Como identificar e resolver problemas e pontos problemáticos de FinTech para seus clientes?

Understanding your customer segment often means being able to relate to it, but also testing the hypothesis you’re utilizing. If you, as a business owner, deem a certain feature to be extremely useful, you might enable user-testing with your TA to ensure that this is indeed true for your audience specifically. Also, a deep understanding of the customer segment often can be achieved through an understanding of your competitors and their capabilities. You can analyse what your competitors’ are doing to understand the demand present on the market, and evaluate the viability of features you want to execute.

Customer research is an art form, in the early stages the key is to deeply understand the cultural context, the underlying motivations and what customers are trying to achieve more broadly. If you narrow in too soon on their "Fintech problems" you will miss the key insights to their true needs. When this is established understanding, what they use to complete the task today, the frustrations and their work arounds they use to achieve this will give value to the problems and drivers of behaviour that will need to be overcome.

Everything boils down to your target segment ! That's why it is crucial to understand and know your segment. This will help you tailor your: - Brand and marketing - Technological Value Proposition - Tailored offering - Distribution Channels Start by defining your initial target persona and shape everything around it

Some well spread techniques are: - polls - surveys - focus groups - social experiments - interviews these techniques are used in statistical research to collect data that you can leverage for strategic decisions

Fintech platforms aim to simplify financial planning for their target segment. They should focus on inclusivity and transparency. Understanding your customers' pain points is important for that. When it comes to finances, your target customer can be widely segregated based on age, demographic, gender, income, etc. The best way to understand their pain points is to divide them into well-defined cohorts, conduct surveys, collect feedback, and devise solutions accordingly.

Identifying the pain points involves a structured approach. A well-crafted problem statement not only guides the solution development process but also ensures that the solutions are aligned with customer needs. Here's an example from my business: "Small business owners often struggle with managing cash flow due to a lack of real-time financial insights and user-friendly financial management tools. This impacts their ability to make informed financial decisions, potentially leading to cash shortages or missed growth opportunities."

Beyond traditional problem-solving methods, one of the best approaches is immersing ourselves in the client's operations, understanding the pain points they express and those that might be latent or unarticulated. Involving key stakeholders fosters a more comprehensive problem statement. This method captures diverse perspectives and aligns the solution with the overarching business strategy. Additionally, reframing the problem statement as an opportunity statement can be transformative. By viewing challenges as opportunities for innovation, we shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive value creation, ultimately delivering Fintech solutions that address pain points and elevate the entire operational landscape.

Defining the Problem is the first step in solving FinTech challenges. Before diving into solutions, we must define the problem statement clearly. This step ensures clarity and focus, allowing teams to target specific challenges effectively. A well-defined problem statement promotes a customer-centric approach, fostering empathy and aligning product development with real-world issues. It facilitates effective communication among stakeholders, driving innovation by guiding teams towards tailored solutions. Ultimately, this strategic move lays the foundation for measurable outcomes that resonate with customers.

My top advice is to avoid solution bias at all costs. Focus on describing the problem without prematurely proposing solutions. This ensures a more objective problem definition.

I have found first-principle thinking very helpful in problem definition. Instead of simply identifying a specific problem, gaining a deep understanding of why this problem exists in the first place will be crucial in your problem discovery. Engaging with others who have previously attempted to solve this problem without success should also be part of the process.

By aligning our problem-solving efforts with the user's perspective, we ensure that the solutions are not just technically sound but resonate with the user's needs and pain points on a fundamental level. Beyond quantitative measures, understanding the emotional and experiential impact of the solution on users contributes to its long-term success. Involving users in the co-creation process, mainly through beta testing and collaborative design sessions, is also a suitable method, fostering a sense of ownership and ensuring that the solution is genuinely tailored to their needs. This user-centric approach enhances the solution's effectiveness and establishes a foundation for enduring customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It is often misunderstood that FinTech solution validation requires an actual product or prototype. In fact, you can validate most of your hypotheses by simply talking to your users. There are many advantages to starting with these steps: - You are not limited to the scope of your product. Let these discussions be open and outside of the scope. You will be amazed at the new insights you may gain. - Don't talk to your customers with the intention to sell; talk to them with the intention to seek their insights, and you will get much more out of your discussions

Participate in FinTech forums and think tanks to gain insights into broader industry challenges and innovative solutions. My involvement in an international FinTech forum provided exposure to emerging trends and common challenges faced by FinTech customers globally. This knowledge informed the development of a cross-border payment solution that addressed pain points related to currency conversion and transfer delays, validated through discussions and workshops within these forums. Engage customers directly in the solution development process through co-creation initiatives. For a FinTech startup focused on small business financing, we organised co-creation workshops with a group of small business owners, our target users.

As described in the earlier section, customer insights should be collected, analyzed and translated into solutions from all different user perspectives. In my experience it is not a one-time process, but needs to be somewhat continuous, as part of BAU - easy to follow, effective and timely. By providing access, transparency and clarity can only energize customers to participate in the process for real results.

A sandbox is a great way for fintechs to engage customers and test /iterate if the idea works for their customers. It is also helpful to save time and money if the objective cannot be achieved. It also helps customers pick and choose between different user journeys that may not originally anticipated while scoping out the problem

Customer feedback is a vital component in the future roadmap of scaling any solution. It becomes even more pivotal in the fast-changing environment that FinTechs are part of. There are enough examples of FinTechs that have scaled quickly only to fail at a more rapid pace. This comes from insufficient or ineffective customer feedback management. Successful FinTechs have used customer feedback as a key tool to minimize spend on items market research and advisory while some have even gone to the extent of monetizing the insights that they receive from their customer base.

Scaling solutions in FinTech is all about agility and responsiveness. Utilizing approaches like MVP and agile lets you adapt quickly to market feedback. It's essential to deliver efficiently while keeping an eye on scalability. The key is not just launching a solution, but nurturing and evolving it based on customer feedback and market demands.

Complex solutions require significant investment in implementation and enablement. Neglecting this can leave your customers with a poor return on investment in your product, leading to churn when the full value of your solution isn’t realized. Successful implementation is as crucial as the solution’s capabilities. When developing your product, consider how customers and your client service team will enable the feature. What’s the setup experience? How will legacy data be migrated? For scalability, comprehensive documentation is essential. Equipped with technical details, your staff and SI partners can confidently handle implementation projects and ensure your customers realize the full value of your solution.

While agile and MVP are popular for scaling solutions, they can sometimes rush products to market before they're truly ready, impacting user trust. A more deliberate approach, emphasizing thorough testing and gradual rollouts, might slow initial growth but often results in a more robust, reliable product. This method can ultimately lead to greater long-term success and customer loyalty, as it prioritizes quality and user satisfaction over speed.

Do your research and make sure you understand customers' needs and pain points, leveraging data analytics and customer feedback. Then, prioritize solutions based on their impact and implement them to ensure effectiveness.

If you slice it horizontally, most fintech products must embed solutions around KYC and fraud/risk mitigation. These common areas often introduce significant friction into the customer journey. Rather than looking at the problem, one can look at these areas as opportunities. By implementing user-centric solutions around KYC and risk management, you can significantly enhance your product's overall value proposition, reduce friction, and improve conversion rates.

As part of financial inclusion in emerging countries like India, there is a need for financial literacy, especially regarding credit scores and how it impact financial lives. There is a great opportunity for a platform to provide such educational awareness and equip individuals with ways to improve their credit scores by recording their payments for rent/utility bills. Similar to Petal in the USA, which provides credit builder credit cards for underserved segments of society to help them build credit score.

Top platforms in the US, such as Betterment, study user data to provide personalized investment plans. The introduction of open banking in India offers a big chance for fintech startups. Bank APIs make sharing data safe, encouraging new ideas and competition in finance. This openness encourages teamwork between fintech startups and banks, leading to creative solutions for Indian customers' various needs.

Many customers, especially those involved in international business or remittances, find the high fees associated with cross-border transactions to be a significant pain point. In response to this issue, I worked on integrating blockchain technology to facilitate cross-border payments within our FinTech platform. By leveraging cryptocurrencies for transactions, we were able to significantly reduce the fees and processing times associated with international payments, providing a cost-effective and efficient solution for our users.

SMEs are the backbone of our economy, but they more often than not run into problems when they are looking for financing. It's no secret that banks are not keen to open the doors for SME financing - that's where B2B fintech come into play. B2B fintech, such as CapitalBox can offer business loans, sales financing, collateral loans, credit lines and other products for SMEs. When others close the doors - B2B fintech open them, providing fast, digital application process, as well as funds in one working day, empowering SMEs growth.

It’s all about staying connected to our users. We engage in direct conversations through surveys, feedback loops, and social media to truly understand their frustrations and needs. Data analytics play a critical role, allowing us to spot patterns and trends that highlight common issues. Once we pinpoint these pain points, we brainstorm innovative solutions, keeping usability in mind. It’s crucial to involve our team to develop and iterate on our products quickly. Being customer-centric is the way.

(a) Adopt agile methodologies such as Scrum or Kanban to foster iterative development and rapid response to customer feedback, allowing for quick adjustments and improvements to FinTech offerings. Implementing agile practices enabled our team to break down complex problems into smaller, manageable tasks and deliver incremental updates to our FinTech platform. This iterative approach helped us address customer pain points more efficiently (b) Maintain ongoing communication channels with customers through various touchpoints such as email newsletters, social media, and in-app messaging to gather feedback, address concerns, and keep users informed about product enhancements.

Spend time researching the right questions to ask potential customers in order to quickly identify pain points. Understanding this saves significant amount of time in the discovery process. Then work out the value that your solution creates - make it easy for your customer to pick your solution!

What makes building fintech products a lot more challenging is the the onus you have of handling the fiduciary duties and navigating through the waves of the evolving laws and regulations. There's no room for mistakes, big or small.

To identify and solve FinTech problems for customers, you can follow these steps: - Market Research: Analyze industry trends, competitor offerings, and regulatory changes to uncover pain points. - Customer Engagement: Use surveys, interviews, and support feedback to understand user issues directly. - Data Analytics: Track user behavior and patterns to identify friction points and use predictive analytics to anticipate future problems. - Customer Journey Mapping: Outline key touchpoints in the user experience, identifying and optimizing areas of friction. - Iterate and Test: Develop MVPs, A/B test solutions, and use agile development to implement user feedback quickly.