In the financial software industry the priorities are compliance, security, features

1. Can you describe your understanding and vision on what financial software is?

People have said that any company needs to be a software company to survive into the future; the financial world is no different. With a high entry barrier, there are few who get everything right, but when they do, they’re guaranteed unicorn status. Financial software is first and foremost heavily regulated. The priorities are, in order: compliance, security, features.
 

2. What do you see as the biggest challenges of a financial software implementation at this time being?

As with any established industry, you have the traditional players, read “banks” or “financial institutions” and challengers – in this case “fintechs” and “challenger banks”. What is special about this industry vertical, is the regulatory agencies and their specificities among continents/countries/even branches.

Launching a product world-wide is nearly impossible in this segment. You have to have country-level tweaking of features – this is the greatest challenge.

3. How does the client journey look like in the financial software industry and what’s the role of the tech partner in this?

As with most industry verticals we’re seeing a lot of platforms, integrators, APIs, ecosystems. All that is needed for a new player is to build a front. This allows newcomers to leverage the existing infrastructure and focus solely on the client journey.

Financial tools have traditionally been less accessible to the masses, but this is changing fast – the client journey is beginning to look like a rollercoaster, with easy access to investment tools, crypto, insurance, pension, etc.

As a tech partner we’re fortunate to work on cutting-edge technologies – there is no legacy code here – it’s all new. That is, until a century-old bank needs maintenance of their Cobol infrastructure; and then we need to rise to the occasion and keep our side of the partnership – build teams and deliver software

4. What competencies and mindset are needed to implement such projects?

As a software engineer, the process of writing financial software code is pretty much the same as any code – information is read, processed and then stored, just to be read again, and so on. I don’t see any particular competency as critical. What is important though, is the mindset – most systems are real-time and high-risk, this means security and up-time are critical. Security-by-design feels right at home with financial software development.
 

5. What trends do you see unfolding in the near future?

Embedded-finance if all the rage now and it’s predicted to grow and extend its reach. We’ll soon find micro-loans embedded in your shopping and tailored to your profile.

What makes it tick? – APIs. APIs have become the norm – creating, maintaining, consuming, and scaling APIs is what fuels the financial software ecosystem and platforms’ growth.