14 Sep Using FinTech to weather the market volatility storm
In an era characterized by persistent volatility, a landscape of new opportunities is unfolding for investors. To seize these prospects, financial experts must adeptly leverage the latest technological innovations.
The macroeconomic environment has shifted from one dominated by demand shocks to one dominated by supply constraints, according to BlackRock reports. In other words, the volatility that has rocked markets in recent months is here to stay.
This new environment offers its share of different yet abundant investment opportunities. By leveraging the latest FinTech innovations, it’s easy to thrive in this environment. What’s more, integrating innovative technologies into your practice can save you time and money, and improve your customer service.
Canadian financial service providers seek enhanced digital offerings for productivity and cost efficiency. Domestic FinTech firms can help them achieve these improved outcomes.
Financial advisors need to plan for the future
The pandemic and its aftermath have prompted us to move away from the old way of doing things, and shown us that it can be not only easy, but also highly cost-effective to switch to the Internet.
Indeed, consumers are increasingly interested in digitization. The seven largest US online banks saw their customer base increase by 39% during the pandemic. While many people are developing a preference for digital services, others are discovering these new services as an excellent complement to in-person assistance.
Most investors do not overtly favor digital advice over in-person services, according to Vanguard. However, they do appreciate digital services for certain aspects of their work. For example, tasks such as portfolio diversification, tax and capital gains management, improving the efficiency of the management process, and ongoing asset monitoring are all tasks that clients prefer to entrust to digital tools.
This is hardly surprising when you consider the underlying nature of these tasks: they are all highly algorithmic. Removing human error from the equation by letting an algorithm perform these tasks improves the service provided and saves time for investment advisors.
The new financial services model
The hybrid advisory model is gaining in popularity since it improves efficiency and customer satisfaction while reducing the redundant part of the advisor’s role. Top-level executives are acutely aware of this reality.
A study by The Tech’s Factor found that 90% of US companies valued at over $1 billion said they prioritize their company’s technology offering. The increased efficiency that FinTech offers advisors will go a long way to helping them cope with the economic downturn expected over the next few years.
By adopting the latest and best FinTech solutions for their business, companies can easily optimize their offerings and adapt to the new economic environment. At the same time, this will help them provide investors with the most comprehensive and tailored customer relationship.
Indeed, FinTech companies enable clients to access more services. Some of their tools have also automated workflows, enabling advisors to enhance their wealth management capabilities and streamline the advisory process.
Embracing progress has never been as crucial as it is today and will ultimately lead to success, whatever the economic climate. This applies to everyone, large and small businesses alike, as well as traditional and online banks in Canada.
SaaS to optimize your services
In the next decade, software-as-a-service (SaaS) implementations will be the most critical development area for advisor technology, according to experts. Indeed, the SaaS market is booming and McKinsey & Company predicts that it will approach $200 billion by 2024. This represents a third of the software market.
SaaS enables customers access to software hosted in the cloud on a subscription basis. This frees them from all the issues and tasks associated with maintaining and servicing technological tools.
SaaS tools can solve many efficiency issues plaguing portfolio management firms by streamlining the advice process as a whole.
FinTech holds the key to a renewed financial advising industry, from going paperless to better data management and better cybersecurity measures. Not to mention assuring better compliance with regulatory organizations, and automation, saving financial advisors’ time.
Banks and financial service providers are also using FinTech to offer more comprehensive services. With the right technological solutions, it’s easier to provide intergenerational advice or estate planning (with mobile apps, for example).
Report to your clients
When thinking of FinTech tools, automated workflow is often at the top of the list. Automating portfolio analysis reports and documentation management are aspects that can easily be relegated to Fintech.
The speed with which these reports are produced is certainly an advantage. With little or no input from the financial advisor, clients can access them more frequently and be informed of investment opportunities or resources in real time as soon as they become available.
But FinTechs aren’t just about automation, they’re also about helping people to interact better. A customer relationship management (CRM) system helps advisors collect and manage data on customer relationships and interactions, as well as their portfolios.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, new uses for artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging. Automated investment advice and chatbots allow investors to manage a portion of their investments.
Whatever solutions a company chooses, these tools all have the same three ultimate goals:
- Enhancing the efficiency of the advisory process.
- Easing the workload of advisors, enabling them to concentrate on client expansion.
- Elevating services for current clients.
Why is market volatility here to stay?
In the current context, rich countries can no longer produce as much without causing inflation to rise. We have thus moved from a environment dominated by demand shocks to one dominated by supply chain issues. These persistent supply constraints are forcing the main central banks to maintain a restrictive policy, creating a greater volatile market.
SaaS definition and advantages
Software as a service (SaaS) enables users to access applications hosted in the cloud by their provider, via the Internet. Netflix is a well-known example of SaaS.
In this model, users pay a subscription fee to access turnkey software. The customer is not responsible for installing or maintaining the software. New functions and features are instantly made available to clients, without complex intervention on their end.
A considerable advantage of SaaS tools for businesses is that they can be integrated with other software using application programming interfaces (APIs). Some FinTech companies give their customers access to an online store offering a wide choice of APIs.
The SaaS model is thus part of the cloud computing trend, alongside infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS).
What is the SaaS market in Canada?
According to Crunchbase, there are over 1,000 SaaS companies in the country. A good portion of these companies were founded in 2013. Statista forecasts that revenues from this market will reach C$9.1 billion by 2023, and continue to grow at an annual rate of 5.5%.
Croesus is one of the first and largest SaaS FinTechs companies in Canada. Its first version of the SaaS model was launched in 2000. Since then, Croesus has continued to develop collaborative tools for banks and financial institutions. Croesus is convinced that SaaS is the future of FinTech in Canada.