Digital transformation has enabled FinTech innovations to accelerate globally, with not only new players setting the scene for new ways to do banking but also a constant development of new solutions and services.
Many innovations have been developed in the UK and Germany, in Singapore and Silicon Valley but now another region is starting to boom. In this article we take a look at Canada, and G+D Mobile Security’s Andrea Paric shares her views on the FinTech scene in the Northern American region.
While banking customers are changing their behavior based on the experiences they have with social networks, global marketplaces, and their favorite online-stores, the digital transformation gives opportunities for new ways to do banking.
But it’s not only the customers’ adoption of new behaviors that drives innovation, almost every seventh banking customer will be a digital native in a couple of years, which means there is an actual need for innovation. And here is where the FinTechs are paving the way, with Canada seeing a boom in the FinTech industry which is gaining traditional market share by offering customer centric solutions and services that are convenient, secure and foremost easy to use.
This is a view confirmed by EY in their newest survey, which finds that Canada’s FinTech adoption rate has more than doubled since 2017. As trend for this Andrea states that customers are wanting more digital services with quick ways to interact, when and how they want.
This is also something that is core at G+D, putting the customer wants first, and is shown in our offering of digital solutions that segue into more traditional offerings such as physical cards.
“As fact of the matter, we have recently launched the first pre-paid Metal Card in the Canadian market, together with the FinTech KOHO”, Andrea says. KOHO offers an alternative to the traditional banking experience with an easy to sign-up account in a mobile app, which combined with a physical bank card gives real-time insights into spending.
That customers really have an appetite for these types of combined physical-digital banking experience is shown very well in the KOHO case, as for this particular prepaid card, over 75,000 customers had been on a waiting list since August 2019 in anticipation of this card being rolled out. From the G+D perspective, Andrea continues, this allows us to support the FinTech industry with our long and market leading experience in unique card form factors that enable the financial service providers to become top-of-wallet. And our future-proofed solutions promise quality and security, always keeping the customer at heart!
“The industry isn’t focusing on digital only, there is a requirement for both. Digital, as Generation Z is used to and prefers digital communication and interaction, but physical as well, as cards are still required as older generations are not as comfortable with letting go of their cards and going digital and most bank infrastructure isn’t fully able to adapt to going digital.”
Globally neo-banks such as Revolut, and lately also Apple, have been heavily promoting Metal Cards, which provides a good example of combining physical and digital, showing that the need for a physical card not only lays within the challenges traditional banks face, but also confirms the view that Canadian bank customers aren’t ready to fully embrace digital only. The card is still a strong banking companion, even if the same EY survey mentioned earlier finds half of Canadian customers use some kind of FinTech services in 2019.
But when banking on the fly turns into a commodity, and FinTechs with their focus on customer needs, which is changing the way traditional banking is done, this can be a threat for incumbent banks.
SO HOW TO TURN DISRUPTION INTO INNOVATION AND CARVE OUT NEW REVENUE STREAMS?
The silver bullet Andrea argues, is for FinTechs and incumbent Banks who want to have a piece of the pie, to work with a partner that can fully enable innovative offerings put into larger programs such as a card supported by a fully integrated app or being associated with an offer of some sort to promote the use of other services. What does that mean? Put simply, delivering on a need for device-agnostic, digitalized banking services. This will at the end of the day create stickiness and keep the brand stay top of mind.
“Any strategy to build competitive banking solutions must incorporate components that are future-proof, which G+D’s 165 years of experience in the payment industry can bank on!”, Andrea concludes.
G+D Mobile Security is a part of the G+D Group (founded in 1852) with more than 11,000 employees worldwide. Our 5,300 experts in over 40 sales and partner offices all over the world are glad to advise and support the financial industry with years of experience and comprehensive solutions that allow meeting the challenges of a connected financial industry and capitalize on its opportunities.