3 ways BI is changing the game for fintech

Fintech is becoming an increasingly competitive market. A KPMG analysis saw investments decline in 2016 and investors are now more cautious about betting on segments that are becoming saturated. Lending and payments are two segments that saw increased participation over the past two years.

Competitors come in all forms. We now have traditional institutions, tech giants, and startups all competing for the same market. Despite this growth, fintech is still largely considered a “Wild West.” Governments are scrambling how to come up with new laws to regulate the industry. In addition, the jury is also still out for many of the fintech pioneers as some new business models such as peer to peer lending have yet to be proven successful.

Companies should leverage all possible sources of competitive advantage. Business intelligence (BI) and analytics are emerging to be ideal sources. Much has still yet to be made sense of in fintech and the first companies to be able to do so will surely have a definitive advantage over the competition.

Here are 3 ways BI is changing the game for fintech.

Fintech is still in a state of flux. Traditional institutions are aggressively trying to cope and many of the new services have yet to reach critical mass. It is in these early stages where BI is crucial for fintech efforts. BI helps track usage and market trends. Data analysis can limit uncertainty and uncover trends that could guide companies to improve their strategies early on.  What’s more, many online trading platforms are looking into sophisticated BI solutions.

Robo-advisor startups like Wealthfront and Betterment came into the scene looking to disrupt the investment segments through their easy-to-use apps. Yet, investment mainstay Charles Schwab was able to compete against these upstarts by offering their own robo-advisor service. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios now has over $10 billion in assets under management. A key part of how Charles Schwab took on the project was relying on speed and early feedback and testing in order to come up with a viable service.

In another recent development, end-to-end BI service provider CoolaData announced its integration with trading platform MetaTrader. This integration allows brokers access to enterprise-level BI and behavior analytics. Through analytics, traders can get valuable insights on what market conditions are affecting their performance.

“With Cooladata and the new MetaTrader integration, the ability to unify all trader activities and get any insight as to how market scenarios are impacting the company performance is finally here,” said Mr. Daniel Kibel, CEO of CMTrading.

One of the supposed advantages of tech firms over traditional banks when it comes to fintech is the expertise in crafting superior user experience. Traditional banking isn’t exactly known to offer a pleasant experience.