Product Management in the FinTech World by PayPal Group PM, Nausher Cholavaram

What is Fin Tech?

Fin (ancial) Tech (nology):

The use of technology to accelerate the delivery of financial services to consumers & businesses.

What is special about Fin Tech?

  • Trusted Intermediary. Trust & Safety are very important when dealing with other people`s money.

  • Economic Impact. Banks & Financial institutions are a tool for most governments to control monetary policy, hence heavily regulated.

  • User Experience tied to Financial Health. Your product can greatly help (or hurt) youruser`s financial health.

  • Time - tested Ecosystem. The long history of money has resulted in a an inter-connected and related services.

Trust, Intermediation & Regulation.

Other People`s Money

Trusted Intermediation is Foundational

  • As a provider of Financial Services - a fundamental requirement is to provide and maintain trust.

  • The wide range of regulations and rules in the financial services industry exist overall to ensure that trust and fairness is maintained.

Criticality of Regulations and Compliance in Financial Services.

  • A product that meets all customer needs and provides an innovative solution may still fail if it doesn`t meet the requisite rules & regulations.

  • As a Fin Tech PM - being aware of the regulations & laws that apply to your product is critical.

Fin Tech work spans the frontend, the backend and the back-office.

As an app developer, you're looking at creating a user interface that gives your users a lot of value and something they can use. As a PM platform, you gain insight into managing different services, creating a roadmap that works with consumer applications of any kind.
An important factor that distinguishes FinTech PM from perhaps other areas of PM is the importance of risk in compliance.

What rules and compliance may apply.

Ecosystem & Value Chains

The Power of Networks

Nature of Financial Services Transactions

  • Financial transactions always have at least 2 parties (institution & consumer) and quite often 3 parties (institution, consumer & receiver / merchant).

  • Besides these explicit parties. There may be more parties/entities involved to handle risk & fraud, data & processing needs, underwriting and much more.

  • There exists a large and well-established ecosystem to enable financial services.

  • By utilizing the power of partnerships, your product can focus on unlocking new value.

Illustrating the importance of partnerships in Financial Services

  • In the following section, we look at a Card and a Bank payment processes at a high-level

  • The purpose is to illustrate the roles played by different partners in the eco-system and the importance of partnerships and ecosystems.

Payment Card Processing Flow

Bank Payment Processing Flow

Creating Fin Tech Products That Work.

Launching a successful Fin Tech product

  • Improves Customer Financial Health

  • Balances Innovation with Regulation

  • Achieves Product Market Fit (Jobs to be done).

Help your customers by focusing on the Financial space they are in.

Your product helps them accomplish these.

  • State the "job to be done" for the customer.

  • What type of job are they trying to accomplish.

    • The job could be - Functional, Emotional, Related, Purchase decision.

  • Find out the substitutes and what they lack.

    • What product (or person or tool) is currently being employed to do the job.

    • Why did they hire the product? What do they struggle with?

Key Takeaways

Nausher Cholavaram, PayPal Group PM