In recent years, fintech companies have disrupted traditional approaches to financial services for the better. As technologies rapidly advance and trends continually emerge, novel challenges and possibilities are driving leaders in all corners of the fintech sector to steer their companies confidently toward the future.
At three Boston companies, fintech professionals are combining insights and knowledge accumulated over years of experience in finance with the capabilities of evolving technologies, finding new ways to provide efficient, cost-effective and customer-focused solutions.
Flywire’s Senior VP of Engineering, Eric Spear, is watching advancements in artificial intelligence. “AI has always had the stigma of replacing people, while, in fact, the latest tech makes people more valuable to the business by freeing them up from mundane tasks,” said Spear, who noted that AI could present opportunities to address topics like security and risk.
While AI may be a dominant force in the industry, that’s not the only trend teams at Boston fintech companies are tracking. Read what other developments professionals are taking note of as they look to optimize their products and services.
Flywire is a global payments network, payments platform and vertical-specific software solution.
What’s a new trend or evolution in the industry that you’re keeping a close eye on?
Artificial Intelligence advancements are worth keeping an eye on. Specifically, the tech and learning models, like what we see in ChapGPT, could open up new opportunities in fintech to better support clients and address topics like security and risk. AI has always had the stigma of replacing people, while, in fact, the latest tech makes people more valuable to the business by freeing them up from mundane tasks.
What impact will this trend have on the industry as a whole or, more specifically, on Flywire and the work your team is doing?
Client support is paramount to any high-value business, and fintech companies are great examples. People need to send or receive money through any number of financial vehicles, and they will need support. At Flywire, we are hyper-focused on providing excellent client and payer experiences. We are looking at a number of aspects that include those customer experience flows, and we experiment with where we can employ AI solutions to be proactive with our clients, reduce the friction of the payment and support experience, or provide tailored offerings to the client.
We experiment with where we can employ AI solutions to be proactive with our clients, reduce the friction of the payment and support experience, or provide tailored offerings to the client.”
Tell us about some of the innovative work your team is doing. What’s a project your team worked on recently that really embodies your vision for the future of fintech?
Payment plans have long been a core part of the Flywire offering. For example, our clients in healthcare and education can allow their payers to set up payment plans on a schedule and timeline that best fits their budget. This goes a long way in closing the affordability issues that we see in both of those industries. We continue to see strong demand for customers to extend payment plans to be across longer periods of time, which opens up new methods to help our customers and provides them with even more flexibility and choice. We’re excited about the continued product innovation that we’re pioneering to better serve our clients and payers.
Vestmark, one of Built In’s Best Places to Work in 2023, provides clients with portfolio management and trading solutions and outsourced services via a SaaS platform.
What’s a new trend or evolution in the industry that you’re keeping a close eye on? And what’s driving this trend?
A fintech industry trend we are watching and enabling is the personalization of portfolios for all investors. In the past, an investor needed millions of dollars to get a portfolio designed for their unique life situation, financial goals, social and environmental interests, and tax considerations. Now, everyday investors can directly own companies in a portfolio designed specifically for them.
A fintech industry trend we are watching and enabling is the personalization of portfolios for all investors.”
Several factors are driving this trend. Technology like Vestmark’s allows investors to easily own individual securities in an index like the S&P 500 or selected by an investment professional instead of needing a pooled investment like a mutual fund or ETF. Additionally, trading commissions, the cost to buy and sell securities, are going to zero. This is important because it eliminates a potential added cost in owning the underlying securities within a mutual fund or ETF. Lastly, fractional share trading is becoming increasingly available, allowing investors to own many securities with smaller balances. Through fractional share ownership, you can buy less than one share of a company which lowers the amount of money needed to have a diversified portfolio with numerous holdings.
What impact will this trend have on the industry as a whole or, more specifically, on Vestmark and the work your team is doing?
This push towards personalized portfolios is helping the financial services industry catch up with the rising expectations we all have. In most aspects of our daily lives, we have options and choices available to tailor a particular product or service to our liking. People should have this ability in their investment portfolios, too — not just millionaires but all investors.
Tell us about some of the innovative work your team is doing. What’s a project your team worked on recently that really embodies your vision for the future of fintech?
We have been building intuitive tools for financial advisors to create personalized portfolios for the investors they serve. Taxes, and the minimization of taxes for investors, are key areas of focus. Everyone has a unique tax situation, and financial advisors are in a great position to capture elements of an investor’s tax picture which we can then use to create a personalized portfolio. Understanding an investor’s environmental, social and governance concerns is a related area of focus. In my opinion, this topic has been needlessly politicized recently — let each individual investor determine and express their ESG preferences, if any, in their own portfolio.
BlueSnap helps businesses accept global payments in a range of forms and regions with one integration and contract.
What’s a new trend or evolution in the industry that you’re keeping a close eye on? And what’s driving this trend?
The biggest fintech trends are global embedded payments and payment orchestration. The growth of embedded payments continues to evolve as more businesses look for payment solutions already embedded in the software they are using. Many companies see the value in being able to consolidate their service providers to reduce their technical debt. SaaS companies are meeting this need by adding payment functionality seamlessly into their software. Not only are they seeing increased user retention but they are seeing an increase in their bottom line with an additional revenue stream coming from payments.
As for payment orchestration, two things are driving this trend: an increase in global online growth and the need for better customer experiences. As global e-commerce rises, businesses need payment orchestration to manage operational efficiencies and costs so payments don’t become a drain on their bottom line. Another important factor is customer experience. By implementing payment orchestration, businesses optimize their global payments to ensure high checkout conversations — with localized payment methods — and higher authorization rates without accumulating a ton of technical debt.
What impact will this trend have on the industry as a whole or, more specifically, on BlueSnap and the work your team is doing?
Analysts are predicting a steady rise in growth for the embedded payments market. This is because embedded finance — specifically embedded payments — is the growing expectation from consumers.
Analysts are predicting a steady rise in growth for the embedded payments market. This is because embedded finance is the growing expectation from consumers.”
Software platforms are challenged with acquiring new users, gaining greater adoption and delivering better experiences. Adding an embedded payments solution can greatly increase their odds of successfully overcoming those challenges. And for fintech, that means creating embedded payment solutions that deliver the most value. In order to be competitive and capitalize on these market opportunities, fintech companies are going to need to continue to push innovation. Embedded payments will remain a driving focus for the team at BlueSnap, so we are offering the best, most differentiated solution in the market.
Tell us about some of the innovative work your team is doing. What’s a project your team worked on recently that really embodies your vision for the future of fintech?
Last year, BlueSnap launched our embedded payments and payfac-as-a-service suite, which includes three new products: BlueSnap Dash, BlueSnap Relay and BlueSnap Flex. These solutions are designed to help software platforms drive revenue growth, enhance their user experience and increase customer retention. Since the launch, we’ve partnered with a wide variety of very successful companies, powering their payments. We are onboarding partners every day who are using our products to enhance their software.
BlueSnap is on a mission to help empower platforms to reach customers globally and profit from a key but often overlooked part of the customer journey: payments. Of course, our embedded payments and payfac-as-a-service suite of products is part of our Global Payment Orchestration Platform. The BlueSnap team continuously looks for ways to evolve our platform, whether that is adding new local card-acquiring countries or new payment types to ensure our customers are getting the best authorization rates, decreasing their checkout abandonment, avoiding costly cross-border fees or reducing their technical debt.
