Putting The Data to Work

Payments and financial services providers are no longer just focusing on how their products look, feel, and operate in 2022. They now prioritize making the end user the focal point of the experience. And that is where the data comes in.

“Brands are enabling intelligent interactions that put people at the center,” said Galileo CRO Seth McGuire, in the recent PYMNTS.com report, Baseline 2022: What The Next Six Months Holds. “The more intelligent the interaction we build, the fewer people will need to be involved in delivering better experiences and more adaptive solutions to customers.”

This represents a considerable shift that not only changes how products are now built on the back end, but also an enormous technology investment from financial services providers. As a result, the market opportunity for fintech companies is considerable. “Older tech stacks will not compete with digital-native core platforms going forward,” said McGuire.

Why is this such a significant trend? Because the data enables the customer interactions to be intelligent, which means enhancing the customer experience, making it more personalized and automated, and removing unnecessary people from the process.

Furthermore, while banks and other traditional financial institutions are good at collecting data, they are known for lagging when it comes to leveraging that data to personalize and automate the customer experience. This is where fintechs offer a considerable advantage. “The average turnaround for new technology at a major financial institution is just over two years,” noted McGuire. “By contrast, teams working on a modern technology platform can turn out the same or better results in a matter of hours or weeks, delivering useful data from across a provider’s ecosystem.”

When providers properly utilize the data they collect, they can offer customizable solutions that can be scaled. Consumers and businesses can then connect more efficiently, which positively impacts everyone’s bottom line.

McGuire believes that we will see this trend continue into the second half of 2022 and beyond. “It’s no longer about the product itself. It’s about the customer experience,” he said.