12 Essential Fintech Skills Organizations Need To Develop Now
Employee training and development activity is one of the most crucial factors that determine the success of an organization when it comes to hiring, client conversion, campaign execution, and more.
Because one cannot achieve scalable execution alone, a skilled team needs to achieve high-quality output for all the activities.
In the past couple of decades, technical employment sectors and skillsets have opened groundbreaking opportunities to improve people’s lives. And that scenario has led the organizations to need skillful people.
One such powerful technology is Fintech.
Today, we will discuss 11 essential Fintech skills that organizations can develop in their employees.
But before we do that, let’s have a brief overview of Fintech.
What is Fintech?
Fintec stands for Financial Technology.
It stands for the involvement of technology in offering financial services in investing, lending, trading, and transacting money digitally.
The term Fintech is not that old. In fact, it has emerged in the 21st century.
It was previously only used for the backend infrastructure of banks. Now, it has become a full-grown skillset and a set of dedicated activities that improve customers’ lives and how we all transact money online.
Fintech is also largely considered with cryptocurrencies is like Bitcoin, Ethereum and others.
Online banking and financial transactions are also part of Fintech.
In a nutshell, every financial activity executed, recorded and maintained using technology falls under Fintech.
Speaking of the impact of Fintech, around two-third of bank executives believe that fintech impacts wallets and mobile payments on a global scale. (Source)
Also, 65.3 % of US citizens will use digital wallets by 2022.
Seeing this number of the most developed economies of the world, we can confidently assume that the trend of Fintech is going to be replicated in second and third-world countries in the coming time.
Therefore, organizations need to nurture in-depth knowledge of Fintech in their team members to serve their customers better.
What is a fintech specialist?
Do you know that hybrid skillsets are on the rise in the post-pandemic world?
It is certain that if someone wants to thrive in the technology-driven world, they need to expand the horizon of the skill sets to become a vital asset for the organization.
Usually, a Fintech specialist is someone who spends hours programming and coding. But that is not entirely true.
A fintech specialist can provide end-to-end and solutions for Fintech products.
They have cross-functional competence from fundamental knowledge of programming languages, project management activities, MVP development, and creating marketing & advertising plans for the fintech product.
Speaking of skill sets, let’s dive deep into what organizations can develop in their team members.
Top Fintech Skills that Organization Needs to Develop in their Team Members
1. Security
Security is paramount in anything related to the internet and digital ecosystem.
During COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrimes were up 600%. (Source)
Cybersecurity is critical to maintaining the trust of the users, the company’s reputation, and the product’s growth potential.
People share important and private information when they interact online, be it during a chat, video call, email, or banking transaction. It’s essential that the information is stored securely and not fall into the wrong hands.
This parameter becomes even more critical when money matters are involved.
Therefore, cybersecurity is a must-have skill in Fintech.
Companies must teach their team about the best practices and essential activities to ensure better cyber security for their clients and data.
A competent individual should identify the cybersecurity threat, plan the solution that resolves the cybersecurity errors, and work with team members to deploy the changes with minimal turnaround time while maintaining end-user user experience.
Knowing about smart contracts, identity validation, security checks, and biometrics are critical while working in Fintech.
2. Cloud Technologies
In order to compete with traditional banks and financial institutions, which have in-house technical and server infrastructure to serve the customers, skilled Fintech individuals must know about distributed cloud technologies to provide seamless services to the customers.
All the banks and financial institutions that provide transactions and digital banking solutions have a centralized database system, expensive and built-in house.
For a Fintech startup, it would be a costly investment to make initially. Therefore, Fintech startups can leverage distributed cloud technologies and digital cloud services to achieve the similar scalability of what traditional banks are achieving.
Organizations can run training programs on cloud technologies to make their team members aware of the opportunities.
3. Distributed-ledger Development
Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge, Cardano and thousands of others have impacted the global financial ecosystem like no other.
Do you know that 38% who invest in crypto just because they don’t trust the financial system’s current state?
Cryptocurrencies have directly impacted the traditional banking and financial systems. Daily Bitcoin transactions were around 400,000 in Q1 of 2021, as per Statista.
It is safe to assume that many people trust Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency instead of traditional banking systems.
For each transaction, lend, transfer, and trade of the digital currencies, companies maintain a ledger-based system for all the activities.
Therefore, emerging Fintech experts should know the operations of distributed ledger programming to give stellar support to clients and Fintech brands.
The most popular distributed ledger protocols are Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda, and Quorum. (Source)
4. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence can do so much more now than just playing mobile and computer games and entertaining users in their leisure time.
Artificial intelligence is here and growing at a rapid pace. In 2025, the global AI market is predicted to reach a market value of $190.61 billion.
Gone are when artificial intelligence was only meant for science fiction movies and news interviews of future technologies.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, all the tasks which were previously taking hours and maybe days can now be completed in minutes with maximum efficiency.
Artificial intelligence takes a huge chunk of manual work away from the regular schedule of the workforce.
Therefore, organizations can give hands-on experience of artificial intelligence technology. The team members can think of innovative and unique features and use cases for client products and easily deliver top-quality applications and blockchain projects.
5. Machine Learning
Machine learning and artificial intelligence are closely tied-up.
They can work as a standalone technology but, if clubbed together, can do so much more and open countless opportunities for organizations and individuals.
In artificial intelligence, robots and machines do the heavy work in less time with maximum efficiency. At the same time, machine learning is the intelligence behind that work.
With machine learning, we get neural networks and advanced algorithms that understand the task and instruct AI to do those activities.
Fintech executives should know how machine learning works and how the parameters are defined so that machines can comprehend the data and make smart decisions on behalf of humans.
The knowledge of machine learning brings hyper-productivity and scalable efficiency to the workforce.
Here’s a good resource to start learning machine learning — read here.
6. DevOps
DevOps enable Agile software development for literally any complicated and enterprise software development project.
DevOps’s trend saw a 40x rise in the past decade.
It is made of practices that combine software development with IT operations. DevOps dissolves multiple phases of the development lifecycle and can cover multiple tasks simultaneously and automate monotonous tasks for developers.
DevOps strives to bring efficiency and shorten the development cycle for developers and enable them to deliver flawless and user-friendly applications to clients consistently quickly.
Fintech executives with DevOps knowledge can plan software development cycles and achieve scalability and sustainability in terms of the quality of the work.
Organizations should give a detailed overview and practical knowledge of DevOps platforms so that team members can explore the possibilities and deliver similar solutions for the clients.
7. Financial Education
Fintech is all about calculations, mathematics and understanding of the financial ecosystem. Someone who doesn’t like maths will find it hard to sustain in the Fintech industry.
When it comes to Fintech, we have government policies of the countries, taxation policies, legal ramifications and countless other parameters that the tech specialist should be aware of to serve the clients in the best possible manner.
More importantly, understanding compound interest, statistics, percentage gains and financial portfolio management also help in better client relationships.
With a comprehensive understanding of numbers, Fintech executives can analyze the chunk of data and find opportunities and loopholes for revenue generation.
Therefore, organizations should nurture the people with financial education and give them detailed walkthroughs about government policies, taxations, and legal ramifications, and data analytics so that they can better identify and read numbers.
With this, they can make objective decisions without constant supervision, which will enable efficiency and productivity throughout the organization.
8. Automation
67% of marketing leaders are utilizing automation platforms.
Plus, with a 14% annual growth rate, marketing automation spending will go above $25 billion by 2023.
Automation makes life a lot easier for every professional irrespective of the niche and industry.
Automation in Fintech is possible through multiple parameters like artificial intelligence, DevOps, machine learning and programming.
In daily activities, automation with the help of SaaS and PaaS tools can make a Fintech professional proficient.
Organizations must cultivate the mindset among team members of automating all the manual tasks. Along with the mindset, they must make the members aware of automation tools and software to find creative and helpful ideas to automate monotonous and non-creative work.
9. Interpersonal Skills
This section indicates the possibility of individuals becoming leaders in the organization.
To do great work at scale and serve thousands of clients with top-quality results, one needs a team where members’ focus and vision are aligned for the collective goal of delivering high-quality output day in and day out.
Interpersonal skills can get an individual on a path of growth. Organizations should hone interpersonal skills among the team members to generate a healthy environment in the workspace.
A person with good interpersonal skills will know how, when and what to speak at the right time.
With good communication skills and profound interpersonal skills, an individual can define clear goals and groom emerging talents in the organization.
They can give extensive and detailed demos and walkthroughs of products to clients and team members.
So, organizations should cultivate people management skills, deploy empathy for team members and harness leadership qualities among team members.
10. UI/UX Understanding
UI/UX is one of the underlying factors that decide the success of a product. It is why a customer will come back to you or your brand to avail of the products and services again.
With UI/UX, you can make your brand one-fo-a-kind and stand out from the competition in every way possible.
Organizations should cultivate UI/UX understanding among the team members to know how the digital ecosystem works and how people interact with the digital products.
Knowing UI/UX can make better wireframes and visualize engaging Fintech products for clients.
Do you know that every $1 invested in UX generates $100 in return?
And how many people stop interacting with a business because the user interface is very complicated? Will the number be very significant? 88% of users will never come to a website after a bad user experience.
If an organization teaches UI/UX, it will help team members make better returns for their clients.
In Fintech, UI/UX is an opportunity to discards the friction for users to avail services through traditional banking systems.
For example, you can integrate a system on a car rental platform where customers can also avail of car insurance, get travel insurance while booking tickets, etc. Financial transactions happen without the mandatory intervention of financial institutions.
11. Coding
Programming languages are like a modern-day language that people must know to communicate.
Digitalization, in general, has impacted and become an integral part of our life so much that without computer science and software and applications, we feel sort of paralyzed and find it hard to complete routine tasks.
We need robust and constant assistance from technology to operate.
So, a basic understanding of programming languages and coding can put you ahead in your career.
It will help individuals stand apart from the competition and become a sought-after resource for recruiters and employers. Organizations should conduct conferences and sessions to educate team members about leading programming languages used in Fintech development.
The goal is not to make a fintech specialist become a full-time developer.
The goal is to make them understand how the process works to plan the project lifecycle accordingly.
If they know how programming works, they can better communicate with the client and explain the client’s feedback and requirements to the developer.
Python, Java, SQL, and JavaScript are basic programming languages that professionals must understand.
12. Client Management
Business development and product management is a responsible task, and only someone with managerial skills and relevant experience can execute them.
That being said, client management is also a crucial task.
An account manager is responsible for managing hundreds, or sometimes thousands of clients in a given time, generating revenue for the organization.
Organizations must also develop client management skills among their team members.
This will help them understand what a client wants and deliver expected results.
Conclusion
Let me know what you think about the skills discussed in this blog.
Remember that the more you learn, the higher you grow!
A most sought-after Fintech talent must have a mixture of technical, managerial and interpersonal skills to be an asset in the team. If you have any other skills to add to your list, drop them in the comments.
If you need any help with Fintech development, be sure to contact AllianceTek Inc. today!
