Fintech companies contribute to the financial development of communities globally. The finance industry, [especially fintech] is growing and is fulfilling customers’ needs in a way that shapes the future of finance.
Fintech offers a range of modern services using emerging technologies. Because it thrives on the backbone of evolving tech, it continues to grow in leaps and immeasurable bounds. However, this massive influence on finance has barely impacted its autonomy. Viable fintech operations are easily gobbled up by bigger and more established groups looking to invest in their ability to evolve.
Besides effective mobile app development, probably the biggest challenge in fintech particularly a fintech software development company is creating an innovative app with business-driven operations.
What is a Fintech Company?
Fintech stands for “financial technology,” and it’s a way to use technology to make the financial services more efficient. Fintech companies specialize in creating technology that’ll enable the banking and financial sectors. These kinds of apps are accessible and affordable – most are free.
A fintech startup offers big benefits to stakeholders, however, it can be challenging to start one. As a result, you need a clear plan of action to create a fintech startup.
Building Your Fintech Step: What You Should Know
Before you start down the unpredictable path towards building your tech startup, you should know the various types of fintech companies that exist and the types of services that exist:
- Blockchain and cryptocurrency
- Budgeting and personal finance
- Digital banking and financial services
- Equity
- Insurance
- P2P Lending
- Payments and international money transfer
- Robo-advising
Knowing the type of fintech product you want to create makes it easier to build the right kind of organizational structure that works with it. More and more people are adopting fintech as a vehicle for personal finance, crowdfunding, investment, and money transfer.
Important Considerations to Set Up a Fintech Startup
When you create a fintech company, there are a number of important aspects critical to its success.
Selecting your focus
Fintech is vast, therefore it’s important to be aware of its fluid classifications. It refers to a specific set of companies or initiatives thriving on technological innovations in the financial sector.
It’s therefore impossible to dip one’s hand in every aspect of fintech. You need to choose the domains you’ll focus on over the long term. Here are a few:
Data Management
- Financial management tools
- Research and data
Fund movement
- Currency
- Payment solution
- Remittances
Fund placement
- Alternative financing
- Borrowing
- Investing
- Saving
Clarifying the target market and the problems they seek solutions to is a crucial step in building a fintech startup. It’s necessary to cater to a definable audience, beginning locally before pitching your solution to the global audience.
Legal frameworks, regulation, and compliance
Every fintech product aims to serve a specific set of people in a single geographical area. Those people usually have local laws governing financial market activities. Fintech products need to implement compliance with those laws and often involve engaging seasoned lawyers.
For example, fintech products targeting EU residents should fulfill GDPR requirements, just as there are specific requirements for Canada or US residents.
Legal advisory is non-negotiable, but it significantly contributes to consulting overhead. In terms of the gains, consider that 75 percent of fintech startups hit the rocks due to licensing challenges or outright legal violations.
As technologies keep evolving, governments also struggle to quickly introduce matching regulations. Cryptocurrency is a case in point, with millions worldwide now interested in the benefits of the technology. Where matching laws to a technology are non-existent, the state may eventually introduce them.
While regulation can be tedious on both sides, they exist to ensure the market functions safely and reliably for citizens. It’s in your best interest to understand the current norms and why they exist. You should, for instance, understand the scope of money laundering and fraud so your service doesn’t become a haven for criminal activity.
This checklist is a helpful guide to implement regulatory compliance at your startup.
Determine what technology to use and who will help implement it
Traditional banks are wary of emerging challenger banks or fintech. As fintech expands across borders, there are prerequisites necessary due to the crucial changes in the industry, especially in relation to loans and payments.
In order to implement Fintech 2.0 requirements, it’s necessary to consider cloud technologies and the transition to open data. Plan for your fintech to cooperate with and complement banks.
Rapid technological innovation enables significant progress and significant short-run progress for fintechs. That’s why it’s necessary to put together an expert team that can bring the requisite skills to bear, offer IT consulting, and actively participate in selecting the appropriate technologies for the best outcomes.
Besides hiring the right talent, you need to choose the absolutely right tech stack because every fintech needs to craft its own custom software development culture. Using third-party frameworks or CMSs to handle transactions is a red flag for investors, because it’s hard for off-the-shelf solutions to beat the performance capabilities of custom software.
While building your fintech software, be aware of the inherent finance industry risk of data breaches. Bake data safety into your app to keep it safe and ensure encryption and storage of sensitive data in the cloud.
Then you can proceed to creating the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with just enough features to gauge user interest early and receive feedback. The defining elements of an MVP are:
- It is cheaper than going whole-hog and finding that your idea or its implementation is not feasible.
- It is faster and allows you to pivot to more efficient methods or features.
- It is effective in ensuring that only relevant features remain in the product.
- It minimizes risk allowing you to test the viability of the product before taking on new markets.
Identify potential partners and investors
Established IT and financial companies continue to invest in emerging fintech startups. They can be instrumental to helping your company make a name for itself in a crowded industry.
A visionary business plan, development prospects, making and utilizing valuable connections are a good recipe for attracting high-value investor funds. Beware though; one wrong move can wrest all control from your hands and put it in the hands of investors.
Before entangling yourself with an investor, ensure that they have a good reputation. Anything contrary can deprive you of potential customers and partners. If you need stable financing, it’s important to show discretion in selecting partners. Getting the right professionals can help propel business development, mitigate risks, and manage operations.
Distribute funding
Investment money is one significant competition level in fintech. Close to one-third of consumers manage their finances using applications. There’s yearly growth in this department due to emerging directions. In order to return investments and earn plenty of money, fintech startups need to spend plenty of money.
To summarize the costs of launching a startup, we account for creating a prototype of the product or service, which is anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000. The right idea plus a successful prototype ready to launch and attract new customers necessitates investments in the region of $250,000 to $2 million. These ballparks may be subjective, but they give you an idea of what’s reasonable.
In a Nutshell…
Fintech can be a tricky industry to invest time and money into. A successful fintech startup requires much more than money to create. Creativity, expertise, grit, and honesty are important in the face of rising competition.
Tech companies creak under the weight of huge expectations, but if you’re passionate enough to start a fintech company, by all means, go for it.
