In 2019, you’re more likely to send your friend a Venmo request than ask for a $20 bill; you can’t remember the last time you wrote a check and your bank statement is something you view on an app.
All of these shifts represented larger trends in the fintech space, and we’re here to tell you what’s next. From shifting to mobile-first to using AI for seamless payments, we learned what trends three Chicago fintech leaders are monitoring and what it means for their business and consumers.
Innovation often sets off a domino effect of one breakthrough leading to another. Bento for Business’ Vice President of Product Jeff Pomeroy said he gets inspiration from seeing other fintech companies pump originality into the industry. Outputs of some major P2P payment companies encouraged Pomeroy to put Bento’s spin on the concept and release a B2B payment solution, a service he said was missing in the industry.
What are the top three fintech trends you’re watching that are significantly impacting the industry?
Paper checks are going away faster than people predicted. Once people see how easy alternate payment systems are, they don’t look back. At the same time, business customers are increasingly looking for — and expecting — modular, integrated solutions instead of a long list of vendors. They want to run their businesses, not manage their expense-management systems. This calls for even more collaboration in the fintech ecosystem and beyond. Finally, in the B2B space, we still see a lot of focus on startups and tech companies even though the majority of businesses aren’t startups and aren’t in Silicon Valley.
...I tend to pay attention to features and functionality in new launches.”
What under-the-radar fintech trends are you watching that the industry isn’t talking about?
There’s not a whole lot that’s truly ‘under the radar’ these days. The fintech world sees a tremendous amount of innovation, so I tend to pay attention to features and functionality in new launches. I think about how each element can work with Bento’s existing features to create new meaningful benefits for our customers. For example, person-to-person payments like Venmo and Zelle have been popular for years, but there were no such business solutions readily available. So we introduced Bento Pay, which lets our business users easily send and track payments to any vendor using just their email address.
How are these trends affecting the future of your company?
This may sound old-fashioned coming from a fintech startup, but we find that many business owners still prefer to talk to a human being. Our willingness to have conversations has helped us prevent fraud, bring about valuable new features and partnerships and boost customer engagement and loyalty. AI won’t fully replace human interactions in customer support and businesses anytime soon, and that is important to remember as we continue to digitize traditional workflows and processes with the help of technology.
Sergio Rabiela, vice president of software engineering at personal loan provider OneMain Financial, sees white-label fintech products as an industry wave still relatively undetected by many in the space. He also commented on how team members at the company love working on products and tech being used in the forefront of the industry.
What are the top three fintech trends you’re watching that are significantly impacting the industry?
Mobile technology continues to be a top trend and having mobile offerings is table stakes for any financial services firm. Regulation is always a big trend to keep an eye on. The General Data Protection Regulation in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act taking effect soon are rightfully pushing data privacy to the forefront for fintech firms. Lastly, DevOps practices are making their way through many of the larger financial services organizations, and it’s interesting to see the delivery of their product roadmaps accelerate.
White-label fintech infrastructure is interesting because it increases the number of companies that can enter the space.”
What under-the-radar fintech trends are you watching that the industry isn’t talking about?
I think the increase in white-label fintech infrastructure is interesting because it increases the number of companies that can enter the space by licensing off-the-shelf loan management systems, decision engines, verification platforms and more.
How are these trends affecting the future of your company?
They’ve turned out to be great employee retention tools for us. People are interested in solving the issues presented by these trends and adapting our products to meet these new demands.
Palette Software sees automation as the future. They provide companies with automation-based accounts payable and purchase-to-pay tools. And Vice President of Americas Operations Michael Cichy said he’s watching how AI and automation will impact the future of the industry in a number of ways. From features that reduce human input in transactions to AI that helps fintech companies scale alongside the world’s changing consumption habits, there’s a lot the leader is keeping an eye on.
What are the top three fintech trends you’re watching that are significantly impacting the industry?
The first is robotic process automation. Eliminating human touchpoints is of extreme importance in both B2B and B2C transactions. Whether it be a one-click payment, approval or purchase, the underlying business processes must be seamless and utilize artificial intelligence to ensure proper task distribution.
The second is compliance. Banks and fintech are highly regulated, for good reason. Data privacy laws and fraud prevention techniques are constantly evolving and are meant to protect the personal information and finances of business and consumers.
The final trend is payments. In the world economy, consumers and corporations need to be able to transact business efficiently by electronic transfer and cryptocurrency.
AI will play an important role in determining what data is critical for the fintech industry to evolve with global population growth.”
What under-the-radar fintech trends are you watching that the industry isn’t talking about?
One trend is globalization, as more consumers and corporations are sourcing goods and services in the international market. Expansion or acquisition leads to international operations. And core business operations must be normalized across borders but remain flexible enough to meet localized requirements.
In the end, business solutions must evolve into translation engines for language, currencies and tax regulations to accommodate the purchasing, payment operations and normalization of data sets.
Another trend is data analytics. Access and mining of internal and external data sources provides access to key market-indicators and trends. AI will play an important role in determining what data is critical for the fintech industry to evolve with global population growth and consumption habits.
How are these trends affecting the future of your company?
Palette is fortunate to have its roots in a business process that is at the core of every company’s operation: the processing of supplier invoices. We provide a solution that offers global banks and fintech companies an international platform for payment of goods in a very automated manner. Because the platform is stable and feature-rich, we are able to implement new trends in AI, electronic data-capture and distribution and payment processing.
