Last updated on February 25th, 2021 at 11:44 am
The world has almost come to a standstill due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Several economies got hit, resulting in the worst economic shock in world history. However, the survival of the fittest is the norm. Digital and tech companies are preparing for a big paradigm shift in terms of their organizational structure and working models.
The business must continue, and many organizations have switched to a remote working model. Fintech is one among the worst-hit business and must exhibit a substantial resilience to cope with this change. After some minimal initial hitches, employers and employees are slowly getting comfortable with the new arrangement. As face-to-face interactions and cash transactions are witnessing a sharp decline, many fintech companies are experiencing a surge in the demand for their services.
What are the Main Challenges to Fintech?
Fintech deals with extremely confidential data, and cybersecurity is one of their biggest concerns. With most of the transactions and activities happening online, hackers would be trying to break into these networks to gain access the sensitive data. Any such incidence that blows away the customer trust could be damaging to the industry. This has led to the fintech firms scaling up their cybersecurity measures with more investments in that front.
Similarly, storage of information is another challenge. The fact that fintech employees deal with a huge amount of confidential data emphasises the need for cloud storage. Many fintech companies have strictly banned their employees from using local storage for keeping information.
These companies are relying on cloud-based storage to ensure data protection. Similarly, they have enabled VPN to ensure secure office network.
Moving to a Remote Working Plan
This could be the last thing any fintech would have ever preferred. However, the coronavirus outbreak has forced to rethink the way work has to be done. Though the situations compelled the companies to switch to the new working arrangement,
Market giants such as Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. have instructed both the employees and the companies are getting comfortable with passing time. fintech in the middle east like the UAE and Bahrain have announced their plans to move towards working from home to ensure the safety of employees while still supporting the resident’s needs.
Similarly, countries across the globe have asked the companies to make necessary arrangements for their employees to work from home.
Fintech companies are known for their fast adaptation to the changing environment. One major reason behind this is that they are driven by newest technology. They use cloud-based systems and the latest software, and all these supports remote working.
However, this unprecedented situation has proven that working from home doesn’t mean less productivity. It has been several weeks into this new arrangement and the companies have not seen any considerable dip in productivity.
On the traditional business front, on the other hand, customers are demanding for fast adaptation of technology to facilitate online business and transactions, and this has increased the demand for fintech services, Banks, for example, are actively consulting fintech companies to help them move towards technology-driven business.
Wealth management companies are also looking to move towards the online business model. Compared to 2019, there is a considerable increase in their online users and many financial advisors have started to offer their services online.
COVID-19 and the consequential lockdown have called for a quick adaptation to a new business and work model with extreme urgency. Although the global economic crisis and recession have posed fresh challenges to the fintech companies, they are adapting to the new arrangement without much problem.
However, the coming days are challenging for fintech companies because of the massive change happening in the global economic landscape. Success and survival of fintech companies largely depend upon how fast and efficiently they are coping up with the challenges, and how fast they could come up with innovative business solutions to deal with this crisis.
