Technology can create a cohesive ecosystem of digital systems, applications, customer experience platforms, infrastructure, and tools that help increase ROI, streamline operations, and deliver a better experience for employees or clients.

1. Cloud Migration

The adoption of cloud technology can improve the flexibility and scalability of financial management systems. It can improve collaboration between cross-functional teams while developing and launching new products and services. In terms of digital security, cloud-based technologies can be used to set up a strong infrastructure and process transactions reliably.

Examples: AWS, Microsoft Azure – The latter offers security tools built for financial organizations to meet industry-specific regulatory requirements.

2. Upgrading or Replacing Legacy Tech

Legacy technology can be redesigned or replaced to eliminate inefficiencies. The cost of maintaining legacy technology typically outweighs its value. These systems may often crash, and they require constant attention from the IT department. They are extremely vulnerable to attack and have major security concerns. Additionally, most legacy systems are incompatible with new-age systems and modern tech upgrades.

Example: Languages like VisualBasic, mainframes, and operating systems like Windows XP

3. Switching to Free or Open-Source Tools

Open source tools with a documented codebase can help the finance sector explore and innovate with new technologies. Moreover, they can help save capital in licensing costs for a particular tool. They come with a host of functionalities and cover almost every disadvantage of legacy tech like security patches, updates, and compatibility issues.

Example: Languages like Java, Node.js, Python, operating systems like Linux, and word processing software like LibreOffice.

4. Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics

AI/ML can help the finance sector by automating repetitive processes that take up productive time and the company’s capital. Human employees can thereby perform value-added tasks.

Machine learning and predictive analysis can also help with customer-centric personalization. Insights received through predictive analysis can shape personalized customer services. Additionally, predictive analytics tools can detect minute differences in transactions to understand their legitimacy

Example: Teradata’s analytics platform has fraud detection capabilities and can alert the team at the bank for anomalies in transactions.

5. Operations Automation

Core processes that can be automated in this industry include booking entries, consolidating and validating budget reports, gathering and cleaning data for analysis, transaction audits, highlighting timesheet errors, generating invoices, and completing audits.

Example: UiPath robots automate invoice processing, process customer forms, aggregate invoice data, and trigger invoices on sales orders and goods receipts.

6. Security Solutions

Cyber attacks against financial firms are becoming more frequent and more sophisticated. Dynamic security solutions backed by powerful technology can keep cybercriminals at bay. Vulnerability scanning software, advanced firewall solutions, security log trackers, and evaluating the authenticity of transactions are a few approaches that the financial sector should undertake to enhance security.

Example: CISCO provides a host of tools for the overall security of different domains in the financial sector.

7. Instant Payments

Technology can structure payment infrastructures to cater to instant payment options. Mobile apps can now be leveraged to make a host of payments either to businesses or to transfer funds internally. This allows the company to offer the rapid transaction speeds expected by consumers and add to the overall element of customer satisfaction.

Example: Stripe, Amazon Payments, Google Wallet, etc.

8. Comparing Individual Solutions for Maximum Savings

A comparison of the following factors should be done to get clarity on savings in tech solutions:

• Subscription or per-seat costs of tools and technologies employed
• Cost of implementation/maintenance of tools deployed
• Compatibility across products/solutions to ensure that multiple teams are benefitting from the tech
• Accessibility for all employees/customers to avoid bottlenecks in role-based tools
• Regulatory compliance

Tracking the Impact of a Newly Adopted FinTech Solution

After upgrading your IT infrastructure, you’ll want to monitor the changes you made for their impact. Here are some ways to get a sense of ROI on tech improvements.

• Track feedback from your customers: Have they noticed a change in the way your teams are dealing with them? Are transactions faster, more secure, or more efficient now that a tool has been deployed? Are they comfortable using the tool?
• Track feedback from your employees: Are they now spending time doing productive tasks? Has technology introduced a smoother way of working?
• Track your lead generation: If your business is now contracting more leads as compared to before, has technology played a role in this?
• Check customer loyalty and retention rates: How has the technology you deployed played a role in this?
• Track website and app traffic: Invest in data analysis tools that will help you track progress in real-time and for a longer duration. The information gathered will enable you to understand whether the tech upgrade was successful after 6 months or a year. Additionally, business-related KPIs can be monitored to understand the same.

Conclusion

The financial sector is actively pursuing technological upgrades to enable enterprise agility, innovation, security, and operational efficiency.

Crowdbotics’ managed app development is a leading option for comprehensive digital transformation, and our developers have deep experience working in the financial services sector. Get in touch with our experts today for a detailed estimate on a custom finance app build.