As compared to other lenders in Ireland, fin-tech lenders process mortgage applications almost two times faster. This means that it has highly improved the efficiency of financial inter-meditation in the Irish mortgage market. Despite this being the case, there are three major challenges faced by fin-tech firms in Ireland.
- Innovation
As the innovation and trends of financial products face constant disruption, companies that are affected by need to constantly adopt new trends. With an increase in new technology in the market, banks are struggling to keep up. Trends like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are being integrated in system personalization, wealth management and banking systems. This makes almost impossible for banks to balance their employees with technology since they experience problems as they try to keep up with trends.
- Building and Maintaining Trust with Customers
For payment applications, mobile banking, and fin-tech as a whole, security is one of the biggest concerns. Unlike traditional banks that have bulletproof doors, heavy vaults, CCTV cameras, and security guards to guarantee the safety of the assets, fin-tech companies often face problems since customers feel that security vulnerabilities can lead to the loss of both their personal information and money. Therefore, building of trust with customers is a big challenge for the success of fin-tech companies. As they increase the number of provisions and offers that are available to customers, the biggest challenge is the new usage of automated financial payments which causes customers who have little knowledge of fin-tech to worry about the services that are offered. This is the reason why fin-tech companies need to place a lot of focus on transparency and communication so that it can ensure that the customers do not develop preconceived notions about their lack of trust in them.
- Regulation
Across the world, finance is the most regulated sector. As fin-tech expands in Ireland, companies in the industry come face to face with the need to comply with the Irish regulations. The fin-tech lenders need to ensure that there are serious security measures to prevent cyber attacks and hackers. Additionally fin-tech companies need to place a lot of emphasis on ensuring that employees do not engage in malpractice while also being highly resilient since they deal with large financial transactions mostly without a third intermediary. A strong regulatory framework is often is place to ensure that a fin-tech company is foolproof. However, this can be a big struggle during the first stages of operation.
4. Wrapping Up
Traditional banking is slowly adopting new technologies. However, with time, mobile applications will be a common phenomena in the financial sector as they are convenient and efficient for both customers and the financial institutions.