Custom FinTech Solutions for Startups
The FinTech market is booming now, as it combines technological innovation with finance. Fintech software is thus gaining popularity daily, offering automated and secure financial transactions and seamless omnichannel user experiences. The digital transition of financial operations also fuels the FinTech market’s growth, estimated to continue at a CAGR of 23%+ until 2025 at the very least.
Thus, every startup wishing to integrate robust and secure financial solutions for its users should consider financial custom software development. Here is a guide to the types of custom Fintech tools and solutions you can pick for your business startup’s smooth market entry and effective customer service.
FinTech App Types for Startups
First, it’s vital to note that any custom software you develop for your business architecture should target specific user needs. FinTech solutions for numerous financial aspects, such as p2p payments, invoicing, payroll, lending/borrowing platforms, etc., are available for all business types. Here is the product range from which you can choose.
- Money management
- Online banking
- Trading and investment
- Accounting
- Lending and borrowing
FinTech Product Trends in 2024
The FinTech market progresses quickly, keeping pace with broader tech trends in the digital market. So, to develop a relevant solution, you need to embrace these trends in software development.
#1 Web 3.0
The modern drive for decentralization and user control over personal finance has given rise to the advent of Web 3.0. It is a new, decentralized Internet concept devoid of single controlling authority, allowing peer-to-peer transactions based on self-executing contract mechanisms. Thus, you can appeal to larger numbers of users by incorporating decentralized payment solutions into your business platform.
#2 Wealth management
The number of retail investors has risen tremendously over the past few years. The trend was associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and greater availability of treading and investment tutorials to help individuals enter the stock or crypto market. Thus, wealth management apps for investment, trading, stock analysis, staking/farming, and the like have become popular among users.
#3 RegTech
FinTech and blockchain have posed numerous challenges to conventional financial regulations. Their digital-only, decentralized nature has made it hard to oversee financial operations and ensure safety. Thus, new RegTech software emerges in the FinTech sector to provide risk management, legal counseling, and robust regulation.
#Chimney: Home Value Integration
Chimney is a tool that helps engage homeowners by integrating home value and home equity within online banking. Financial institutions can generate revenue by providing personalized loan and deposit offers and partnering with a digital marketing agency for FinTech to effectively promote these offers to their customers. It also provides access to property data that accelerates loan approvals and enhances the banking experience.
#Robinhood X1 Credit Card: Challenging Apple Card
Robinhood launched a Gold Card, challenging the Apple Card with features like cash-back that can be invested, no annual or foreign transaction fees, family member cards, virtual card creation, and a new app. It’s exclusive to Robinhood Gold members and includes numberless physical cards for security.
#Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): Tax-Advantaged Savings
Banks and credit unions offer HSAs, a popular tax-advantaged way to save for healthcare costs in the United States. Financial institutions should consider HSAs to attract customers, enhance loyalty, expand their financial product offerings, grow deposits, and earn fee revenue.
#MoneyLion WOW: Premium Subscription and AI Search
MoneyLion introduced a premium subscription and AI-powered search to its financial management platform. These additions support customer growth, enhance user engagement, and improve financial decision-making. The premium service costs $9.99 per month.
#Chime Deals: Cash-Back Feature
Chime launched a cash-back feature in partnership with Upside for its debit and credit cards. This feature offers fee-free cash back on everyday purchases like gas and groceries at over 30,000 locations. Members can activate deals through the Chime app and receive cash back directly into their Chime checking account within ten days.
Credit: Valere.io
The Cost of Custom FinTech Solutions
Once you decide to create a custom FinTech software product for your startup, you need to consider several factors that affect the price of the project.
- Determine your budget for the needed software and, based on your resources, choose a freelancer, outsourcing company, or local agency that provides turnkey solutions.
- Take into account the price differences in different regions. For instance, using local developers’ services may be too costly if you own a startup in North America or Western Europe. You can opt for outsourced services in Eastern Europe, Asia, or Latin America.
- Share the details of your project with the chosen outsourced provider to get the final quote. While a basic FinTech app with minimal features can cost around $50,000, adding sophisticated features and a complex architecture will inevitably increase the project’s price.
Development Challenges to Overcome
FinTech software creation involves numerous issues that you need to monitor throughout the development process. By checking all these points off the list, you can be sure your app will be a safe and functional product.
- Legal compliance
Though FinTech software is digital-only, it still needs to comply with local or international legal regulations for financial transactions. Failure to do so is very costly for the startup, so the development process should be guided by an understanding of binding regulations.
- Anti-fraud measures
The major flaw of digital apps is that they have a different user verification process that doesn’t require a physical presence in a banking institution or office. Thus, FinTech apps are considered more vulnerable to financial fraud schemes, which rigorous authentication and authorization procedures can prevent.
- Security
Data security is key for all clients, as they risk personal and banking details in case of the app’s hack. Besides, the app’s owners can be subjected to enormous fines in case of improper customer data storage and protection. Thus, it is critical to guarantee customer data security by encrypted coding and rigorous security audit of the app before its launch.
- Safe APIs
Modern FinTech apps rarely exist in a vacuum. Most of them integrate with other software in the Web 3.0 ecosystem to ensure seamless user experiences. However, the API bridges between apps typically become their most vulnerable spots prone to hacker attacks. Thus, your provider’s task is to ensure the end-to-end security of your app’s API connection and data transfer via payment gateways, cloud servers, etc.
FinTech Is the Future of Business
As we’ve just seen, FinTech is a massive trend in the modern business landscape. So, startups wishing to win a fair share of the highly competitive digital market should provide safe and user-friendly FinTech solutions to their demanding clientele.
Opting for custom software development is a better option. It guarantees ownership and scalability of your product, better security, and other advantages that plug-and-play solutions don’t give. So, keep the recommendations from this article in mind and embrace the 2024 trends to enter the market with a splash.