TechFin (noun):
1  the combination of the words technology and financial.
2  a company which builds technology solutions for the financial services industry.

The world of financial services is constantly changing, and as a result shaping (and re-shaping) the needs and expectations that consumers and businesses have when it comes to interacting with their financial institutions (FI). The driving force behind this change? – Technology.

Regional and community financial institutions (RCFIs) who lack the development teams and skill sets to keep up with the demand for supporting modern technologies face some common concerns:

• Not fulfilling users’ demands & expectations (such as key digital banking functionality, a smooth UX or personalization capabilities)
• Falling behind to megabanks & neobanks who have the development talent & resources to innovate quickly
• Inability to effectively serve and grow their user base

In today’s consumer-driven economy, FIs need to not only adapt, but actively innovate to keep up with the competition. For FIs to do what they do best, they need a true technology partner who can help them grow and stay relevant in the market. TechFins do just that.

What is a TechFin?

“TechFin” is an industry-recognized term that describes the technology industry’s emergence into the finance sector to influence and ultimately improve the end user experience. A TechFin is a technology company– first and foremost, that builds financial solutions. While a FinTech leans first on financial services as its domain of expertise and the technology is secondary, a TechFin flips the script making technology preeminent.

TechFins equip FIs with technology that will help them operate smoothly and smartly, so the FIs can:

• Deliver a great user experience to their account holders & maintain primary financial institution (PFI) status
• Be competitively equipped to compete against megabanks & neobanks
• Be appropriately architected to handle future tech disruption
• Be intelligently informed to capitalize on new opportunities

The strength of a TechFin lies in its ability to operate with a growth mindset and embrace digital innovation proactively. By continually staying at the forefront of advancements through investments, accelerated progress, and top quality standards, TechFins help their clients to best stay ahead of the curve, empowering FIs to outpace their competitors, delivering best-in-class solutions to end-users.

What are the foundational ingredients of a TechFin?

For TechFins to deliver cutting-edge financial solutions, they must be equipped with modern tools and technology practices in their arsenal– including, but not limited to: cloud-based technology, advanced security measures, data collection & analysis, and extensibility solutions. Let’s dive into each of these areas more closely:

• TechFins stretch based on your business needs and we do It with speed through Cloud-Based Technology: 

The public cloud has matured significantly over the past decade, making it possible for TechFins to achieve unprecedented levels of scalability and resiliency. With the ability to easily scale up or down or out as needed, TechFins can quickly respond to changing business needs, while also ensuring that their systems are always available and performant. 

• Data acts as valuable signals that drive actionable steps and contribute to the improvement of business outcomes:

With the advent of affordable storage and powerful analytics tools, data collection and analysis has become simpler and more accessible. This allows TechFins to provide FIs with 360 degree telemetry data , giving them visibility into how their FI is operating, and how their end users are interacting with them. Data & actionable insights enable FIs to drive their MarTech strategy, enable greater connectivity to outside tooling, and create personalized & intelligent experiences for their end users.

• Embracing extensibility to customize and meet unique needs: 

TechFins understand the importance of extensibility in enabling FIs to innovate rapidly and fulfill unique user requirements. TechFins are committed to streamlining the process of bringing value to your end users by continually improving the Developer experience. Through this enhancement, TechFins provide a consistent and standardized process that empowers the partners and client FIs to easily build and integrate their desired features and functionality into the platform. A TechFin’s architecture is designed to support extensibility, allowing FIs to quickly “fill in the gaps” and respond to changing user needs in a seamless and standardized manner. By prioritizing the improvement of the Developer experience, we facilitate innovation and enable FIs to deliver exceptional value to their end users, all while ensuring a streamlined and efficient process for building and integrating custom solutions.

• Strengthening Security – TechFins’ extensive investment in Technology and Security to safeguard data, FIs, and end-users:

As fraud, risk, and threats have become more sophisticated, so too has security. TechFins use the latest security technologies to build utmost trust with the FIs that they serve– protecting not only the FI’s data, but also that of their end users. With stringent, more complex, and proactive measures in place, TechFins are able to provide a safe and trustworthy platform that FIs can feel comfortable exposing to their end users.

TechFin Strong

As the financial services industry continues to evolve and become more digital reliant, many FIs are partnering with technology companies  like TechFins to help them grow and innovate.  A TechFin’s ultimate goal is to instill confidence in FIs– that they are operating on a highly reliable, performant and secure platform that will help them better serve their end users, now and into the future. Overall, TechFins shoulder the workload, freeing you up to focus on your core strengths of serving your customers.