Bankloch

Fintech and customer-centricity go hand in hand . The Fintech movement originated from the observation that traditional incumbent banks insufficiently served their customers and focused too much on their own interests. This customer-first focus of the early Fintech pioneers is still at the heart of most Fintechs today, which means also that customer-centric design is a top priority for most Fintechs. Although every company preaches to be customer-centric, very few companies have properly implemented it. While simple at first sight, i.e.   continuously listen to your customers and design according to their needs , in reality this is much easier said than done. In certain cases it might not even be the best strategy, i.e. a product-centric approach, where a Fintech start-up pushes its own product vision towards the customer, might be a more successful recipe. In this blog, I hope to give some   pitfalls and best practices   in adopting a customer-centric approach. Obviously, there is no

The rapid growth of the Fintech industry in recent years happened in a decade of   exceptional economic climate , i.e. extremely low interest rates (close to 0% or even negative), exceptionally low inflation (less than 2%), a flooding of cash by central banks and an abundance of VC cash. This resulted in: Challenging times for incumbent financial players as interest   spread was very low . Negative interest rates on business deposits and certain bonds , resulting in scenarios, which put all traditional banking rules upside down. Credits and saving accounts with interest rates close to 0 , making it exceedingly difficult to make a competitive difference on the interest rate offered for current or saving accounts. As a result, value-added services and UX experience became more important, i.e. domains in which neo-banks traditionally excelled. Insurers facing issues to still   pay-out the guaranteed interest rates  on long-term life insurances and pension plans. An   overload of money pou