Crossing the lines: How fintech is powering financial services and technology firms out of their lanes
15 October 2019
The results of PwC’s Global Fintech report – conducted by PwC Research – have been released. The survey gathers the opinions of over 500 global business leaders to explore the current fintech landscape, the factors that will determine likely future winners and losers, and the steps that organisations can take to put them in the best position to lead.
Some of the key findings and insights from the survey include:
- Adopting a fintech-centered strategy is paramount – Our survey found that 47% of technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) and 48% of financial services (FS) organisations have embedded fintech fully into their strategic operating model. These executives who’ve already fully engaged with fintech are more likely than those who haven’t to be very confident about their future revenue growth and their ability to outstrip the competition.
- FS should look to TMT for ideas about how best to use fintech – The FS executives we surveyed think that using fintech to improve the ease and speed of their service will be key to retaining customers. However, firms that focus their fintech efforts solely on these attributes might meet customers’ expectations and still not differentiate themselves, especially when competing with digitally intuitive TMT businesses. TMT leaders see personalisation as the key to keeping customers. In a marketplace that’s moving rapidly towards mass customisation, we expect that using fintech in this way is more likely to create differentiation, so it would be good for FS firms to adopt a TMT approach in this case. In fact, FS companies that don’t will get left behind.
- FS and TMT should look to each other and retrain to fill skills gaps – Our survey showed that 80% of TMT and 75% of FS organisations are creating jobs related to fintech. Yet 42% of both TMT and FS organisations are struggling to fill these roles. While 73% of FS organisations are hiring from the technology sector, only 52% of TMT firms are looking to recruit from FS. PwC has found that finding ways to attract people from TMT to FS, and vice versa, will be important to future success because each sector needs the other’s expertise. Upskilling will also be important, as will the right mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures.
- Firms should push cross-sector fusion further – Among organisations that are planning to pursue an acquisition, strategic alliance or joint venture to drive growth via fintech, 78% of TMT and 76% of FS firms are targeting businesses within their own sectors. Fewer than half are targeting a company specialising in fintech. At a time when FS firms are striving to sharpen their technology capabilities and TMT organisations need product and regulatory expertise to compete in the FS market, we think firms will miss opportunities if they don’t pursue more cross-sector cross-over.
To see the results and download the report, click here.
The research was undertaken by PwC Research, our global centre of excellence for primary research and evidence-based consulting services. We are a team of more than 100 insight professionals who work with clients to help solve their business challenges, with the unique ability to connect with subject matter experts across a global network. We provide both strategic and tactical research solutions that help clients not only visualise data better, but also bring it to life in their business.
To find out more about the research please contact:
