Financial Technology (Part 7)

Some people argue that linking identity and payments leads to the loss of data protection and anonymity. Set sail for a new world of digital identity and trust. There are certain companies in existence trying to steady this ship:

• Social Login (Facebook and LinkedIn)
• Twitter Digits
• Apple Touch ID
• Trulioo

In March 2015, Level39, Europe’s largest accelerator space for financial, retail, cyber security, and future city technologies based at Canary Wharf in London celebrated its second birthday. Just two weeks later, Facebook announced Facebook Pay. Facebook becoming a major financial service player capable of rivaling the current giants might be an outlandish assertion. The big question facing established financial services organizations, from banks to insurers and beyond, is whether they can regain the trust of the consumer in order to safeguard their retail and private banking, and consumer-facing businesses.

The erosion of trust in retail banking is of course partly a function of banks’ departure from their original purpose of keeping our money safe. We can see interesting signs of this in fluctuations in the value of bitcoin, which tend to rise when there’s negative sentiment or distrust of traditional banking and finance. If traditional financial services providers reposition themselves as “infrastructure” or banks of service, or insurers of service behind new, trusted, non financial brands, they may no longer need to fight to remain costly retail brands.

Good design is strategically important and also provides guidelines for good user experience in FinTech. User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products. Its goals is to enhance user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided by the interaction between the user and the product (often digital). UX design includes : Interaction design, visual design, motion design, user research, and more.