Four trends that will shape the future of fintech in 2023, according to Google Cloud

April 11, 2023 | Other, Sector views

Partner of France FinTech, Google Cloud supports many startups in the field of finance. Based on its close technical and business collaboration with fintechs, Google Cloud has identified four major levers to optimize the management of their activities in an uncertain economic context. 

Online banking, crowdfunding, mobile payment, savings management, financial advice or decision support… digital technology at the service of the financial sector – or fintech – is all the more important as finance weighs more than 4% of French GDP. Its economic but also social impact (jobs generated) is therefore not negligible.
With 10 times more fintech than in 2015, the finance sector is doing well in France, especially since France has many European and even global champions, underlines France FinTech in the annual review of its ecosystem. In its “State of European Tech 2022” report, Atomico believes that this good health is most likely due to the strong adaptability and resilience of European startups. Faced with the crisis, they have diversified, digitized and focused on customer needs. However, from the end of 2022, the uncertainty generated by the economic and geopolitical context caused a stir, particularly among investors who were more vigilant. Fintechs will therefore have to redouble their efforts to adapt. In this perspective, Google Cloud has identified four main levers to stay the course, detailed in this forum by Grégoire Peiron, Digital Natives and Corporate Director of Google Cloud France:

🎯 Refocus on priorities 

Investors today are looking closely at profitability and future growth opportunities before committing. More tense, the market is more competitive. To guarantee their resilience, fintechs will have to refocus on their core business. At the same time, in order to be able to react quickly, scale and offer the best performance to customers, while controlling costs, they will have to optimize the management and evolution of their IT infrastructures, in particular by delegating all tasks that do not bring value added. 

As explained by Louis Chatriot, co-founder and CEO ofAlma, in this context, being able to rely on a trusted partner is an asset: “ The ease of use and the speed of evolution are the points that we appreciate the most at Google Cloud. In just a few days we were up and running, which is vital for a small startup ". And for Pierre-Antoine Glandier, co-founder, chief product officer and chief technology officer at bOOK, the elasticity of the cloud and managed services, which free employees from low value-added tasks, are also essential: " Thanks to Google Cloud, we have grown from 10 to 200 daily users, with a tenfold increase in our total user base ». 

(I.e. The essential AI to differentiate

Analytical tools and AI are set to play a fundamental role in optimizing employee productivity, accelerating the development of new services and, logically, reducing time-to-market . From a chatbot to answer customer questions, to an email analyzer, to fraud detection and robo-advisors for asset and wealth management… AI is going to be a game-changer in the industry fintech and provide competitive advantages.

We are in high demand on the subject because we have advanced analysis services and pre-trained AI models, specialized for the finance sector, such as OCR and document analysis to accelerate the integration of new customers. or even ML models applied to Credit Scoring.  

First fintech in Europe to offer revenue-based financing (RBF- Revenue Based Financing), the French company Silver is already capitalizing on these services to innovate in its market with processes funding more accessible. " Google Cloud really understands engineers as well as modern data environments and has the tools we need,” points out Greg Tappero, co-founder of Silvr. For its part, the Belgian fintech Roostify used Lending DocAI, a feature of the Google Cloud Document AI platform, to provide a better experience for borrowers by automating document analysis.

🛡️Strengthen security and compliance

Rise in cybercrime, weak user passwords, increase in the attack surface linked to digital transformation and the development of telework, shortage of skills... Faced with the resurgence of ever more sophisticated threats, fintechs have need to be able to rely on trusted partners and global solutions that take into account all the specificities of their sector of activity.

By building security directly into the code, Google Cloud greatly simplifies the process. This is underlined by Pierre-Antoine Glandier of Libeo: " We process payments, so security is a priority. At the same time, we have to manage a fluctuating volume of users. Our developers have unanimously endorsed Google Cloud as the most flexible platform to help us achieve both of these goals simultaneously. ».

For his part, Fabrice Ongenae, technical director ofAlgoan, a company specializing in Credit Scoring, appreciates Google Cloud's comprehensive approach: " The financial services industry relies on very high security standards. We needed state-of-the-art infrastructure with the highest levels of security and the best possible support. For us, it was necessarily Google Cloud ". In fact, Google Cloud covers the majority of finance-specific standards (PCI DSS, PSAN, etc.) and offers extremely high security and compliance standards, whether ISO 27001 or GDPR. 

Finally, fintechs also need sovereignty and, more than ever, to reassure their ecosystem of partners. By joining forces with Thales to found S3NS, a common company under French law entirely controlled by Thales, we offer an alternative that allows you to benefit from all the advantages of our security offer while meeting the challenges of sovereignty. As a result, as Silvr's Greg Tappero points out, Google Cloud solutions are a great way to gain the trust of new partners: By offering all the tools to comply with various regulations, Google Cloud is a great way to reassure all institutions ».

♻️Integrating responsible digital into the sustainable development strategy

Finally, the fourth trend and not the least, all companies today are faced with the challenges of sustainable development. Fintechs are no exception. Responsible digital, and more broadly the preservation of the planet's resources, are subjects at the heart of Google's strategy. 

For more than two decades, Google has not only been strongly mobilized to constantly reduce the impact of its infrastructures and operations with very concrete measures but also supports its customers and partners in their eco-responsible initiatives. For example, we offer new tools, such as the Carbon Footprint, to measure and visualize the carbon emissions related to their use of the cloud, and reduce them by applying recommendations suggested by Google. In 2022, we also announced the availability of years of satellite imagery via Google Earth Engine or the eco-responsible itineraries in Google Maps. 

The subject is vast and complex. This is why fintechs have every interest in surrounding themselves with the right partners to support them in an approach that requires tools, skills and method. 

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