Why Fintech and why now?

Why Fintech and why now?

There has never been a better time to consider a career in fintech. A combination of technology advancement, economic uncertainty and industry regulation has created an unprecedented amount of opportunity, support and prospects for fintech professionals and for developers entering the sector.

To put the opportunities into perspective, CB Insights reported that VC-backed fintech companies raised $5.4 billion across 323 deals globally in the first quarter of 2018. Globally there are 26 fintech unicorns (venture capital-backed, private businesses worth over $1 billion), with an aggregate value of $77.6 billion. The opportunities for those entrepreneurs and developers who spot a gap in the market and are successful in bringing it to market are huge.

Clearly, you don’t become a Unicorn overnight. And if the sector is new to you, where’s the best place to start?

Firstly, you should be aware that there is considerable political support for the fintech sector as multiple jurisdictions vie for top fintech hub status. In the UK, fintech has become especially important and viewed as a potential economic beacon amid post-Brexit uncertainty. There is both a national fintech initiative and a number of provincial projects aimed at encouraging private sector investment and promoting more academic involvement.

Meanwhile the likes of France and Germany are promoting their own credentials in an attempt to woo the fintech community.  These efforts are being duplicated worldwide – from the US to Asia where Singapore and Hong Kong feature in the latest top ten fintech rankings from Thomson Reuters.

In addition to the financial support for fintech via tax incentives and government grants, cities are also providing educational support, forging links between financial firms and universities to create fintech related graduate training schemes and degree courses – for example, in Northern Ireland, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has teamed up with Ulster University to develop state-of-the-art trading rooms for fintech students. 

There is also international regulatory support for fintech with new regulatory sandboxes emerging every month. And on a more profound level, the introduction of the European Union’s Payment Services Directive 2 and Open Banking has created great opportunity for fintech developers.

By mandating banks to make their customer’s data accessible to third parties and encouraging the use of Open APIs, the directive is designed to encourage innovation and champion collaboration by allowing developers access to bank’s precious customer data and their core systems upon which so many successful fintech apps are built.

Developers have never had such an opportunity to present their ideas and innovations to the banking industry. The initial view of fintechs as disruptors has changed dramatically and legacy banks are now competing with each other to attract the best fintech innovators to develop their own services.

At Finastra we have created the FusionFabric.cloud platform to give developers the optimum environment for building new applications. They are able to test their apps in a sandbox environment and to ensure the correct application of data or the optimum means of integration.

The platform-as-as-service solution is designed to act as a collaborative ecosystem for banks, system integrators, independent developers, consultants and students because banks and fintechs are not just looking for seasoned coders.

According to a number of IT recruitment firms, there is a demand for project managers and business analysts as well as tech support and platform integration experts, acting as conduits between the developers and the business units.

There is also a growing demand for legal, compliance, risk and audit staff. Financial market supervisors in developed and emerging markets alike are paying more attention to the fintech sector as they attempt to develop an appropriate regulatory framework that encourages the ability to innovate but holds fintechs to the same regulatory standards as everyone else.

And as the fintech sector matures, so will the career prospects for any current or prospective employees. 

Mitesh Soni is a Senior Director of Innovation and Fintech at Finastra, the world’s third largest financial technology company. He is a global banking industry expert with more than 20 years’ experience driving business transformation, digital disruption, and business model redefinition. He has spent a number of years in the risk management and trading technologies space holding a Financial Risk Manager qualification from the Global Association of Risk Managers. Previous experience includes roles at HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and many others. He is also an investor, advisor and Fintech mentor with an active interest in building fintech community ecosystems. He is passionate about digital transformation, innovation and disruption through partnerships and creative investment strategies.

Looking to learn more about
our platform or apps?