Alluo: The Sweet Spot Between FinTech and DeFi

However, FinTech and DeFi are two sides of a very large financial coin. FinTech is centralized (controlled by a central point of government), regulated and designed for ease of use. DeFi is decentralized (controlled by a distributed network), ‘underground’, and only available to those who have developed the specific knowledge. These are the common beliefs and there are elements of truth in them. Interestingly, however, solutions emerge in the middle. Take Alluo for example, a mobile app with FinTech usability and a DeFi engine that offers a set of unique propositions for mobile investors.

In this article, we will identify the issues and frictions of both FinTech and DeFi to understand Alluo’s sweet spot and how it creates a unified solution ripe for mass adoption.

The challenges facing FinTech and DeFi

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide, including 97% of Millennials, use their mobile phones as their primary device for a variety of financial apps. Whether it’s to check your savings, transfer money to friends or make random investments – everything is app-based. There are also at least 5 million people out there engaging in decentralized finance (DeFi), leveraging this complicated and technical (albeit exciting and emerging) technology to gain even more ownership and control over their finances and investments.

Financial Technology (FinTech) apps for saving, investing, trading, lending and more are already experiencing mainstream adoption. You are probably familiar with Revolut, Monzo, Starling and a dozen others. The list could run into the hundreds; it is a highly saturated and competitive market.

FinTech providers also face other important challenges, namely providing fairness, democratization and transparency. These companies typically offer tiered rewards based on volume or deposits, are limited by licensing to which countries they can operate in, and have no requirement to be transparent about where funds are invested (although it helps build trust).

Decentralized finance (DeFi) presents a different set of challenges. By making all products available to all at all times, it is more difficult to provide safety nets or regulations. By operating a limitless and anonymous system, it is more difficult to know who is using the service and with what intentions. By offering full transparency, the cryptography required to provide a secure and decentralized service becomes more complex for developers.

As the DeFi industry works together to increase the security and productive use of its applications, it also seeks to improve design and usability. First-generation DeFi tools were not built by UI/UX designers, and therefore poor design often led to customer failures. The next wave of projects will look and feel like your favorite financial apps, but under the hood something more innovative will happen.

DeFi apps can be clunky and unfriendly – ​​Alluo has overcome this inaccessibility with an elegant interface designed by top-level UI/UX experts.

Linking a smooth customer journey with a sophisticated DeFi engine, Alluo is available both as a mobile app for those finding their feet and as a web app for more tech-savvy individuals looking for frictionless DeFi investing.

DeFi designers face a rude awakening

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) are the symbolic keys to unlocking the success of any financial tool, but there is one area where FinTech dominates DeFi by a narrow margin. Let’s dig deeper into design and usability to see how FinTech has achieved mass adoption, with global smartphone users now having an average of 2.5 financial apps downloaded on their phones.

FinTech solutions have achieved huge user bases through elegant branding, smooth user experiences and beautiful app design, making them easy to join, use and earn from. DeFi has not had the same success in this regard. Apps and protocols in the DeFi space are often criticized for their confusing designs and interfaces, products that are not intuitive to engage with, and for not providing the education or communication needed to overcome usability issues.

For those new to the crypto world, who are starting to use centralized crypto-FinTech tools like Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Nexo, Binance and a host of other platforms, the leap to DeFi still seems huge. Factor in recent events related to poor risk management practices and lack of transparency, in the case of BlockFi, UST and Celsius, and taking a technological leap into the unknown is a step too far for many. Even if these failed projects were not scams, many of their victims will see it that way, having not been able to see what was going on behind the scenes to offer such high dividends.

Investing in crypto and DeFi comes with risks – Alluo has negated these risks with intelligent design and open source transparency

While the inherent advantages and disadvantages of both Fintech and DeFi products may place them fairly evenly as competitors, it is an option that draws on the best of both worlds. A middle ground – Alluo.

The Sweet Spot: Alluo

The market opportunity in this area is huge, as we have explored. Addressing all the issues on both sides of the coin, Alluo is creating a new space in Financial Services with their user-friendly platform that offers the flexibility, control, transparency and access to great prices that DeFi can provide, with the ease of use and customer-centric experience of Fintech.

The ethos of the project is clear – provide absolute transparency and security so that cover-pulling, hacking and fraud become a thing of the past, and so that users will be in control of their money at all times. In addition, funds can be deposited to earn returns and withdrawn at any time. Unlike this traditional economy, you don’t have to wait to get your money. This makes Alluo’s position clear, they are a safe haven for investors looking for a risk-free approach to high returns in a frictionless and limitless way.

FinTech is guarded and regulated and DeFi is a bit of a wild west. Alluo takes the best of both and makes it all open source so investors can see exactly what they’re doing with your funds. Alluo is non-custodial, which means you have control and access to your funds at all times.

What is Alluo?

Alluo gives you access to personal finance tools, good prices and full control over your finances. They take the complexity out of “DeFi” and deliver a seamless front-end experience for first-time investors in this space. Alluo users can choose an easy-to-use mobile app that looks and works like FinTech (but has a crypto engine), or, for experts who want a tech-minded level-up, Alluo’s web app offers greater functionality and control.

The beauty and earning potential of our favorite financial apps brought to Web3 for a better future. To all.