Three Questions the Financial Services Industry Must Answer in 2021

Xformative, a Mastercard Start Path recipient, shares what these questions mean for fintech partners and their innovations

This year, fintechs and institutions alike pushed the limit on how fast, innovative, and digitally-savvy they could be. Buzzwords like cloud and faster payments made headlines, but 2021 will be about refining best practices and putting them into action. Xformative believes that more industries should benefit from digital payments and that it’s not just about faster payments, but the option to offer multiple methods.

• Which industries are lagging in the digital payments space and why? The pandemic forced financial institutions and their partners to move digital transformation into a new phase of maturity. But this doesn’t mean every industry has transformed, there are still laggards. According to a survey of more than 1,400 American freelancers and contractors, conducted by Bill.com, more than half said they were still receiving their money in the form of a physical check. Checks still exist in spaces like Property and Casualty, though we did see some reassuring industry changes this year. The year ahead will require businesses to offer more payments flexibility outside of physical checks to meet the payment needs of their gig workers, freelancers, and contractors. Businesses will rely on technology partners to bring them up to speed and simplify the payments process.
• How can fintechs overcome the challenges of building in the cloud? Most businesses want to architect using a select cloud provider, or at least offer cloud-based services, to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced, disruptive landscape. There are assumptions that cloud architecture will inherently be less expensive to operate than legacy mainframe systems, but for many, these assumptions have turned upside down when developers fail to understand cloud cost optimization principles. As fintechs look to build in the cloud, they should ensure their technology is highly optimized, only leveraging real-time capabilities and transactions when required. Responsible fintechs should focus on balancing customer experience and economics with a mix of batch and real-time capabilities, constantly asking themselves, “is real-time the best choice?” Just because real-time can be offered doesn’t mean it should, and 2021 will be about drawing the line between utilization and optimization.
• Why is offering more payment choices important? Emerging faster payments are working in parallel, not as a replacement for other methods. People want options to be able to pay however they like, whether it’s with Zelle, Venmo, Apple Pay, or traditional methods like cash or card, and financial institutions need to be prepared to meet this demand. The card that consumers once kept in their wallet was a key component of the bank’s and/or program manager’s brand value, as well as potentially communicating the cardholder’s lifestyle and socioeconomic status. 2021 will reinforce the value of financial institutions having partnerships with fintechs who can help them evolve their brand value to include the broad scope of emerging payments.

It’s time fintechs and institutions partner to digitize payments and offer choices. 2021 is about building smart and partnering for capabilities that can open the door to new opportunities at a financial institution.