Digital technologies have spread rapidly around the world, and now there is the prospect of accelerating the receipt of digital dividends, technological developments, and increased interest from new players leading to a radical transformation of processes and business models in the financial industry.
A number of major studies testify to fundamental changes in the global financial system and its technological component. Among them are BCG: FinTech in Capital Markets, McKinsey Report: Bracing for seven critical changes as FinTech matures, BCG White Paper: FinTech in Capital Markets: A land of Opportunities, and many others.
Of course, Fintech as a global direction was formed in the West. It was and in many respects remains a product of startups and software companies that carry non-standard ideas and innovations. Fintech offers users fast and convenient services, such as cryptocurrencies, instant payment systems, online money transfers, and much more.
Service companies come in a variety of sizes and operating models. Sometimes the staff consists of several hundred employees, and somewhere - several dozen. Some small companies also cooperate with startups.
It is the service companies who have the painstaking and large-scale task of writing Fintech service code, developing functional solutions, testing, and adapting new systems to software that is already working. Perhaps that is why service companies see the picture of changes in the financial world on a large scale and in-depth because they know it from the inside.
On the one hand, there are startups in Fintech - small, flexible, fast companies that can quickly create something and can quickly grab a piece of the market. On the other hand, Fintech includes large financial institutions, Investment Banks, Commercial Banks, Trading Platforms, insurance companies, and international corporations. But they are more rigid and slower to create and introduce innovations. They have an established IT infrastructure, which they support and develop. But this happens slowly due to their large size. At the same time, large companies have financial resources. They win because of it but lose because of innovation.
Economists also talk about the unwieldiness and sluggishness of banks and large financial companies. At the same time, experts note that over the past few years, two global communities (financial institutions and startups) have begun to move toward each other.
In the US, it can be seen that over the past few years, banks have started to communicate much more with startups. Previously, banks were not so actively interested in startups in the field of financial services. They believed that these were just children playing in a sandbox. But some need financial, integration, and infrastructural resources that banks and large financial institutions already have, while others need innovations that startups deal with. In addition, separate so-called Innovation Departments began to be created within the banks themselves.
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Perhaps, the digital transformation of financial services and the transition of banks to the strategies of Digital Banking Digital Enterprises are being actively discussed in the Western mass media. Therefore, a good deal of IT companies see their future precisely in working with Fintech, forming narrow-profile teams that work specifically with clients from the financial sector.