Last weekend I took part in technology and innovation festival iNOVUSS is Riga. I participated in discussion about financial sector future in the context of the classic topic: Banks vs. Fintechs. While a couple of years ago the discussion really was around this middle word versus, over time it changed to in cooperation with, and now I believeit simply has changed to financial industry consisting of banks and fintechs. Below I have pointed out couple of advantages fintechs like TWINO have over banks, while competing, cooperating and coexisting in the financial industry.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
The
competitive advantage for FinTechs over banks is that FinTechs do everything
vice versa – Fintechs start with product, testing, then product changes and
improvement and only then turn to regulation and compliance.
Banks work the other way around and hence don’t have room for mistakes. In this
way fintech have the chance and freedom to perfect the product and adapt to the
market. TWINO works the same way – we start with product and what we want as
the outcome and only then find a way to be compliant. We don’t let regulation
to slow us down.
PEOPLE
One
of the highest value for fintech is the people that work there. These people
are not ruined by the corporate bullshit and are very hands-on. This especially
applies to top management – in TWINO every management team member is very hands
on and involved in processes, not afraid to get his or her hands dirty.
While banks are full of the people who aren’t ready to be involved themselves,
they will be slowed down.
REGULATION
We at TWINO see increasing regulation in Latvia for platforms like ours as an advantage. For our investors it means credibility and transparency and for us it means higher trust from our investors. Both sides are winners.
How we approach it and make sure it doesn’t get involved in
product development is very much dependent on company culture and ability to be
agile and adapt. In TWINO we put big focus exactly on this to ensure that while
we are compliant and act according to regulation, we keep the way we work as it
is.
At TWINO we have People team to push the agenda, hands on leadership and
employees who can adapt and act fast.