4 must-have features for a great fintech system

Reliability in financial systems, and ergo financial products and apps, are crucial to delivering the user experiences and reliability needed for commercial success. If we look at this underlying technology that is hidden away from the end-user interactions, it is a critical factor in enabling growth and gaining a competitive advantage. I will outline four must-have features that you should have in your technology table to do so in modern fintech.

Building customer trust boils down to having an always available system that provides an exceptional user experience every time. These are actually table inserts in fintech, but often neglected is what goes on under the hood to help make this happen.

1. Seamless customer flows

When it comes to modern financial services, customers expect real-time, seamless and intelligent services and not clumsy experiences. To deliver this, you need predictable behavior under heavy loads and during use.

Many projects fail in the fintech area due to only focusing on one application’s user interface. This neglects the consequences of expected user growth or unforeseen changes, such as pandemic shutdown. For example, the smooth customer interface loses much of its luster when connected to an older backend that is slow to respond to requests.

A technological stack that enables business agility

Financial services are a fast-moving industry. To get the most out of new opportunities, whether you are an established or fintech-led startup, you need to be agile from a business perspective, and it is tied to technical agility. When you can dedicate more resources to shipping code without being restricted and forced into unfavorable trade-offs, you are better positioned to monetize opportunities before your competitors.

3. Technical stacks that use fewer resources

Yes, being green is important in modern financial services – especially at the intersection of technology. The software industry is responsible for high carbon consumption, and shareholders and investors now weigh this up when making investment decisions. As funding in the technology area tightens, this is something business leaders need to be aware of as part of their technology decision-making strategy.

CTOs and systems architects can help by making better choices in technologies. Minimizing costs is important, but sustainability is now also part of the assessment process.

4. Fintech that always works and is always available

A robust operational resilience strategy strengthens your business case in financial services. We have all seen the stress on systems caused by peaks in e-commerce since the pandemic.

Any financial player, regardless of size, can be damaged by high-profile system failures and downtime. This can cause serious damage to reputation and get large fines from regulators. Trust and loyalty are top notch in financial services, and they have never been harder to achieve or easier to use right now.

How to choose the right technology for your application

Build versus purchase is an ancient question for technical projects. The truth is that both strategies can be right depending on the requirements of a project; Regardless, decisions must be well informed and transparent. Open source projects are a great alternative and provide the chance to take advantage of existing communities and fight against proven technology.

Choosing a stack for a fintech project should not come down to a gut feeling. A better approach is to look at the capabilities of the language, the culture of the ecosystem and the community and its domain-specific proven use cases. With a reliable, easy-to-maintain code base, your most valuable resource – your technical talent – will be freed up to concentrate on delivering value and competitive advantage that delivers to the bottom line.

There are many languages ​​used successfully across financial services; Using the right tools for the job is key. Fortunately, software technology is becoming more diverse, companies use a wider range of programming languages ​​and do not always resort to those they have used in the past.

Learn more about fintech trends and the technologies that drive change in the industry at CodeNode in London on July 12 at 18.00 for a panel discussion and networking event, register here.

Michael Jaiyeola joined the Erlang Solutions team in 2019 and serves as the company’s fintech marketing manager. He is responsible for advocating the use of Erlang and Elixir-based technologies to solve fintech problems. He formerly served as Marketing Manager for the following UK-based fintechs: LawBite and Window Skins.