The four Latest Trends Transforming Fintech

FinTech is transforming and replacing the conventional financial services that include money transfer, mobile payments, loans fundraising and asset management by embracing the latest technology. The four major trends in the fintech are:

Biometrics

The use of mobile payment methods increases security threats, this can be eliminated to a large extent by adopting the biometrics system. Biometrics has been instilled in most of our day-to-day today technology, seamlessly adding a new layer of security. This becomes more helpful when biometrics replaces passwords and codes while accessing digital wallets and online payments.

Digital Wallet
Presently, a few major players in the fintech industry have facilitated the transformation and replacement of the traditional currency exchange systems. Presently, digital wallets have increased their popularity mainly because the transactions are easier, secure, and quick. Digital wallets enable to store all the critical payment information of the customer securely and help to get rid of the complications brought about by the physical wallet.

Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is a sort of digital currency, which utilizes blockchain technology and functions in a decentralized network format. Cryptocurrencies are run by blockchains that record a group of transactions in “blocks” connected to each other by digital keys. Bitcoin is considered the most widely known cryptocurrency used, even though there are numerous other options.

Automated Wealth Management Services
Automated Wealth Management Services or Robo-advisors which are AI-powered, provide accurate digital financial recommendations purely based on algorithms and mathematical rules. Robo-advisors offer customers a personalized portfolio and aid access to wealth management services seamlessly.

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Key Trends in Law Firm Fintech

Financial technology is crucial to the smooth functioning of modern law firms. The interplay between finance and technology has always existed, but it has become more complex in recent years. Experience shows CFOs spend a fair proportion of their time strategizing on technology and systems as on traditional finance and accounting. As law firms become more business oriented, firm senior management faces increasing demands from clients and internal users, acceleration in technology, and growing complexity in the external environment. To respond, law firms need smart thinking and robust technology solutions to manage, flow and present data. Making the right selection of technology platform and vendor against a backdrop of rapid change is a mission-critical decision. While the fundamentals of law firm finances the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow have not largely changed, the depth of detail and velocity of delivery has exponentially been altered.

There are four key trends underlying financial technology in the legal industry:

Edge of Big Data: Data volume generated and stored in law firms has grown exponentially over the last decade. Perhaps this volume is not at big data levels, but it is certainly seems to be getting there. In the past, information used to be collected for clients and matters, but the advent of alternative fee arrangements has created the need to manage at a sub-matter level. Clients now review time increments at phases and tasks. This means that law firms have to create matter budgets, and then monitor actual performance against such budgets. All this leads to large increases in the amount of data that needs to be smartly managed. Further, law firms are seeking to combine qualitative matter descriptions and experience information with financial data. CFOs and CMOs have to deal with complexities of integrating such numeric and non-numeric data.

  The challenge for law firms is to be extremely smart about financial technology  

Near Real Time: In the past, law firm operations were reasonably stable, thus management reporting was required only on a monthly basis. Indeed, this periodicity was adequate. As law firms grew and uncertainty in the legal industry increased, this paradigm began to shift. Monthly reporting was no longer considered enough - senior management wanted to review business operations on a weekly basis. What came next was one-off requirements for daily reporting; and that trend spread. Daily reporting became the norm. In today’s modern law firm, the requirement is for near real-time information. Leadership has to make tactical decisions using current data, so up-to-date figures area necessity. One classic example are clients who wish to know the present status of their engagement, which means lawyers’ concurrent efforts have to be rapidly incorporated into reports.

Responsive Design: Prior to the mobility era, data needed to be presented only on one screen the desktop or laptop which was physically located in the office. The ubiquity of mobile devices means partners and management want to see data on tablets and cell phones. Online data presentation has to include responsive design so that user experiences across laptops, iPads and iPhones are similar and seamless. Designing such systems takes into account multiple formats, thinking through user interactions with data and security concerns with widespread data delivery. Mouse clicks, swipes, pushes and pinches have all now become critical and equal components of the design equation.

Cloud or Not: Law firms traditionally have stored their sensitive financial data on their own servers within their internal firewalls. As a precaution and in alignment with prudent IT practices, law firms began to replicate this data on known third-party servers in secure external locations. The increasing threat from cyber attacks has now created a difficult decision for law firm CIOs and CFOs. Should they host financial data on highly secure cloud servers or not? Understandably, there are serious pros and cons. Cloud servers offer high-quality security protocols and claim to be virtually impervious to hacker attacks. While attractive, there will be likely unfavorable reactions to hosting sensitive client and numerical data outside the confines of the law firm. At this point, there appears to be no clear answer. This debate will be resolved on a one-off basis by each law firm taking into account its particular circumstances.

In summary, the challenge for law firms is to be extremely smart about financial technology. They need to deeply understand requirements, square it with existing technology, as also anticipate trends against constraints of limited financial and resource commitments. Such a fluid situation requires alignment from competent law firm professionals, forward-looking leadership, and committed vendors so the right choices can be made.

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ERP Trends that will benefit the FinTech Niche

ERP is going through great alterations and vendors should adhere to these changes. Therefore, finding the right ERP software is the key to project success as well as implementing innovation into business.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software evolved in the early 1990s. Therefore, enterprises still stuck in using archaic systems need to upgrade their legacy software systems to meet the demands of new generation customers. Enterprise-level solutions can automate the internal processes of the organization while Big Data, business intelligence, and predictive analytics can attach value to the table. That is why so many software vendors start leveraging innovative technologies in ERP development. 5 ERP trends to look forward to in 2019 are:

1. Cloud Adoption:

Cloud ERP solutions allow for fast and remote data access without any complex technical configuration. With cloud-based solutions, organizations can focus on core issues, save costs, and get strong user support. By accepting cloud-based technology for FinTech, businesses guarantee the high level of innovation and productivity in their internal processes.

  2. Business Intelligence:

Business intelligence can transform raw data into significant information like analytics or data-driven reports. Manual data collection is no longer effective, thus, new ways of data visualization are in demand for different kinds of businesses.

3. Customer-centric Focus:

The majority of modern enterprises are putting their customers first. Nonetheless, ERPs are still created keeping in mind supply chain management, inventory, and accounting but not the end users. Customization of ERP can resolve the situation as custom solutions are typically user-friendly and offer a lot of abilities to integrate with third-party applications.

4. Flexibility Capabilities:

The future is prospective for those ERP developers who offer different options for business solutions. Though cloud providers give importance to the modularity, customers will definitely want consolidation of ready-made software as a service (SaaS) solutions. Therefore, there should always be some flexibility to move from one software to another.

5. Competitive Pricing:

Enhanced business processes, high competition, and Innovative technologies have resulted in more competitive pricing, which is a great benefit for ERP customers. Owing to cloud computing, pricing models have become more flexible and further economical. Instead of paying for high hardware costs, more and more clients are now changing to "per user" subscription.