AI in the FinTech Industry: What Will 2020 to 2025 Look Like?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The financial industry has, for long, been keen followers of technological advancements for their own benefit. Many big names in the industry have been early adopters of disruptive technologies in a bid to streamline processes, reduce manual labour and negate the chances of error.

Artificial intelligence is a paradigm-shifting field that the financial industry has forayed into very recently, sitting still at the tip of the iceberg. Here is a breakdown of the trends, growth, and scope of Artificial intelligence in the FinTech industry during the years to come.

AI in FinTech: Global Market Share, Size and Investment Analysis

In 2019, the AI in the FinTech market was estimated at USD7.2 billion. By 2025, this figure is expected to reach a staggering USD35.40 billion, according to a Mordor Intelligence report. The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) has been put at 31.5% for the years between 2020 and 2025.

This double-digit surge is no doubt a result of exponential technological advancements and deeper penetration of the internet. Software tools are expected to receive the largest market share because the need of the hour, and the foundation of all further processes, is the extraction of data.

When it comes to deployment, cloud-based AI developments are expected to rake in the highest CAGR in the following years when compared to on-premise deployments. This goes hand in hand with the shift in data storage and management from on-site servers to remote, centrally-controlled cloud silos to facilitate better access and higher security.

Regionally, AI in FinTech is gaining traction across many geographical splits. The current largest market is North America; however, Asia Pacific is expected to see the fastest growth in the coming years. This comes off the back of massive research and development investments in developed economies in the United States and Canada. Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East will also see a surge in AI adoption and advancements, though perhaps not at the scale of Asia Pacific as yet.

AI in FinTech: Trends and Growth

Fraud prevention: AI is expected to be deployed the most to ensure fraud detection and prevention. Naturally, this segment will drive most of the IT expenditure in companies of varying sizes. This trend appears in a bid to keep up with the changing face of fraud in the FinTech industry as well as the greater proliferation of digital channels and the need to secure them all.

Transactional bots: As financial entities solidify their online presence, transactional bots and digital assistants will increase to keep up with remote demands. Apart from managing customer relationships, these assistants will also be equipped to deal with term life renewals, cheque or balance notifications, withdrawal limit warnings and more.

Risk profiling: AI will become a massive driving force in evaluating client credit risk and creating profiles. Using historical client data and outliers, logical algorithms can segregate risks by range, allowing advisors and risk managers to make more accurate mitigation decisions.

AI in FinTech: Challenges

Cultural changes: With changing landscapes and evolving customer demands, cultural shifts within the company are inevitable. Employees at all levels must be reoriented so that the introduction of AI becomes helpful rather than disruptive.

Security: Increased exposure to digital forums, ironically, also means being laid bare to cyber-threats. While adopting artificial intelligence in any form, financial entities must strengthen security systems at the same time.

In light of the changes to come, it is imperative that new-age students enrol in a FinTech online course that encourages deeper thinking. With every shift in the level of computational power, FinTech industry leaders will be seen integrating beyond-human technologies into nearly every critical stage of their operations. The leaders of tomorrow, then, will benefit from a FinTech online course that preps them to make and implement these changes with minimum disruption and maximum confidence.

19 Online Work from Home Jobs Without Investment to Make Money from Home!

Reading Time: 7 minutes

We are living in a world where the transition has become the new normal. The on-going trends face major and minor changes on an everyday basis. The world is now moving from physical to a PHY-digital platform where a mix of physical features is brought together with digital features which makes the best use of physical resources in hand and technology.

The gig economy is no longer a vague and fancy concept as most of the jobs are going online. This is the time when you can sit at home and brush up your skills and then make money out of it from the convenience of sitting at home with a personal computer or laptop and an internet connection.

19 trending online work from home jobs to look for in 2020

 People make a lot of money online. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical job market has been affected to a major extent where people are either losing their jobs or are getting demoted or are made to face heavy pay cuts. But the work volume for people who were already working from the convenience of their homes has not been much affected. Given below is a list of online work from home jobs without investment:

  1. Online Surveys: Earning money by filling up surveys is the easiest way to earn money by working from home. You can take up to websites like Survey Junkie, Survey Monkey, Swagbucks, etc. and fill up various surveys available. Depending on your profile, you can earn from anywhere between $2 to $5 per hour by completing up various surveys. Online surveys are not only restricted to form filling. One can also review videos, various online games, etc. and earn money. The earnings would depend on the number of surveys you are willing to fill up in a day or a month.
  2. Meal Planning: Meal Planning has evolved as a new form of work from home where you can curate meals for people and charge them in return. Various factors come into play such as information related to various allergens, calorie counts of various food products, etc. A little research and you are good to go. This work from home option is best suited for people who are largely or even remotely associated with the fitness industry. Gym trainers and other professionals can earn additional income from meal planning but a normal person can also try their hands on it by suggesting various recipes along with the grocery needed.
  3. Blogging: You can make money via blogging. It takes some time to build the required audience base but if you have a knack towards writing then you can make your blog and share your writings and creations and also your point of view on different concepts and on-going issues. Building an audience is the key to monetize your blogs. Once you have built the base, you can monetize your blogs. Various blogging websites include Bluehost, WordPress, SiteGround, etc.
  4. Voiceover: The voiceover business is growing due to an abnormal increase in the volume of global content. Various videos have narrators explaining the events or scenes going on in the video. You can try your hands on this if you have a good voice and are good with voice modulations. You can refer to openings listed on the Back-Stage’s website or can search for relevant openings online.
  5. Online Tutoring: This time is the best time for all the online and home tutors out there. Also, if you are confident enough to teach a particular subject or multiple subjects for those cases, any other relevant skills or so, online tutoring is the best way to go about it. Education is the only industry that can survive all kinds of recessions as it never goes out of demand. Teaching online can make you a lot of money. You can either go ahead with private one-on-one tuitions using applications like Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. or can also conduct group classes using applications like Zoom, etc. Online tutoring is the best way to go if you want to make easy money.
  6. Tax-filing: The tax filing season is here and there is one thing we know for sure – People hate filing their taxes. You can take a basic online training on how to file taxes and then pitch to people charging a nominal cost for the same. This work from home option is seasonal and you will have to register yourself for the same but it can be a good option to earn an additional income when the season comes.
  7. Graphic Designing: The demand for graphic designers has increased drastically in recent times. People need graphic designers for their posters, business, and digital collaterals, websites, etc. Also, logo designing is one of the aspects of graphic design that pays well. You can charge anything between Rs.5000 to Rs.15000 for designing and customizing logos for various businesses and projects. You can train yourself in using popular Adobe Software like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. and then pitch to various businesses. You can also use websites like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, etc. to look for leads that can turn into potential clients. You can also work in a team where you can pitch clients who have graphic designing needs and then delegate the work within the team. Graphic Designers make a lot of money as the demand for work is quite high.
  8. Bookkeeping: Bookkeeping is a good option for people who have an accounting background be it relevant work experience or experience on the academic front. You don’t need to be a certified accountant to become a bookkeeper. One can also learn basic bookkeeping from various courses which are easily available online. People who run small businesses generally are not looking for experts in the field but for someone who can keep track of the transactions with modesty and simplicity. Many businesses cannot afford a full-time bookkeeper so they go ahead with someone who can do this from their homes. This also saves them money and you also get a gateway to some extra money.
  9. Copywriting: Copywriting has become one of the most popular forms of working from home. Businesses generally don’t hire full-time content writers but prefer to outsource and delegate their content needs. They generally get their promotional material prepared by any content writing agency or individual writers.

    You can get yourself registered with any agency which specializes in content writing and delegates the work to various freelancers or you can directly pitch various businesses via e-mails or platforms like LinkedIn. Also, copywriting or ghost-writing can help you with earning a lot of money. It becomes quite convenient for you to manage your expenses if you are working with multiple small clients or writing in bulk for a single client.

  10. Virtual Assistant: Visual Assistants are those who take care of small activities related to businesses. This includes lead generation, answering e-mails, scheduling meetings and conferences, booking hotels and travel tickets, preparing itinerary for various employees of the company, basic data entry using Excel. Some people hire visual assistants for shopping too! Anybody with good organization skills can become a visual assistant. Various job portals have job listings for virtual assistants. You can apply to these openings.
  11. Translations: Jobs involving translations are a good option for those who know a second or third language. The world has indeed become a global village. This has led to multiple opportunities for people who are well-versed with more than one language. You can translate various documents, texts, videos and also e-books. Various translation software has proved to be faulty in the past. Therefore, the best way to go about it is the human way. No one can understand the linguistic nuance of various dialects better than humans. Translators can make decent money by translating documents.
  12. Video Production: The world has become all about videos. Digital content has become quite popular in modern times. If you are good at making videos, this can be your next money-making idea. Video content has gained a lot of popularity and is the next big digital game-changer. YouTube is the best place to make your videos go viral. You can also produce and edit various videos for different businesses and concerns. Different genres have different rates and you will be paid accordingly.
  13. Call center representatives: The BPO industry is slowly transitioning towards the online platform where various contractors can take up calls from customers from the convenience of their homes. BPOs and customer service departments are hiring contractual call center representatives who can easily work from home. Both voice processes and chat processes can be taken care of from home. This is bringing the next big change in ways a company functions.
  14. Online Product Selling: Selling is no longer a physical process. Selling does require persuasion but that can be done online too. You can take up a product from anywhere and sell it to anyone sitting in any corner of the world. Also, you can acquire some trending products from your local manufacturers and suppliers and sell them out to your target audience. Some people also drop-ship various products using websites like AliExpress via their websites. Dropshipping is a good way to earn money as you just have to manage the website and every other component of the shopping experience like the deliveries, logistics, etc. is taken care of by the supplier himself.
  15. Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is one of the most popular jobs which you can do from home. Managing SEO, creating content and making various ads viral is just a small part of social media marketing. It is a very broad concept. You can use your huge follower base to get paid by advertising various products, services, content, and videos. You can also earn from sharing various posts, commenting on various posts, creating ads, etc. You can also take various online courses on social media marketing and then make the best use of it to earn money.
  16. Website Development: Website designing has become an easy task with the help of applications like Wix and Shopify. Coding is no longer necessary for building websites as websites with a simple user interface can be easily made using these applications. But businesses have to run operations and they don’t have the time to design their websites all by themselves. They choose to outsource the development process. Website developers who use coding languages are paid more compared to the ones who design it using an app but both of these techniques are highly rewarding.
  17. Data Analysis: If you have a significant understanding of languages like R, Python, etc. you can make money but data analysis. Companies have to analyze huge sets of data regularly and they generally outsource it to consultants and contractors which reduces their burden and efforts. Data Analysts are well paid and are in demand in the current situation. Data Analysis is a highly rewarding job and can be also learned online.
  18. Copy Typing: One of the simplest ways to earn money by working online is copy typing. The agency you are enrolled in will provide you with images or PDF files which have to be typed and recreated. It is one of the easiest ways of earning online.
  19. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Marketing has emerged as one of the best and most influential sources of marketing in recent times. Here, your networking skills come into play. Your earnings would depend on how good you are with building a well-knit network which will ultimately turn out to be profitable. In the case of affiliate marketing, you can earn a certain amount of money by publicizing or promoting other company’s products or services. Your amount of commission would either depend on the traffic your promotional post is bringing in or the number of conversions or sales done from your promotion. This has become a very popular means of working from home.

Conclusion

Working from home has a whole new meaning in the current scenario. There are other ways through which you can earn money sitting at home and the options are increasing with every passing day.

For more details about online work or online learning, feel free to visit – https://imarticus.org

How to Get People to Pay Attention During Corporate Training?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

We all know that education is a life-long process, and it doesn’t stop at the workplace too. There is a constant evolvement of the corporates which makes it all the more assured for conducting corporate training. Companies, during corporate training spend on courses, facilities, systems, and tools.

But sometimes a little time or money is spent by companies on preparing as well as enabling the mind of the participants. If the participants do not pay attention to the training, then you can say that these investments are not paying off well.

Hence, if the organizations want to maximize their return on investment in corporate training, all training and development professionals, as well as participants, must pay attention to paying attention. For organizations to get the best out of corporate training, the employees ought to pay attention to them. Are you wondering how to do it? Is it even possible to control participants’ attention? With mindfulness training, yes it is.

Let us discuss all other factors that can help to control attention during corporate training.

  1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness training improves cognitive functions which include attention, memory as well as executive functions. All of these traits are critical and need to be considered for learning. How to manage attention is at the very core of mindfulness. But, not all employees have a desire for mindfulness training.

Hence, training and development experts are responsible for bringing mindfulness in the training. This can be as simple as having a sense of relaxation in the body and mind, letting go of distractions and focusing on the breath. Once the training ends, the trainers can encourage participants to practice mindfulness, to make their minds clearer, more focused, and calmer. This will, in turn, improves their retention capacity.

  1. Conducive environment

Where you train the participants is as important as the training material you use. A conducive environment is necessary to optimize the learning experience. The trainers can give time to participants to comprehend, reflect and open to new content by clearing their minds.

The trainer needs to respect the participants’ time. Some people can feel tiresome in corporate training, as they have to go through a long process of absorbing new information. Hence, training and development experts must ensure to provide a clutter-free learning environment. For example, trainers can arrange chairs in such a way that participants can interact with each other freely.

  1. Eliminate distractions

During any training, participants naturally can feel distracted. The research says that it takes almost 30 minutes to bring participants’ concentration, once he/she is distracted. It is crucial for the trainers or training and development experts to identify all the generic or industry-specific possible causes of their distractions.

For complex tasks like learning something new, it is important to have no distractions. It is essential to eliminate the possible distractions from the training as well as stress the importance of being disciplined to participants.  Trainers can make participants committed to their learning experience by being away from distracting objects or devices.

  1. Encourage reflection

One of the ways for the trainer to control their attention is to start each session with a few minutes to reflect. This should be done in between each session. What do you think, how will this help them? Reflecting on the lesson can help the participants to open to new content.

  1. Take scheduled breaks

It is of course important for the trainers to schedule the material and learning of the participants. Similarly, it is also advisable for them to strategically use breaks so that the participants can soak the information. This will prevent their attention span. When the participants use their breaks to check their work, there is a high possibility of their learning getting affected. It is because checking on work does not allow any information to settle in the mind of the participants.

  1. Problem-solving

Adult learners when undergoing any training, expects the focus of the training to be on the answers to their real-world problem. The training and development experts should put themselves in the learner’s position. By doing this, they will be able to structure the training in such a way that the participants’ attention is maintained.

The participants’ attention can be grabbed instantly if the trainer presents a problem that keeps them reading. Making meaningful, relevant, simple, concise headlines can help the participants easily find the content they need. In addition to these, by restating questions will allow all the participants to clearly understand the motive of the question.

  1. Recalling

The aim of corporate training is to impart knowledge to participants and help them recall the important points. At the end of the training session, the participants can recall and apply the key points learned in the training. This can be done by paying close attention to details in the anticipation of the test.

  1. Learning material

Adult learners are used to segmented information. The use of multimedia can be considered as one of the important ways of ensuring prolonged attention span and retention of the participants. It is because they can respond to better visual mediums than text. The only condition is to use relevant pictures and as and when required.

They can also retain the information well if the trainers make use of real stories, examples to make their point. The trainers who understand that different participant has a different learning style will structure his/her training accordingly. While using multimedia, the trainers should make sure to lay them a groundwork by explaining what they are about to see.

Future of Leadership Development – Virtual Reality and Corporate Training!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Most of the companies sense an urgent need for leadership development. It is because all the companies want to survive in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. This has made them realize that they need leadership skills and organizational capabilities. These skills and capabilities must be different from those that helped them succeed in the past.

When we say “leadership development”, it is all about living at the intersection of preparation as well as opportunity. It is of utmost importance to ensure that all the leaders are well-prepared, able to find or create the right opportunities that will further reinforce their development as well as readiness for even bigger or more challenging roles.

The question which arises from this is,

How to improve the future of Leadership and Development?

The current state of the leadership development industry is upheaval. Such a state of leadership and development industry needs to be improved to adequately build critical skills and organizational capabilities. There is a soaring requirement of courses that impart the hard and soft skills required of corporate managers. The most critical areas of opportunity and growth in leadership effectiveness can be unlocked by incorporating corporate as well as leadership training.

The technological advancement has enhanced the scope of corporate training. Do you know what brings unlimited opportunities for corporate training? Yes, you guessed it right! The answer is Virtual Reality (VR). Today, new-age learners are confronted with virtual reality even before they can implement their knowledge and skills at the workplace. There is a need to embrace the actual use of the web while providing custom eLearning solutions and leveraging advantages of this dynamic virtual environment.

It makes convenient to work from basic manual laboring techniques to high-level executive leadership development. Virtual reality provides an invaluable context to any situation and the opportunity for the employees. It simulates both, new and existing environments which include a new production line, a large busy office that is difficult to replicate without significant cost. Nowadays, several companies have started exploring VR as a supplementary tool for corporate training.

The corporate world needs higher success rates with lower costs which can be possible by implementing virtual reality into corporate world training. The argument for virtual reality in corporate training is whether it helps to increase the employees’ engagement and retention levels. Engaged employees is considered as the result of successful corporate training.

Virtual reality wins the argument as it is possible to do so by training employees in a safer and more cost-efficient way. It brings in practical experience for the employees. Virtual reality offers everything you miss in ordinary audio/video material. In addition to this, it has lower costs than face-to-face training.

Can you guess the benefits of using virtual reality in corporate training?

So, how to use virtual reality in corporate training?

Not only the potential for virtual reality in both corporate and leadership training is enormous, but the problems it can solve are everywhere. Skills such as public speaking, sales, negotiation, and networking are a few essential enterprise skills to keep the business running. Even managers demand these skills in new candidates and employees. One of the vital elements of the virtual reality is that it allows employees to practice what they have learned in the courses in realistic simulations.

Today employees need more integrated learning in the flow of work. Virtual reality makes it possible to give them a state-of-the-art learning experience. It can be used for training employees on complex equipment, tasks or procedures. This is possible using virtual reality to provide a realistic environment. This environment incorporates both, scenarios and multiple paths for trainees to experience as well as learn from varying outcomes. As per the statistics, 95% of the leaders perceive the effectiveness of virtual reality.

The power of virtual reality makes it possible for the leaders to get the benefits of on-the-job learning. Conducting leadership training in a safe virtual environment leads to an opportunity of learning, trying, failing and growing without any risk factors.

Virtual reality creates a space for leaders where they can practice common leadership skills. It is possible to provide performance evaluations to them. This virtual world makes the learner experiment with different approaches to leadership. This, in turn, makes them lead more effectively in real life. Such leadership training is used to reinforce leadership skills, including soft skills.

The leaders can engage in situations that require proficiency in skills such as self-awareness, empathy, communication, cultural awareness and more. Apart from these, it is also possible to measure leaders’ soft skills and provide objective feedback on the same. One can use speech technology, eye-tracking technology to offer tangible feedback.

Having virtual reality in use, there is no need for training professionals to feel daunted. It is because virtual reality can overcome the potential challenges if the L&D leaders actively plan for potential issues that may arise in leadership or corporate training.

Why Learning Objectives And Outcomes Matter to the Success of Your Training?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The most common problems faced while developing objectives are:

  • Lack of corporation
  • Lack of time and resources
  • Lack of depth in understanding the role of learning and development
  • Client plays a crucial say in what the training session is about and how the session should be conducted

As a result, the haphazard defining of the problem and the resultant training objectives renders the training session obsolete, having address the wrong problem.

The key is to create user-friendly forms with rigid underlying structures that save client time and are precise to their intended purpose.

These are the key constituents of the forms to assess any situation and address the problem areas through accurate objectives:

  • Diagnose the problem
  • Metric that links the problem to the solution
  • Highlight performance gaps
  • Know the history of the problem
  • Determine the areas that are affected
  • Analyse the magnitude of the issue
  • Gain information the client wants to provide

Let us look at each of these in depth.

Diagnose the problem

Knowing the problem is essential. However, the answers received will lack depth and merely highlight the symptoms and not the causes of the problem. Understand your clients and the people. Know how they assesses a situation and deliver questions that they will understand. The replies to the question will only be as good as the effectives of the question to the learning and development professional at the client.

The key is to make them feel in charge.

Metric that links the problem to the solution

Talk does not impress anyone. Generally, clients seek quantifiable improvements in time, quality, cost, and output and performance from the existing system. Developing metrics that cater to the needs. Alternatively, metrics can indicate the consequences of not learning.

Highlight performance gaps

Show what the entity and its employees are doing that they should not be doing and what the entity and its people are doing that they should not. This is what highlighting performance gaps is all about.

Know the history of the problem

When has the problem occurred before? How frequently? When was the issue first highlighted? Knowing the history of the problem or if the problem is a new one, is the key to setting objectives that deliver results by tweaking how the entity presently operates.

Determine the areas that are affected

Knowing the specific areas that need to be addressed is crucial in setting objectives that suit the audience and help the serve their customers better. The clients may not know the details you seek. Knowing the client’s customers is handy.

Analyse the magnitude of the issue

How big is the problem? Is a commonly considered boon really a bane? Determining how the problem has adversely affected the entity if the key to developing objectives that link the present scenario to the desired training outcomes.

Gain information the client wants to provide

Finally, ensure that the client has room to provide the information they sense is key. These inputs are essential to know your customers.

Summary

A comprehensive form will determine objectives that deliver value from the training session and display effectiveness to the entities bottom lines.

Coronavirus: New Challenges and Opportunities for Fintech

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The COVID-19 pandemic has so far infected over 1.2 million people and killed over 60,000 people, and has spread to more than 205 countries. While at some locations a handful of cases were reported, others with early community transmission have a few hundred. Unfortunately, at geographies with widespread transmission have reported thousands of cases.

This pandemic has caused major disruption to global economies owing to the containment measures and lockdowns all over. It is quite evident now that because of the virus-containment measures global economies will be hit to a great extent. Lockdowns, social-distancing and other coronavirus-containment measures have led to a massive fall in the global economic activity – plummeting consumer demand, fall in crude oil prices, crash in global stock markets, and equally decreasing global banking revenues.

The COVID-19 outbreak has had far-reaching implications for almost all possible aspects of the economy. From consumer, retail, manufacturing, entertainment, packaged goods, sports, travel, etc. every sector has been impacted in some or the other way. This pandemic is certainly devastating for many companies, but that’s not same when it comes to Fintech. Though Fintech is feeling the pressure of the increasing crisis, but this crisis is also shining a spotlight on the power of Fintechs.

The coronavirus pandemic could be devastating for many companies, but it’s also shining a spotlight on the power of Fintechs. For Fintech it’s a mixed-bag of challenges and equal or more opportunities. Let’s take a look at the challenges and opportunities for Fintech:

Challenges Facing Fintech

Jolt to Venture Capital Funding – Since, the markets are highly volatile there is limited or minimum scope of fundraising activities as investors and funding groups fall back to more cautious positions. With uncertainty over the pandemic getting over, the only hope is seen only in the medium-term where leaner fundraising Fintechs will excel again.

Conferences and Events cancelled or postponed – To break the chain of transmission of the coronavirus and, almost all events across sectors have either been cancelled or postponed. The cancelled or indefinitely postponed conferences and events are a loss too Fintechs as they help develop new business and strengthen business relationships.

Decrease in payments – Fintechs which handle payments could witness a fall in activity from consumers because of the dwindling economy.

Consumers may be less willing to invest savings – Fintechs with a focus on consumer investments may be impacted by consumer wariness about investing during such a volatile moment. Even those investors lucky enough to be relatively insulated from the economic fallout may choose to put their money in safer options for the time being.

In such a volatile market, the consumer exercises caution which and refrains from making huge investments.   This impacts the consumer investments in Fintechs.

Opportunities For Fintech

Modernised workforces are more likely to flourish – Companies sporting higher levels of modernisation and distant workforces are better positioned to not just survive but also to thrive during this difficult moment.

United approach to adopt contactless payment systems – As the world suffers through COVID19 pandemic, people from all corners of the world are finding ways to reduce the use of currency both paper and coins which changes hands many times over (possible for the virus to lurk over the surface). Encouragement from all sectors to call for digital / contactless payment systems will boost the growth of Fintechs.

High chances of reversing rollbacks on regulation – Many countries who have managed to curb the spread of coronavirus are likely to relax regulations on certain industries in order to spur economic recovery. Fintech is one of the industries targeted as part of that recovery program.

Preference to digital systems – Amid lockdowns and self-quarantine period, it has become imperative for banks to incorporate the best of digital solutions. Fintechs are well-positioned to step in to offer solutions to replace legacy systems.

Virtual Reality: A New Reality for Learning & Development Training!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Learning and development is a very important process in today’s era for companies and firms. The budget for L&D has grown massively over the years. LinkedIn reports suggest that the L&D budget has grown from 27% in 2017 to 43% in 2019. It helps increase productivity and employee loyalty. But nowadays, new techniques are coming which provide learning in an effective way. One such trending technique is L&D through virtual reality.

Let us see how virtual reality is helping in L&D processes.

What is virtual reality?

It is a 3-dimensional architecture/environment created through devices/computers which can be interacted and explored. It gives us an idea of how real-life situations are going to be. For example, medical science workers are sometimes shown 3-D representation of the human body to give them an idea of what a real operation might look like. Firms are finding unique ways to introduce virtual reality in their training programs. The challenges are already tackled by the employees through virtual reality and this gives them an edge when real-life scenarios arrive.

Future of virtual reality

There are immense possibilities in virtual reality and also scope for enhancement. It can also be used with augmented reality to ensure real-life scenarios. There are many more military programs, aero science programs that are driven by virtual reality. There is a lot of future virtual reality in the gaming field. You must have seen the videos of various virtual reality gamers across the globe.

They provide such a fantastic simulation that it almost feels real. There are also virtual reality 3-D shows which give us a richer experience. According to reports, there were around 171 million users of virtual reality in 2018 and the global market of virtual reality is expected to be around $44.7 billion by 2024, let that sink in. There are financial profits higher than in other fields.

How virtual reality is changing L&D for the better

  • Many big CEOs attend their meetings and brainstorming sessions through virtual reality. They can connect with their colleagues and clients from anywhere to anywhere. Volkswagen has its own virtual reality application for discussions and brainstorming sessions.
  • Gamification is an important part of L&D in which employees learn through games. They compete among themselves and get to know more. Gamification can be done through virtual reality nowadays. Many institutions provide real-life scenarios to pilots through virtual reality which helps them in having a prerequisite about the vulnerabilities.
  • People can bat in a cricket match made completely from virtual reality. They can play games in which they fly a plane in virtual reality. There are many famous virtual reality games like Vader immortal, No Man’s sky, etc. The standard is a simulation that is high and gives you the feel of real-life experience.
  • Companies have started to find solutions for their everyday problems through virtual reality. There are glasses/outfits which you can try on your body before buying with the help of virtual reality.
  • Govred technology is a firm based in Iowa. It has created a virtual reality environment that provides training and combat experience for police personnel. Many defense forces use virtual reality programs to train their cadets mentally and physically. This may be expensive at the beginning but at the time of output, you will be satisfied.

Conclusion

With each day passing by, people are creating infinite possibilities for them through virtual reality. It gives us the real-life experience of any required thing or event without even manufacturing it yet. This will result in fewer errors and higher accuracy. This article was all about how virtual reality is changing the L&D process drastically. I hope it helps!

Retention and Training Go Hand-in-Hand!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Today’s corporate world is very vigorous; to stay ahead in the game businesses need people who are multi-talented and dynamic who can handle the technical as well as the non-technical evolutions in the industry and can come up with creative solutions to those challenges.

Realizing the importance of human resources, corporations have started incurring huge expenditure on account of the training and development of their talent. In this competitive industry retaining a talented workforce is another challenge for corporations, training and retention stats have shown a positive correlation in the past. Let’s delve into the importance of training at work and how it helps with employee retention.

Why is training important at work?

It’s not to assume that trained personnel will be better at doing the job when compared with an individual who hadn’t got any training for the job. From a broader perspective, training can be seen as a method to instill discipline to perform a given task in an organized manner. So, how does it change things?

Imagine doing a task without any predefined instructions or training manual, you might be able to complete the task but what’s important to observe here is the time taken to complete the task. That’s how efficiency is defined and measure, for big corporations it’s not about just doing the task it’s all about efficiently doing the job that would save time and money for the company.

Training new employees in the company help them to understand the work culture and the company’s expectations. It helps to align their performance and expectations from the work creating a pool of satisfied workforce. Initial training programs are work-oriented, they give emphasis on skill development and knowledge building that will help the employee to do the job effectively. Apart from developing new skills training also helps in honing the old ones. The improved know-how to do the job benefits the corporations in the long run by the means of increased employee productivity.

In addition to this, training also helps corporations to save money that they would otherwise spend on hiring new talent from outside by developing a competitive in-house human resource pool. Leadership is among one of the most important factors when it comes to the longevity of the business, a robust training curriculum also helps with nurturing the leadership qualities in employees who can expand the business even further.

How does it help employee retention?

Employee retention can be understood in the context of employee turnover ratio, the employee turnover ratio can be defined as the percentage of workers who leave the organization and are replaced by new employees. It can be calculated by dividing the number of employees who left the company by the average number of employees during a given time frame. Employee retention can be understood as the ability of an organization to retain its talent pool.

So how exactly does training help with employee retention? Well, starting with on-board training experience, research studies have shown that a well-designed on-board training experience increases the probability of employee retention for companies.

Imagine a scenario where the newcomer has to find out about everything without any guidance, compare this to a situation with a well-balanced onboarding program that provides the recruit with all the information about the company and the departments within. Naturally, the second scenario will lead to a satisfied and productive employee.

As per statistical data, the worldwide turnover rate is around 11%, the turnover rates vary for different industries with the securities industry having the highest turnover rate at 100%. This further increases in the case of nascent stage start-ups with a turnover rate of over 400%. Start-ups are not very structure and they don’t have a robust training program in place, partly due to budget constraints. This has an impact on their sky-high turnover rates.

Top 5 Fintech Trends Everyone Should Be Watching in 2020

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The finance industry has undergone a massive technological transformation in the past few decades. This amalgamation of Finance and Technology has given birth to a new trend in the finance industry called Fintech. The Fintech industry is comprised of companies that leverage cutting-edge technology to provide creative solutions to traditional problems which were earlier unaddressed by the traditional system of banking and finance. The emphasis is on providing a seamless experience for the customer and boosting customer satisfaction by eradicating the roadblocks using technology.

With the proliferation of the internet and smart devices, consumer behaviour has changed in general. Consumers are more aware and more demanding today as compared to a few decades ago. The general technological advancement has been such that the need to provide instant solution to the problem is paramount. People are buying goods through the web using their smartphones. Now without the latest technological evolution this wouldn’t be possible, to cater to such growing demands from different industries the finance sector had to level-up and satisfy the needs of the customers. Digital wallet, digital banking, mobile banking, etc. are recent developments in the Finance industry that can be categorised under Fintech.

 

What’s Trending In The Fintech Domain?

The Fintech industry itself has evolved to a great extent in the last few years. With mobile banking and digital wallet being quickly adopted by the masses, some of the latest developments are still to be seen. Let’s delve deeper into the latest trends in the Fintech domain.

Contextual Banking

Contextual banking is the need of the hour, with the increase in hyper-personalization services customers are getting used to more specific products and services. The one size fits all approach is obsolete in the age of AI and machine learning. The contextual banking model is based on providing the right products or services to the customer at the right time and place. With the growth of big data and AI it is getting easier to provide contextual banking to customers based on their historical transactions and other relevant data.

Robo-Advisors

Technology has made it possible to train robots to carry out complex tasks that earlier required human intellect and interference. Robo-Advisor is a recent development in the Fintech industry where robots will provide complex investment and asset management solutions to customers. The advisory services can be availed online and require very minimal to no human involvements. Robo-Advisors factor in the risk-return profile of the customer and then accordingly provide investment solutions.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic process automation continues to be a major trend in the Fintech segment. It not only helps the Finance companies to be more efficient in their functioning but also helps them to effectively comply with the latest rules and regulations set by regulatory bodies. The automation is not just limited to substituting human labour and performing a task but also includes suggesting improvements to the existing processes.

Blockchain

The recent technological developments have also exposed us to a new league of criminals who are tech-savvy and technologically advanced to break into our online portals. In the contemporary digital world, data is the real deal, identity fraud and theft of data, in general, is a major concern with increasing dependence on technology. Blockchain is being adopted to boost security in the financial services industry, from smart contracts to digital payments and identity management it has a whole lot to offer.

Innovations In The Mobile Payment Systems

With the increased internet penetration and affordable smartphones, the whole world has entered the digital revolution. Transferring payments using smartphone applications has been the norm since the past couple of years and rightly so given the convenience it brings to the customers. The technology however is not static and drives further innovations into this Fintech segment, like for example biometric access control that includes facial and finger print recognition. Other developments include suggesting users on their purchase decisions by factoring in their transaction history. There is much more going on in the mobile payment segment of the Fintech space.

Conclusion

The Fintech industry is still in its nascent phase and is growing by the day. It has proved to be a game-changer in the Finance industry and still has a lot more to offer.

What Are Examples of Fintech?

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Understanding Fintech

The 21st-century customers demand more and better, thankfully for businesses, technology has evolved to save the day. Every industry today has been going under a technological transformation to meet the needs of its consumers whose behaviour has been influenced by time and technological advancements. The brick and motor stores have got a dot com address to serve their customers online. Traditional banking services have been upgraded to digital banking services to cater to the needs of their customers on a 24*7 basis. This change has been possible only because of major technological advancements in the banking and financial services industry; this amalgamation of technology and finance has given birth to the Fintech industry.

The major emphasis of the Fintech industry is to provide more refined and targeted services to the customers and overcome the challenges faced by the traditional banking and finance segment. At the core of the Fintech industry lays the idea of leveraging technology to solve problems creatively, providing maximum customer satisfaction and creating a pool of loyal customers. Fintech also includes the development and utilisation of cutting-edge cryptocurrency. It’s a broad term that incorporates all progressive technological innovations in the given space.

Examples of Fintech Applications

Now that we have a basic understanding of the Fintech industry, let’s delve deeper into the subject and find out about the different applications of Fintech that are improving the world for better.

Mobile Payments

Today, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to transfer payments given the mobile payment solutions provided by various companies. A few decades ago it was just a dream, transferring payments was a challenge and it required you to visit your banks in some cases to do the drill. Now with the advent of progressive Fintech technology, you just need to use your smartphone to make a purchase and that too within a few seconds.

Robo-Advisors and Financial Management

Who would’ve thought that the 21st century will offer Robo-Advisors to guide a human on viable investment solutions and address finance related queries? Robo-advisors are the latest trend in the Fintech sphere. With the growth in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology, robots are being trained to do more complex tasks that earlier required human intervention. This technology provides leverages various algorithms to provide asset management solutions for different customers by assessing their needs and requirements.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency has been gaining widespread acceptance and popularity from the customers. There are cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitate the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain is gaining widespread acceptance and being used for security purposes to maintain the privacy of data and keep it from being misused.

Crowdfunding Platforms

There are various crowdfunding platforms like Kickstart, GofundMe, etc. that became popular in the recent years. These crowdfunding platforms allow users on the internet to send and receive money from other users who visit the platform. The major applications of these portals have been realised while accumulating funds for a cause. People also use these portals to get funding for their business or project from investors across the globe.

Insurance

Fintech has also spread across the insurance industry, InsureTech has been the buzz word in the insurance sector that takes a holistic approach to insurance services and covers everything including car insurance, home insurance, data protection, etc. InsureTech and personal finance companies like Mint, LifeLock, etc. are gaining traction from investors in the Fintech space.

Conclusion

The word Fintech is an amalgamation of Finance and technology; it has revolutionized the financial services industry and has spread across other related sectors like insurance and banking providing maximum customer satisfaction.