How banks can benefit from collaborating with fintechs

TODAY, customers expect more from their banks – who are slow to deliver new products, services, and experiences as a result of their legacy systems and archaic processes.

However, those that truly want to meet and exceed expectations (and snatch up a bigger share of the market), there are a few lessons they can learn from fintechs.

By partnering with fintechs, banks would have access to new services that help deliver better offerings to customers, at cheaper rates.

At the Wild Digital conference on Wednesday, panelists at a discussion observed that of all the industries, those dealing with money-based investments have been the least changed by technology.

The panel featured Richard Eldridge, Co-founder and CEO of Lenddo EFL; Ashley Koh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Send, Matchmove; Michele Ferrario, Co-Founder and CEO of StashAway; and Gan Pooi Chan (PC), Country Director GoBear.

“It’s all about innovation,” said Eldridge. “Fintechs move quickly and think differently, as compared to incumbent players.”

Koh from Matchmove echoed his sentiments, “Fintechs make products and processes better, faster, and cheaper.”

However, Koh added that fintechs cannot exist on its own. She noted that fintechs are good at customizing customer touch points; however, banks still hold the upper hand in understanding regulatory and compliance.

What fintech can offer to banks, as Gan from GoBear suggested, is a sandbox for testing products they’d like to roll out before actually pushing out the products. This ensures that both banks and fintechs are able to better target their offerings to customers.

Although a partnership between banks and fintechs will foster better and faster innovation, Stashaway’s Ferrario warned that financial services should always keep their customers in mind.

“Talk to customers. Products must be built by engaging with customers with continuous discussions and feedback. There are times where you’ll need more time to develop and test the product before rolling it out to your customers,” Ferrario advised.

Moving forward, Koh believes that there will be more collaboration and cross-selling across the financial industry, to produce more value for the customers.

At the end of the day, all panelists agreed that fintech and banks should partner to provide the best experience and product for customers.

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