4 Post-Pandemic Questions That Fintech IT Organizations Must Address

From contactless payment to increased demand for small business loans, the pandemic has disrupted the fintech industry as it has every other. Companies like NUBANK, Robinhood and Stripe were able to scale quickly, but others who weren’t as agile flailed as they attempted to meet demand.

With some distance from the chaos of March 2020 and the ensuing rush toward digital transformation, it’s time for IT organizations in the fintech industry to refocus and reprioritize. As they do so, I see the following four questions at the forefront:

How do I ensure secure communication with partners?

The pandemic forced unique collaborations and partnerships in all industries. But, as a highly regulated industry that is prized for security and driven by trust, how do fintech IT leaders ensure that business requests and related communication are securely tracked and addressed?

Companies will need to leverage workflow tools that offer seamless integration to external data sources and which embrace modern privacy by design principles, like two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption. Workers from all involved parties will forgo email as a means of communication and work exchange; they will instead seek secure remote work management tools to facilitate these partnerships.

How do I cut costs?

While some fintech segments, like digital payment options and trading companies, have soared during the crisis, others have lunged backward. Lending, wealth management and challenger banks struggle to retain their footing. These segments will continue to seek cost cutting opportunities – both today and as the recession plays out.

Companies will turn to private clouds for service, help desk, asset and incident management solutions. Doing so reduces both their initial infrastructure expenditure and their ongoing maintenance costs. This is an especially good solution for those in the fintech industry as reputable solution providers will keep systems updated with the latest patches and security fixes, thereby reducing the amount of manhours required to keep systems compliant.

How do I do more work with fewer people? 

Today’s fintech IT departments have to contend with bigger issues than resetting passwords or equipment orders if they want to ensure continued growth. From a demanding uptick in cybersecurity incidents to practically every customer conducting business online, IT service teams are stretched to their limit.

To keep up, they will need service management solutions that quickly structure work and communication between themselves and their customers. From customer portals and self-service aids to skill-based request routing and automated business processes, teams will demand modern tools that allow them to quickly and remotely tackle routine tasks so that they can maintain their focus on value-added activities.

How will I know what the best path forward is?

In an industry driven by numbers and data, it will no longer be good enough to just “think” or “assume” that a decision is likely to be correct. Today’s IT organizations serve as gate keepers to reams and reams of incoming and outgoing data. And, the answers to drive a business forward are buried within this.

Fintech IT teams will embrace business intelligence tools and take center stage as business drivers in doing so. From evaluating customer churn to understanding what drives peak transaction periods, advanced analytics tools will draw from customer service, help desk, CRM and other integrated tools to help mitigate risks and pave an informed path forward.

The fintech industry has had a lot of demanded of it in the past year, but that won’t slow down now. The crisis has forced customers to trust in online financial solutions at a rate never before seen. The need to respond has fostered unexpected partnerships. And, data regulations continue to tighten. The pace for IT teams serving the fintech industry isn’t going to slow today, this year or probably well into the future, so finding the right tools and solutions to answer the questions above will be critical.

That leads me to ask. . . what other questions are you asking your teams? What’s on your radar today and post-pandemic?