EVOLVE FROM WITHIN

The digitization of the financial services industry has transformed the way individuals bank. One key trend is paperless banking. Financial technology advancements, such as mobile banking, contactless payments, and digital currencies, are making physical paper superfluous, even for paperwork and money. Some market analysts predict that paper in banking will be “extinct” in the next decade. Below, we analyze the impact of the paperless trend and its benefits.

Since its inception, one of the key characteristics of banking has been the ability to handle large volumes of information recorded on paper, which in the past few decades were necessary. Now, almost all aspects of the management and delivery of products and services can be fully digital. If the financial sector committed to a complete transformation to paperless banking, the face of banking would forever be changed for the better.

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Agile methodologies are essential in this era of rapid innovation, and now proven even more vital during the pandemic. These frameworks empower organizations to quickly respond to any variable, and enable high levels of productivity and outstanding business outcomes.

It is no surprise that these methods are widely used by the financial sector, for they naturally complement the acceleration of the digital transformation of financial institutions. Designed at the advent of the internet, these methodologies logically reflect the vision of their creators. At a time when programmers were searching for a responsive method to create digital applications and facilitate the quick adoption of new technologies, these new agile systems transformed their work.

Within this context, agility is defined as the fast and continuous delivery of developments, strategically dividing projects into smaller processes, aimed to maximize the result of the end product. This workflow structure enables continuous feedback and focused collaboration with each deliverable. This facilitates powerful and profound technological developments that reflect the cooperation of all individuals in the workflow process, its success is not only seen in its agility, but the resulting solution and consequent business outcomes.

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While stay-at-home orders are being lifted by most governments, the new pandemic environment has forever transformed the world. Social distancing has altered human behavior and norms, and most dramatically our way of living and working. Our hyper-virtual lives have invited a new level cyber risk, especially with the surge of global fraud rates. It is, therefore, the responsibility of both financial service providers and users to build a safer digital banking environment and culture of digital risk safety.

PwC’s 2020 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey shows telling stats, with 47% of respondents reporting fraud in the last 24 months; and even more alarming, the months of January to June saw a 70% increases in attacks. PwC explains that increase in fraud has a direct correlation with times of crises and recessions, so it is no surprise we are seeing these numbers during the pandemic. What makes this more serious is that now our society has become dependent on digital ecosystems for everything, one of the most important being the access to digital banking. And unfortunately, PwC says this is one of the most targeted fraud areas.

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A few months into the “new normal” of pandemic living and economic surprises, we see the continuation of innovation and strategic business schemes in the financial technology space. The cloud is not only a norm, but a vital aspect of most global businesses, pushing its advancements into new offerings such as Serverless and Multi-cloud services. Fintech companies are being watched carefully, as non-bank players come up with financial solutions that attract some and repel others. BigTech partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and Cloud-first and regulatory-compliant-digital-banks, now add a new dimension to the financial technology market, paving the way for more challenges, but even more opportunities. Governments and the private sector continue to explore open banking, digital currencies, and other potential technologies that require regulatory reform. As they continue to observe the evolution of the financial customer profile and the growing dependancy between individuals and organizations, they realize their new need to have the capabilities to act quickly to global and national crises. Lastly, now that we are used to this “new normal,” we are once again focusing on financial inclusion, with new players tackling key gaps to not only better the poorest of the poor, but other important groups financially underserved, such as the gig economy.

Below, we will focus on key aspects of financial technology and how they are critical to how we look at the future of digital financial solutions.  

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