innovation
#Lending #Club may be back on track with #banks, but not soon enough to help its fourth quarter results. 2016 was a tumultuous year for the online lender. The company set high goals for the fourth quarter, including its determination to generate $ 2 billion in loans. The lender’s very narrow miss ofRead More
Bank Innovation
According to mobile analytics firm Flurry, overall mobile app usage grew 11% year-over-year, with the time spent on mobile business and #finance apps growing 43%. #Gaming apps, meanwhile, experienced a decline in usage—strange for the year that spawned the goliath Pokémon Go—with time-spent down by 4%. According to the data,Read More
Bank Innovation
It’s possible that if we did nothing, the problem will eventually work itself out, but if you look around most conferences these days, there are very few people of color. #Banks and #fintech companies offer a robust, growing segment of the economy – what will it take to convince peopleRead More
Bank Innovation
With the end of the year approaching, the amount of predictions for #2017 is steadily increasing. How will the industry develop and what will be the next big thing? Although A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), #Blockchain, RegTech are buzzwords everyone is talking about, one can foresee the next #Fintech #trends more realistically by looking at the current developments. Exactly they will determine the course for the next year. Three areas are of special interest
More SME #banking: Many Fintechs focused in 2016 solely on two customer groups: either the biggest banks or the private end customers. Many SMEs, however, had respectable profits. The issue is that digital financial products from payment providers and company credits to goods financing are missing.
These companies are too big for peer-to-peer lending and a traditional banking credit is costly and lengthy. More and more Fintechs are detecting the needs of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and are beginning to offer them solutions. The startup Valendo f.e., originally intended as digital pawn shop, is now offering an additional service of merchandise financing for online-retailers – an intelligent step for both the merchants and the company. Another example is the Fintech iwoca from the UK that offers tailormade loans for SME businesses (in the UK 20% of all SME loans are mediated by online-suppliers). In 2017, we will see a significant expansion of these services for SMEs through innovative Fintechs.
More B2B-solutions: In 2016, Fintechs grew up. In 2015, it was still difficult for Fintechs to find any open door within a bank. Today, more and more financial institutions are cooperating with Fintech companies that are faster and more efficient than the company-owned IT-departments. There is hardly any bank that has no digital lab to emulate fintechs. The consequence: The Fintech companies are continually improving their business models to meet the higher requirements. One example is the Berlin-based Fintech company FinReach: With its fully-digital account switching kit, it has already more than 100 German bank customers and is now starting its internationalization.
The big number of partner banks is a clear vote of confidence. This kind of trust is necessary if one wants to be successful in the B2B-industry. Not only that, but the industry requires professional employees. Ex-bankers with longstanding experience in the financial industry, including former board members, are now working for established Fintechs. The cool students may be the ones that invent a new pocketmoney app, but successful Fintechs have grown up. This growth will continue with even more strength in 2017, especially through the demands of complex B2B models.
More complex business models: Not only employees have become more professional, but also the setting of Fintechs itself. While the first ones started as hyped business models without a real business case, dependent on user’s goodwill, nowadays no Fintech starts without having applied for the necessary licenses from authorities and conducting extensive tests before launching. Instead of a “lean startup”, it is now from zero to a hundred. solarisBank, a tech platform with a full banking license, got its banking license before launching &8211; in the record time of only 9 months from the German Bafin.
Elinvar on the other hand has a B2B2C approach and offers private asset managers all the necessary modules to manage their portfolio digitally. With the help of an algorithm that can be fed with individual data, the asset manager is able to take care of a customer’s portfolio faster and in a more efficient way. B2B2C is not easy, because it requires on one hand the supplier’s trust and on the other hand must be well received by consumers. Moreover, it requires a thorough preparation of the product. 2017 will surprise us with more complex and high-quality Fintech models.
At least one thing was demonstrated in 2016: Fintech was and is not only a hype, but a development that needs to be taken seriously and drives the digitization and transformation of the entire financial industry. With new customer groups and new business models, 2017 has the chance to make Fintech accessible to even more professional fields. The course is set, now it is all dependent on the right drivers.
The post The Fintech Trends for 2017: SME Banking and More appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
Reply