The fintech industry is booming. And will continue to do so as the world realizes the convenience of digital and open banking solutions. In fact, the industry is expected to grow by trillions in the next few years.
Fintech companies are under a lot of pressure to move fast and deliver their solutions as quickly as possible to support company goals and meet client needs. A go-to-market strategy is a critical aspect of developing an app. This is becoming increasingly challenging thanks to more financial institutions and other financial sectors going digital.
Trying to keep pace with the rest of the industry and even offer innovative solutions to get ahead of the market can be challenging. Have you been looking for a way to speed up the development of your application so it can go live sooner?
Here are tips to help get you out in front and decrease your go-to-market time.
What Helps to Decrease Your Go-to-Market Time?
Fintech companies face a lot of hurdles and risks in this ever-changing landscape. Fintech has a very competitive market, and new apps and providers of financial services are subject to regulations and compliance.
The best products out there are ones that address some kind of problem, not just a need to have something new. Bringing a product to market for fintech business means developers need patience, persistence, and creativity. Fintech companies that offer good customer service, practical financial applications, and intelligent marketing will be more likely to succeed because they provide the innovation users want.
When you are developing a fintech solution, the first thing you need to do is identify a gap in the market. Where is the gap for your platform? What are other companies missing that you can provide? You need to invest in your innovative idea.
In the fintech sector, more than anything else, what you should look for is an idea that matches a rapidly expanding industry with future potential. Once you've identified this, the chances of your fintech business being successful are significantly higher.
Fortunately, figuring out market gaps can be done in stages - first by spotting the opening, then exploring it, then identifying other solutions to the problem. After this is complete, the rush to get your product to market is on!
Choosing a Tech Stack
Once you've decided on an app idea, the next step is to dive into it. One of the biggest hurdles standing in the way of launching a fintech app is coding. The technology stack and back-end code are the most significant difficulties to encounter.
Your "tech stack" refers to all of the platforms and tools that your app is built upon. This includes programming languages, third-party APIs, servers, and the underlying operating system.
The wrong tech stack will make your fintech app a non-starter. You will increase the cost of operation, significantly slow the app and open up it to potential security issues if you choose the wrong tech stack or falter creating your own code. This will dramatically increase your go-to-market time.
Not only is it impractical, but it's also not cost-effective to devote a lot of space and money to several different technologies. It would help if you tailored your tech stack to your specific app requirements, the scope of your business, and the timeline you are looking to achieve.
The worst mistake you can make is to opt for the most popular technology or tool just because it's "popular." It usually ends up in a longer development time and poor quality. A speedy launch offering a high-quality app or service should be your top priority.
Sila lets you create a payment page without doing your own coding. This means you can have your page ready to go by clicking a couple of buttons.
Fintech businesses can launch their business, sell through new channels, and experiment with pricing without the hassle of taking care of regulatory compliance and licensing fees.
Offering a Quality User Experience
An app's user experience (UX) can make or break it. A well-executed UX can significantly impact your business because customer experience is often spread, through reviews, to other consumers looking for financial products. In fact, you can increase your ROI with great UX.
However, one downside to developing fintech apps is that the user experience is tough to get right.
The challenge with financial apps is that they need to simplify the complicated nature of finance. The consumer is looking for efficiency and faster processing times. The answer to reducing your app's friction as much as possible is a user flow that leads visitors through the process with ease and simplicity.
An obstruction to customers, such as multiple click-throughs to get the end goal, is called friction. Too many process steps, clunky interface, and unclear directions are all examples of friction in action.
You need some friction in your app to ensure high quality and security. Mistakes can be costly, which is why the 'friction' of providing a confirmation prompt before any transaction, such as account changes, payments, or transfers, is necessary.
User experience is a tricky balance between the design being attractive but safe enough to ensure security.
Protecting Customer Data and Information
Cybersecurity threats are becoming more prolific and varied, which makes your users' privacy much harder to maintain, given the increasing number of possible vulnerabilities.
The hesitance of some people to adopt digital banking means that fintech companies need to look to protect any fintech platform.
Customer data is a vital part of enforcing trust in your company, so it's essential to have a data governance framework. This outline should emphasize the strict policies you have in place to store, use, and protect customer data.
Security and safety concerns are exacerbated by having to adhere to regulatory compliances. Compliance can be quite complicated and vary between countries. When it comes to compliance, the US is highly complex.
Compliance regulations are comprehensive, and companies need to cover them all. But there are lots of agencies and regulatory bodies which can make compliance seem impossible. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Safeguards Rule and other compliance authorities deal with data protection and privacy laws.
Depending on the kind of fintech product, you'll need to choose which regulatory categories your company falls under. Many fintech apps will fall under Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulations, but there are many others to adhere to, depending on the region or country.
Setting up an app in multiple regions brings many new challenges. That means you must comply with different laws and regulations, which is not always easy. Know Your Customer (KYC)/Know Your Business (KYB), anti-money laundering (AML), SSI verifications, and other regulations can be integrated into your payment app with Sila's payment API.
Licensing Fees
When developing an app for the fintech industry, another hurdle that stands in the way of launch is upfront costs due to licensing and other fees associated with financial and financial app services.
Fees vary from state to state and territory to territory. If a fintech company requires a banking partnership with a financial institution, legal and compliance costs can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars; you may even be required to cover their legal fees and your own to secure the partnership.
If a fintech developer chooses to license state by state, there are licenses for lending and servicing, liquidity requirements, and other financial needs that can freeze capital.
Launching a financial technology business with Sila means that, for the most part, you are receiving a turnkey product. Legal and compliance and licensing are not free, but they are minimized using a BaaS like Sila.
Your initial investment costs, which significantly impact your bottom line, are lower than if you take all of the licensing, regulations, and development on your own. In turn, your go-to-market time is decreased significantly, and you can bring your product to consumers as soon as possible.
How to Improve Your Business Processes by Using Sila
Fintech app development is incredibly challenging, and most startups will struggle. Sila believes in helping you succeed, which is why Sila offers integration with a banking and ACH payments API to deliver an integrated solution that tackles most aspects of launching your fintech service.
Sila provides banking and payment infrastructure services, so you don't have to worry about building or maintaining it from scratch. It's perfect for fintech startups looking for a safe, secure, and efficient way to get their service into the market.
Using the Sila banking API, you can break through the payment infrastructure difficulties you might have with app development. Get in touch to discuss how we can work together to make your idea a reality.