Today, technology and digitalization have become essential tools for the survival of a company. As such, the financial sector has gone from traditional interaction and communication to being immersed in the process of regeneration and transformation that has achieved decisive changes. Randall Castillo Ortega, the founder of SME lender RACO Investment in Panama and Costa Rica, explains how technological advancements are helped the financial ecosystem evolve.
Financial services have demonstrated that incorporating practices related to the digital world positively impacts their users; reason enough to resort to digitalization, technology, digital marketing strategies and interaction through social networks.
Also, today there are companies in the financial sector that use the latest technology to offer truly innovative solutions. These companies integrate themselves into the new technological reality and stand out as Fintech companies. Companies today need to manage risks, ensure controls are working properly, and monitor the integrity of transactions. This monitoring needs to be constant and the only way to achieve it is through technology.
FinTechs fall into four broad categories, lending, personal finance management, payment technology, and cryptocurrencies. However, even when they are increasing their presence and use in the world of users, many of them, due to distrust, continue to choose to maintain their relationship with financial services through traditional channels. Despite this, those who have decided to venture out have done so to have access to better value propositions in terms of products and services.
FinTech companies are pushing traditional financial services to use or implement technological innovations. The counterpart is that this takes time due to costs, legal aspects, regulations, among other factors. This has turned out to be a challenge in a timely manner for those financial services that have begun to join this technological revolution.
“More and more financial institutions are deciding to make strong investments in technological innovation,” explains Castillo. “As they go digital, they manage to offer more complete services and, therefore, provide better experiences to their users.”
Online banking, as part of a financial service, manages to positively impact the user on various levels. On the one hand, it has the possibility of being able to connect with the banking service at any time. Still, beyond this, today, it can also be accessed from anywhere and through devices that a large part of the population owns and uses in their day-to-day. In addition, this virtual service manages to eradicate the user’s need to visit various bank offices.
Likewise, and as if that were not enough, this type of service also allows the user to make their own movements, operations or transactions without having to resort to intermediaries.
Currently, the financial sector, especially banks, are integrating biometric recognition solutions through facial recognition, voice, fingerprints, etc. “This measure is intended to prevent fraud and to offer much faster and more reliable services,” asserts Castillo.
As part of the digital transformation in the financial sector, it is also investing in robotics and artificial intelligence. Automating repetitive processes increases the efficiency of your services, thus improving the experiences of your users so that they get a benefit from your offers and competitive advantages.
Undoubtedly, the technology that allows the automation of processes is beginning to strongly replace the old systems, driving a necessary, accelerated and unstoppable transformation process.
Today, information technology (IT) has created significant progress within companies. This has been due to the improvements that have been made, as well as the implementation of new systems and better technologies. It is also because of the efforts of the people who have committed themselves to innovating new solutions within the ecosystem.
