Fin (ancial) Tech (nology):
The use of technology to accelerate the delivery of financial services to consumers & businesses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Improves Customer Financial Health
Balances Innovation with Regulation
Achieves Product Market Fit (Jobs to be done).
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?
Nausher Cholavaram, PayPal Group PM