Following the success of our From the Experts webinar series, we wanted to provide you with this content through another channel to make it easily accessible and digestible for our audience.

Here you will find a summary of our latest webinar “From the Experts: How Digital is Transforming Financial Technology” hosted with our good friend Andrew Davies, Associate Director, Digital Marketing and Creative Services at Capco. 

Why Do Financial Organizations Need to Adopt the Digital Transformation

2020 was the catalyst for the digital transformation that many organizations hadn’t yet fully adopted. Industries like financial technology have generally taken a traditional approach to marketing and sales, but with their old ways virtually ripped out from under them, they’ve had no choice but to adapt. 

Andrew Davies, Associate Director, Digital Marketing and Creative Services at Capco said, “Covid-19 caused a fundamental shift in the way we do business. If you consider this knee-jerk reaction that we saw around March time last year, a lot of businesses wanted to shut down. But soon people started settling in rather quickly into what was considered the new normal, everyone realized that business can continue, we just have to change the way we do it. For someone who’s worked in digital marketing for a long time, it was clear to me the rise of social media over the past decade. It was a matter of taking those relationships and the person-to-person interactions online”.

We live in a hyperconnected world where access to the internet is at the tip of our fingers, at all times. Brands and organizations have had to wake up to these changes, otherwise, they die on the vine.

How Globalization Prompted FinTech Companies to Adapt Digitally?

Working in a heavily regulated industry, such as finance, means that some of these firms have not been able to shift to digital, especially social media, as quickly as others. The question of “how do I comply” is always lingering because if they don’t, there are implications involved. As Colin Day, Managing Director, EMEA & APAC here at Oktopost puts it, “so do I just put my head in the sand and not worry about the ramifications of getting it wrong?”. 

The answer is no. Instead, it’s about training our employees on these new means of communication. Confident sales leaders who would go into meetings, presentations, conferences, etc. knowing exactly what to say are suddenly paralyzed with fear about sending a simple Tweet. Luckily, with new technology comes new solutions that allow heavily regulated industries to keep up with the times without the fear of ramifications.

Tools like employee advocacy, for example, help address two big pain points in the finance sector – regulations and the generational gap when it comes to embracing technology. Andrew Davies raises a great point: “Having a message board of pre-approved corporate content that people can share is the first step to adopting new methods of communication and ways of engaging their audiences”. Once the people who are natural communicators offline grasp this new concept and see the engagements they generate, they start understanding its value. 

What Are Some Effective Digital Strategies in FinTech?

One of the most effective tools in a digital strategy is your content. Andrew Davies speaks about Capco’s content model and following the three Es – educate, enlighten, and entertain. Being able to adjust your content for your intended audience and to deliver it digitally means that you are ultimately adding value to your audience. 

The second best tool in your digital strategy is your employees. While they can sometimes act as the biggest challenge, they can also prove the biggest successes. Encouraging a digital-first culture supports change, and training allows employees to feel confident in delivering the benefits means they will be eager to continue to evolve with the times and with the organization. 

Financial services were historically dependent on conferences and events as the main source for strategic marketing, meaning their marketing budget for these resources were fairly big. Since Covid hit, however, this budget has had to take a sharp turn to technology with an emphasis on bettering the way their existing technologies communicate. To put it simply, events and conferences have been replaced by data. As Colin Day said, “how do I break down some of those silos? How do I get the data for all of the marketing engagements that are taking place and all of the marketing touchpoints that are happening? How do I get that data to flow through the technology stack?” 

What’s important is that there is a starting point. You have to develop your digital marketing strategy, and understand the data – and continue to work on both of those in order to succeed. Your digital strategy, as with any strategy, is a marathon and not a sprint – and continued nurturing and time will only make it more successful.

What is the Future of Digital in FinTech?

While it’s difficult to predict the future, after 12 months cooped up at home, I think we can all agree that there will certainly be an appetite to get back out in the world and attend in-person events and conferences. But is that bound to die down after knowing now the convenience of accomplishing all of our tasks and building and maintaining relationships from the comfort of our homes? 

Technology will continue to be the enabler of staying connected and enhancing the overall customer experience. Tech companies will continue adopting new techniques within existing spaces. Things like AI and machine learning are new technologies taking precedent in our already existing toolsets. 

The most important thing to consider in the future of digital in FinTech is that mistakes are bound to happen, but with all the information we have, we can learn from these mistakes. There is no point in shying away from our failures when the data is right there in front of us. Backing up your assumptions with data will lead the way to your success, even if you hit some bumps in the road along the way.