Fintechs are in crisis and Jamaica has answers

Nearshore americas will host a crucial webinar later this month on the challenges that financial technology firms are facing following the intense demand that has grown for their services over the last 18 months.

Scheduled for October 20, the event will also examine how Jamaica with its thriving digital economy is well-positioned to assist in some of the most crucial areas of fintech’s customer service challenges.

A key misunderstanding from the fintech industry is that customer support is a horizontal offering and that customers are, in effect, all the same. However, small business owners dealing with issues around a loan are very different to customers with personal accounts who are struggling to pay their phone bills.

Retaining the human touch has been highlighted as one of fintechs most pressing concerns. In other words, the industry is certainly in a customer support crisis. With its growing pool of tech talent and a strong business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Jamaica is ideally positioned to help deal with much of the issues plaguing the fintech industry.

The global fintech industry is growing at an annual rate of over 23 per cent, and even before the arrival of COVID-19, an estimated 64 per cent of consumers had used two or more fintech services or platforms. Now, following the acceleration of digital adoption during the pandemic, a massive 74 per cent of Americans view fintech as part of the “new normal”.

The demand, then, is massive. One of the major components of the fintech success story is that its start-ups have lost-cost models.

There are no physical branches as there are for traditional banks, so communication between fintech companies and their customers is almost entirely digital. The “digital-first” approach clearly delivers rapid growth, but does it deliver strong customer service that will sustain the influx of consumer interest?

Just a few fintechs currently support their customers through call centres. The vast majority use the aforementioned automated systems.

These tend to be woefully inadequate both in terms of time and scale – taking between days and weeks to respond to pressing customer needs, thereby creating anxious and angry customers. The situation gets even more complicated in terms of the level of understanding that customers need when dealing with personal and business finance matters, which generate a lot of emotions.

Among the keynote speakers for the webinar are Marlon Cooper, CEO, Symptai Consulting; and Dmitri Dawkins, fintech operator and commercial director at Phoenix International.