How companies can benefit from new age Fintech companies

The last decade has ushered the digital world into our everyday lives. Digitization is not just about offices using complicated software, or the most intelligent employees working on computers all day. We are dealing with a digital world in all our lives. Mobiles have ensured that technology is available in a single swipe, and e-commerce portals have ensured that what can be viewed on a mobile or laptop can be delivered to your home in as little as half an hour today. Feeling hungry? You can have the food delivered digitally. Do you want to shop? Browse thousands of clothes, look for sales and have the ones you really love delivered to your door. Do you need to transfer money or do you have any banking-related work? Well, your banking needs can be met digitally. Through fintechs, you can get an approved loan or pay salaries to employees through a periodic payment model, all with the click of a button.

Understandably, today’s business landscape has become significantly digital. Even people-intensive industries such as hospitality, construction and real estate need a significant digital footprint to survive and grow. Restaurants charge an average of up to 50% on online orders. Property bookings are almost exclusively sourced through online sources. And this is possible because customers find it convenient to visit an online store instead of a physical store.

Especially after the Covid years, when most businesses were pushed into the digital world, companies of all sizes and all industries today have specialized supply chains. While large companies implement enterprise ERPs to manage their supply chain, until a few years ago small businesses found ERP solutions quite expensive and thus a luxury. This has changed since the middle of the last decade. Cloud ERP providers have brought the benefits of professionally designed ERPs to small and medium-sized businesses as well. Digitization has thus affected both the procurement of business and its delivery.

While advances have been made in lead sourcing and process automation, financial management has been relatively slow to catch up. The reason for this is that businesses across industries depended on banks and financial companies for their financial management. The banking system had to be digitized and clear in order to influence how businesses acted effectively. Thus, it was a slow and steady change, brought in over the years.

All over the world, the banking and finance industry has undergone a digital overhaul so that financial transactions can be smooth, fast and frictionless. The speed of this overhaul differs in different regions. Nevertheless, there is a global recognition that banking and finance are an integral part of effective business operations and digitization of the banking and finance sector is key for any economy to grow exponentially.

It is at this point that Fintech has stepped in to serve the need for digitization of business, finance and banking. While banks are undergoing digital transformation and standardization, there is not much standardization in how banks extend their services to business customers. The EU and other nations have brought in the concept of open banking and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to standardize banking and financial services for customers. This will eliminate some friction for businesses to access finance functions. However, such initiatives have not yet caught on universally.

To overcome this gap, Fintech acts as the bridge between businesses and banking and finance and provides the crucial technology landscape, allowing both businesses and BFSI to focus on their core functions. Apart from being the bridge, Fintech brings the crucial aspect of rapid innovation into the equation. Fintech democratizes innovation and offers the fruits of innovation at affordable value to businesses.

Imagine being a business that can choose between multiple options with competing banking products offered entirely digitally with different differentiating factors, as opposed to physically going to multiple banks one by one that all offer the same undifferentiated products.

Imagine being a business that gets access to basic banking services, cards, expense management, bookkeeping, all available digitally, tailored to your needs, exactly when you need under a single login.

Imagine easily integrating your ERP, CRM and accounting cloud options with your banking option so that your action in one solution is reflected in all other integrated systems. Imagine paying for all these services only when you use them and only to the extent that you use them. The efficiency, time saved and cost effectiveness as a result of the above is unsurpassed, and it is available to both small and large businesses.

Fintech today provides this crucial differentiation to businesses that was simply not available a few years ago. Businesses, small and large, that embrace this transformation, assess the Fintech landscape for solutions that best suit their operations and use them, will gain unimaginable, insurmountable advantages over the competition.

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