When I lived in Silicon Valley in the late 2010s, I paid for my apartment by going check in hand, to a rental office located about 5 miles out of the way. It was inconvenient, to say the least.
This scenario plays out in most places across America – personal checks have been king for a long time. In fact, checks have been around since the 17th century! And checks themselves were first invented during the crusades…
That being said, I haven’t laid my eyes on a check since I moved to Europe – and as a tech writer, I decided to explore all the whys and hows – and my research led me to the FinTech industry revolution that is only getting started right now.
We can’t live without FinTech today
It’s largely FinTech that’s responsible for today’s payment conveniences, even if we don’t think about them as cutting-edge technology – they have simply melted into being an integral part of our lives. This is a sign of perfect consumer tech – something we have and use on an everyday basis, don’t fully realize it’s there – and if it were gone, we’d be lost without it.
The whole check situation is a bit ironic when you look at the FinTech startups worldwide today. But I guess old habits die hard, America. According to Statista, the Americas are the leading region in FinTech innovation, with the EMEA region not too far behind:
- The Americas – 10,755
- EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) – 9,323
- Asia Pacific – 6,268
Making easy, safe payments is at the core of the FinTech revolution – let’s take a look at FinTech expansion, technologies, and the newest and most attractive apps out in the market.
Considering that the perfect developers are rarely found next door, these outsourced FinTech experts are the go-to developers for startups and established FinTech players alike.
What is so special about FinTech anyway?
Fintech is really an umbrella term for a lot of different things. Let’s get straight to the point – it’s meant to make financial services safe, fast, and convenient. This, of course, has endless applications.
Today, FinTech symbolizes a never-ending array of terms for just about any type of business – and no matter what niche you’re in, if you have a free flow of cash (even though it’s not really just cash anymore, is it?) then you’re more likely to be more open to making clients and users stay.
We live in a world where one thing that’s too difficult or takes too long makes people abandon brimming shopping carts in the depths of online stores. The point is to make all transactions – at stores, banks, and insurers – easy and safe.
No one would open an account in a bank that doesn’t offer a banking app these days. And not just any app – an app that can guarantee safety, privacy and security, and usability.
When it comes to the development side, FinTech products are exciting and challenging because the product has to shine in every way possible.
Best Fintech disruptions and innovations in the 2000s
This is how fintech has already disrupted our lives – for the better. Most people who don’t work with FinTech on an everyday basis don’t realize the full spectrum of influence it has had on our everyday lives.
This can quite a bit if you run a business, are looking for new investments, or want to expand into FinTech from your area of the market.
Getting rid of the middle man when making transactions is great, and thanks to FinTech we can have easy and simple solutions for things we use every day like Uber, food or grocery delivery, apps like TaskRabbit, or things like your favorite Starbucks coffee – you can pay using the app directly.
Investment management is another sector getting seriously disrupted by FinTech. Bob Baerker, a Quora user who remembers the times before any sort of online investing, explains it in detail:
“For retail trade, most trading was done by phone. You could get quotes through a broker’s automated phone line but it was a tediously slow process. Then you had to speak to the broker. That involved delays because he could only handle one client at a time. Maybe two or three if he had assistance.”
This was about 40 years ago, but if anyone back then saw FinTech the way it is today, it would seem like a Star Trek kind of future that is hundreds of years more advanced than what they had.
If for some reason, the markets lost FinTech technology overnight, the world would be plunged into chaos.
Investment management the way we know it today is – at-your-fingertips, graphically pleasing, with amazing UX and immediate access to funds, and different currencies including crypto.
Digital wallets
This is perhaps the most well-known and used FinTech achievement. This is a payment gateway and a bank account – the only bank account used by some. And why not? There are widely accepted cards, instant online payments, great interfaces, and the ease of making investments in multiple currencies, experimenting with crypto – you name it.
Easy and affordable payment gateways
Although there are many payment options available to small businesses – it seems that people leave their items in shopping carts as soon as it becomes a bit more than a few simple clicks. FinTech offered online shops the opportunity to manage payments in the least complicated and consumer-friendly way cheaply.
Online banking
Online banking is closely associated with FinTech because banks need to keep up with the competition and start offering similar services to digital wallets – or at least have consumer-friendly banking apps that offer all the services you can get by walking into a branch in person.
Insurance
If you can do all your banking on an app, why not insurance? Since insurance mostly deals with finances, it requires the privacy, payment gateways, and other FinTech-specific features necessary for safe operations.
Crowdfunding
Another service that deals specifically with finance, crowdfunding is very specific – there are different tax rules in different countries, and the security of crowdfunded campaigns needs to be solid, as they can raise millions of dollars with just as many people participating. Privacy, law, and UX are all necessary to have a successful crowdfunding FinTech startup.
Mobile Payments
Venmo and PayPal make it easy to split bills, budget, and buy crypto – they are becoming more widely accepted and offer more and more services. PayPal is credited with helping make eBay successful because before it came to the picture, people would auction and pay for things with… you guessed it. Checks or money orders.
How much FinTech IT is getting outsourced today?
While 41% of FinTech is based in the Americas, 35% is based in Europe – and as far as the hard work of coding, product development, and design – a lot of it is being outsourced to Eastern Europe and Asia countries – about 54% of the total IT work is getting outsourced!
In European countries, outsourcing IT in Poland and surrounding Eastern European countries is not only financially beneficial but convenient, because of similar cultures, the high rate of English speakers, and the highest quality of experienced workforce that you can find.
Outsourcing today is pretty much just an extension of remote work – and as software houses in Poland and surrounding countries get more experienced and expand their reach. They are getting more and more thirsty for quality partnerships, not just coding and short projects.
Outsourcing IT in FinTech – pros, and cons
Outsourcing is an old word already – if you examine the phenomenon closer, you might even come to the conclusion that outsourcing has been happening for centurie.
Skilled labor was contracted out to outside vendors in the middle ages, and some can see examples of outsourcing in the Iron Age, when some of the best iron craftsmen lived where there was no iron ore, meaning that while the iron was obtained in one area, the skilled labor was elsewhere entirely.
If you’re thinking of outsourcing only for the sole benefit of “cheap labor” you are probably thinking of a flood of sub-par products and culture clashes, different work ethics, and poor communication. Not to mention impossible time differences.
The truth is, that CTOs and CEOs outsource for better results. It’s easier to find the exact experts you need, with all the right experience and availability that for the most part, simply isn’t available locally.
Pros
- Availability
- Better use of resources
- Great communication in English
- Decent time zone differences (in Eastern Europe)
- Experience that’s relevant and exactly what you need
- Minimal cultural differences
- Not far away for face-to-face meetings if you’re based in the EU
Cons
- Time difference
- Make sure that you’re on the same page when it comes to local laws (like privacy)
Final words – who’s in the driver’s seat?
FinTech is an international industry that takes advantage of global work and tech markets, as well as multinational talent. Although FinTech companies are largely based in the US and UK, the product designers and tech partners are global.
The FinTech revolution is a large global effort when it comes to creativity, innovation, and product design.
No matter what sector you work in, FinTech touches botch your professional life and personal life alike. And most predict that FinTech is only getting started – and that we haven’t seen anywhere close to its whole potential yet when it comes to technology, privacy, and innovation.