10 Key Skills Fintech Developers Need in 2022
The majority of businesses now use online payment systems.
These businesses are increasingly working with providers of financial technology (fintech) businesses who process payments and provide other online financial tools, adding to the convenience element of online payments. Ranging from payments and insurance to loans and investments, this trend was ushered in by the invention and establishment of the BaaS model, which allows any business to receive and supply a full range of financial services to its consumers.
Fintech solutions' diversity and convenience led banks and financial institutions to revaluate their views toward user experience a long time ago. If they used to build procedures around their own activities, users' requirements are now the driving force behind the financial industry's development.
The behavior and habits of fintech users have evolved considerably since the epidemic, when even the WHO urged switching to non-cash payment methods to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and will continue to alter in the near future. The popularity of different payment systems (contactless payments, e-wallets, and online payments), as well as financial literacy and consumer knowledge of fintech products, has risen dramatically.
Clients are losing tolerance with extensive forms and the time-consuming processes of downloading, printing, and scanning documents. The larger the demand and, as a result, the faster the development rate, the more people are aware of current fintech options
What is a Fintech Specialist?
This undoubtedly generate a demand for people with fundamentally new knowledge and abilities necessary for fintech, as the world's digital transformation continues, implying the automation of corporate operations and active use of digital technology. A fintech specialist is a person who works at the intersection of finance and technology.
The term "fintech specialist" is sometimes interchanged with "IT specialist," restricting its scope to certain technologies (for example, big data or blockchain), analysts, and developers. In actuality, financial technology firms require not just analysts and developers, but also IT architects, project managers, product scientists, information security specialists, economists, and attorneys, all of whom must possess cross-functional skills. They must be capable of developing, implementing, maintaining, and promoting initiatives in both the financial and global digital environments. They must have specialized problem-solving abilities, as well as an awareness of how to successfully integrate (and even predict) digital developments into their own job and their employer's entire company.
A fintech expert, brings together the knowledge and abilities of a fintech programmer, a digital marketer, and a product manager, as well as experience working on an online project or a fintech business.
Which Fintech Skills Are In Demand?
A new generation of professionals has emerged as a result of the widespread deployment of a new payment infrastructure. Let's talk about the abilities that make them so useful and distinct.
Soft Skills
1. Multitasking
Multitasking refers to the capacity to carry out many tasks at once while fluidly moving from one to the next. Initially, the word was only used in the context of programming, but it has now spread to the financial business.
Workplace multitasking requires analytical thinking, a strong systems perspective, and a high degree of organization. Even if you don't think of these qualities as intrinsic, you can improve them through effort.
2. Communication
A tech-based financial firm's major qualities are continuous development and the introduction of new products. Client managers in this field must be continually learning new things and be informed of all market trends, innovations, and competitor solutions.
This isn't only true for the IT skills needed in fintech. Personal VIP account managers at major banks used to be more correctly described as professional lobbyists and networkers. They grew their customer base by word-of-mouth and relationships, and they never missed a major industry trade event or conference. Fintech client managers have always needed and will continue to need these abilities.
Today's conferences serve as expert training as well as a means of making beneficial contacts. A customer service representative must be able to use all of the client's preferred communication channels and constantly monitor those channels for new possibilities.
In the B2B sector, for example, social networks (particularly LinkedIn) have surpassed email as the primary mode of communication in the United States and Western Europe. Email and face-to-face contact remain the primary means of communication between businesses and financial service providers. This implies that a skilled fintech customer service representative should be able to not only talk fluently and empathize, but also handle business communication effectively.
3. Business Administration
Every company's ultimate objective is to run like a well-oiled machine, and the person in charge of making this happen is known as a business manager. They give all of the resources necessary for their personnel to do their tasks on a daily basis. As a result, when a corporation has a strong leader, someone is in charge of keeping the machine going.
A collection of tasks linked to planning, organizing, and managing business items is referred to as business management. The objective of business management is to correctly agree on a set of activities and their coordination, which is important for any fintech firm to thrive.
Hard Skills
4. Extended Expertise
All contemporary financial services, payment solutions, insurance, and wealth management firms sprang out of modest start-ups where excellent customer service was and continues to be both a business model and a competitive advantage.
According to a Salesforce poll of 2,600 worldwide customer service experts, 78 percent of B2B consumers switch suppliers when the quality of support is inconsistent. Even one bad experience, according to 68 percent of managers, is enough to make them consider switching suppliers. As a result, the primary distinction between exceptional and inept fintech client managers is expertise.
A payment platform is a complex product to set up and operate, and clients frequently require assistance. Not only should the manager be able to respond to every request as clearly as promptly as possible, but he or she should also be well-versed in your product, understand the nuances of national regulations, and be able to explain technology acquisition, anti-fraud algorithms, and much more.
An excellent client specialist is aware of the small details and understands how to communicate the complicated in a straightforward manner. A fintech company's client manager should treat each client as an individual. They know how to listen and hear, dive right into the client's problem, analyse it from all perspectives, and come up with the best answer.
5. Programming Skills
Programming is evolving into a full-fledged worldwide language of a new format in the digital era. Perhaps, in the future, it will be as natural for a well-educated individual as writing, reading, and counting.
Practical understanding of information systems and technology is obviously a necessary talent that cannot be overlooked. You can use technical skills to objectively assess the feasibility of desired project outcomes and compare them to organizational capabilities and restrictions.
A expert in a fintech firm must be able to operate in a specialized team development environment and have a solid grasp of distributed systems architecture, mathematical models, and risk analysis methods. In addition, such an individual must be familiar with automation and monitoring concepts, as well as technologies and requirements, and testing technique.
A fintech manager must be able to analyze technological risks and respond to queries from developers, programmers, analysts, and engineers with confidence. All of this is impossible without adequate IT knowledge and expertise.
6. Data Analytics
The usage of SQL, Python, and other programming languages, as well as the creation of dashboards and the automation of processes, are all part of an analyst's job. However, these are only instruments for achieving two objectives:
- Make more objective judgments based on facts and statistics (as opposed to opinion, intuition, and experience).
- Look for opportunities for both the product and the company to develop.
The analyst's primary focus is on analyzing data, organizing complicated financial systems, and comprehending procedures in order to benefit the company. The fintech analytics offering consists of answers to both requested and unasked questions, the building of thinking models and frameworks, and suggestions generated from those models and frameworks, all of which lead to improved company performance.
In most circumstances, working with data is the best approach to do this, although this isn't always the case. Analytics aid in the making of decisions that lead to product and business activities. In certain circumstances, you may make a choice without examining the data by simply formalizing all conceivable scenarios and solutions and then eliminating the majority of them based on what the team already knows.
It has nothing to do with industrial programming. You must be able to read documentation, comprehend and utilize data manipulation tools fast, and automate your routine as a data analyst.
7. AI and ML
Artificial intelligence has almost finished being educated to tackle artificial challenges, such as Go, chess gambits, and understanding unnatural algorithms and occurrences. From estimating trade patterns and managing city traffic to genome analysis and medicine research, a new stage of incorporating neural networks into real-world human activity has begun. Developers of artificial intelligence are hard at work putting neural networks to work in the banking sector. AI will soon become a loyal helper to any trader, and when training neural networks in a specific person's behavioral patterns becomes the standard, AI will be able to trade for individuals in the same way that they would trade, only more efficiently and 24 hours a day. As a result, a fintech executive should have a fundamental understanding of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
8. Cybersecurity and Blockchain
Nowadays, no company — particularly fintech firms — can function without proper cybersecurity understanding. Both small businesses and major corporations must have confidence in the security of their data. As a result, a successful fintech executive should be able to:
- Identify threats to information security
- Implement precautions
- Implement privacy best practices to protect all information
- Develop solutions to protect against loss of information
In the financial industry, information systems are increasing at a rapid pace, necessitating a greater demand for cybersecurity experts. This has grown in popularity as a result of an increase in cybercrime. In today's computer infrastructures, hacker assaults and virus releases have grown commonplace.
The use of blockchains enables the execution of contracts and agreements without the involvement of attorneys or bureaucratic red tape, ensuring the security of investments through the use of smart contracts to efficiently manage risks. Furthermore, copyrights may be easily confirmed with the use of this technology, and blockchain technology can be used in a broad range of applications, from trade to election voting.
You can remove third-party involvement in financial transactions thanks to blockchain technology. Because, as previously said, blockchain systems have effectively integrated the capacity to check identities, record transactions, and execute contracts, you may also store and move funds without the involvement of a bank.
Decentralized systems may also be used for inventory and asset management, transportation and logistics process management, trading, tracing the origins of products and materials, supplier identification optimization, signing procurement contracts, and auditing and tracking activities.
As a result, this technology is used not just in the banking and financial services industry, but also in a variety of other industries, making clients' life easier and more convenient. As a result, knowing the fundamentals of blockchains is an equally crucial ability for a financial professional.
9. Finance Expertise
To optimize profit, a fintech manager should understand how to compute and evaluate numerous financial activities, as well as the fundamentals of taxes, audits, and accounting. Furthermore, the work cannot be completed without the capacity to develop a long-term perspective of the firm as a whole, to analyze project prospects and competitiveness of various goods, and to manage the company's financial and economic operations. The examination of the advertising market is also a skill that such a professional possesses.
A fintech specialist assesses an organization's financial situation and controls its cash flow using accounting and economic data. They are encouraged to learn about both specialty' complexities.
10. Maths and Statistics
You'll also need understanding of mathematics, statistics, and probability theory to work in the fintech business. In actuality, this information is a set of calculations that must be made to determine the profitability of financial, investment, and trading operations over time, taking into account inflation, currency rates, interest, and other legal and practical contract terms.
Payment methods and interest calculation procedures are studied by financial mathematicians, however this is not their primary job. They also provide a rational response to the natural inquiry, "Which of the available financial transactions is more profitable?" This uniqueness is found in just a few economic fields.
If the lending plan or other transaction is straightforward, it is simple. But, in more complicated circumstances, when the flow of costs and income is erratic, how do you calculate profitability? This is a question that not every economist will be able to answer. Financial mathematics is a set of tools for assessing and comparing the profitability of different businesses. It is capable of not only demonstrating how profitability is computed, but also of making practical recommendations and analyzing the economic significance of the acquired results.
A fintech professional who understands all of these procedures will have a significant advantage.
Going Forward
A fintech manager is frequently the first person to represent a product or service to the public. A successful expert must have knowledge in a variety of subjects, including programming, data analysis, and mathematics, as well as excitement and, of course, professional financial management skills, solid communication skills, and other qualities. These characteristics aid the expert in bringing the product to market, maintaining team efficiency, and developing trusted connections with clients and partners.
Sitech has helped fintech companies deliver great digital financial products and services by relying on the insight, direction, and product management of relevant fintech specialists - we can help your financial institution emulate their success through Software Managed Teams or get you on the right track by conducting essential product discovery.
If you believe you need the help - we are happy to extend our expertise. Contact us today for a free consultation.