Sunday, August 21, 2016

How Banks are Slowly Losing their Position in Global Finance



Since 2007, economic growth all over the globe has been persistently slow. Simply put, money is not going to places where it should be. 

For this reason, the banking industry is in great doubt. There are bigger compliance costs and a drop in margins which has pushed banks towards more consolidation. When there are fewer banks, then there will definitely be a drop in competition. 

This has far-reaching effects on the end users of the financial services and the banks themselves. For starters the banks will be more fragile and will depend greatly on the governments to underwrite their lending practices.

This is just one of the many changes that are being noticed in the financial system. It is gradually changing. People are favoring hedging activity over real investments thanks to widespread uncertainties. 



At the same time, there is the growth of the FinTech frontier. This one is further degrading the banking system’s traditional income streams. The banks are going to have a really hard time surviving in the market pretty soon. 

The only way that they will remain relevant is if they take time to reconsider ways of capturing new customers, transacting and engaging with the new and current customers. 

Banks losing opportunities


Getting new customers is very important in the growth of any business. Growing new business and stimulating the economy of the world is vital for the banks. 

Close to two billion people all over the world remain under-banked or completely unbanked. This is a great lost opportunity for the banks. For these individuals, the lack of access to financial and banking services means that they have a hard time growing businesses and taking up new ventures.

Banks try to make as much profit as possible without landing themselves into debt

For that reason, the banks have always been reluctant to offer services to this segment of customers. 

They have an unknown risk profile, their income is low and wealth limited. Geographic dispersion of the potential customers makes work even more difficult. They are simply too expensive to provide service to.


Opportunities for other individuals


This might have been true a few years ago, but now targeting these individuals has become so much easier and more profitable. 

Consider businesses like Lending Club, Ant Financial and M-Pesa (a mobile money transfer service offered by Safaricom in Kenya). These are among the most profitable businesses in the world of finance. 

Safaricom is a telecommunications company with M-Pesa as part of its brands. M-Pesa currently generates close to 60% of the whole company’s revenue. 



The thing about these businesses is that they are targeting the individuals at the grass root level. They are able to access financial services with more ease. 

Whether it is getting loans, making payments, transferring money or saving up for a project, people are able to do that with such ease now. This is where FinTech has brought the world.

Banks are not going to benefit much from acquisition of these startups. This is mainly because of the data integration processes. 

The banks will be able to acquire the FinTech startups but then they will not be able to integrate the technology into their legacy systems that fast.

The new face of global finance is the internet-based banking services. They are at a better capacity of integrating the FinTech startups into their businesses. It is no wonder online business is booming as much as it is. 

These online banking facilities make it possible for people to carry out transactions of all kinds online. Even if one does not have the time to go to their bank to place a money transfer order, they are able to send it to use their cards online. 

This is where global finance is headed, everything is done from home.


1 comment:

  1. Global Finance is a trending topic these days. It’s a fact that getting new customers in every business is important. Also to grow the business one must need access to financial and banking services. This article has explained briefly about debt. To know more about debt you can take help of debt consolidation experts. Debt is the problem for many peoples in the world. Banks try to make as much profit as possible without landing themselves into debt. Overall the article as up to the mark.

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