Changing Careers? What you need to plan for success in 2021
With every big decision in life, careful research and planning should be done to ensure you are making decisions with a level of comfort that can only come from a place of knowledge. Making a career change is no exception. You want to make the right move that will allow you to be fulfilled and happy and allow you to move your career in the right direction, both in the short-term and long-term views.
At Crew our mission is to work with employers, side-by-side, to ensure the best talent is found to complement companies, wherever they are in their growth stages.
Our Founder, Simon McSorely, recently got to spend some time with Alan Tsen, who is the Deputy Chair of Fintech Australia and an angel investor in the fintech industry, to discuss the global and Australian fintech industry.
The current state of Fintech in Australia
When we speak about fintech on a global stage, countries like Australia and New Zealand often get overshadowed when discussing fintech. Often it is countries more known for fintech innovations, such as the UK, who are more recognised. This is largely due to their innovations in Neo Banking that saw an emergence after the last GFC (Global Financial Crisis) that are discussed more regularly.
When Fintech Australia looked closer, we saw that the Australian fintech industry is actually very well regarded and one that is interesting from a “growing your career” perspective.
While the concept of buy now, pay later, is not a new concept. It is the innovation of repackaging this concept through a digital nature that has seen companies like Afterpay provide this digital service with great success.
Neobanks and why they are so important?
Utilising new technology and recent regulatory changes has seen the emergence and popularity of Neobanks. Customers are looking to move away from traditional banks. Particularly when Neobanks offer provides more flexibility and focuses on a user-friendly onboarding process.
This digital-first experience along with traditional banks’ reluctance to make immediate changes means huge growth potential for Neobanks in Australia.
Fintech Australia sees more career opportunities for savvy candidates looking to grow their fintech career within this space.
Business model innovation in Fintech
While a lot of the global conversations are based around technology, which has helped within the fintech industry through the cost of entry and availability…
There is a lot less discussed — and the core of what has actually had the biggest impact on the financial services — about business model innovation. Business model innovations coupled with regulatory innovations that have occurred in a lot of markets have allowed a lot of progress in the fintech space to happen.
The UK is seen as a centre of fintech innovation and a large reason has been through the FCA’s implementation of a mandate to push competition in the financial services which has resulted in a lot of new ideas and how these can be implemented to the market.
This opens up career opportunities and provides a career progression that we’ve not had access to in the past.
Changing the Financial Services industry with fresh views
Fintech has given way to approaching financial services with an innovative approach. Possible reasons for traditional financial institutes to be slower to act on this new market segment and release their own products may be due to the large size of the organisations, who may have a history of approaching business a certain way, because “that’s the way it has always been done.”
This has allowed opportunity in the market for smaller organizations and startups to fill this need which requires these organizations to look for potential hires who approach problems with a different view.
To work in fintech requires a new chain of thought and a level of innocence that allows you to believe you can change financial services, an industry that has a long history of processes and views on services that should be offered and how business should be done.
Fresh thoughts and ideas that could be seen in the financial services market as a little out of the norm, are what can allow you to bring a new product to the market that will allow for real change in the way things are done.
The future of Fintech and the consumer
A great opportunity for future areas that fintech could have a real impact in, is within the insurance space. The insurance services industry can even be viewed as slower to innovate and implement new technology as opposed to the banking industry. It’s this reason that lends the insurance industry really big career opportunities.
Great opportunities will be available in the infrastructure space with an abundance of innovation occurring on the backend which will allow for products to be released to the market, cheaper and faster.
A smart candidate with skills within the insurance services industry who also holds fintech skills will soon be able to pick and choose their opportunities.
The opportunities within superannuation
One of the biggest challenges facing superannuation funds is that Super is often not something that is top of a consumer’s mind for the here and now.
Super funds have looked to incorporate the consumer’s financial position with Super as part of their overall financial health, with Super being that ‘next level’ of financial security that will provide for them after they can no longer work.
At this stage, that approach has not quite connected with the market. It will be tough marketing but it remains to be seen how super will be marketed to bring this service to the forefront of the consumers’ mind.
One opportunity that could assist with this is the ability for the consumer to be able to pull data that would show the consumer their net position and what role Super is and can play in this position, both current and moving forward based on their individual goals.
And also, what strategy is best suited that would need to be implemented to achieve their super goal by retirement?
Opportunities exist for startups that could fill this gap with everything from infrastructure that could be sold to Superannuation funds to marketing that could speak to the consumer so that Super products could be at the front of mind.
COVID’s impact on Fintech
With the challenges we have faced over the past 24 months— comes opportunity and this has allowed startups to propose in a time where cashless payments are required more than ever. On the other hand, your SME (small-medium enterprises) lenders have seen challenges.
Great opportunities could be seen by those on the infrastructure side as companies look to how they can deliver their product quickly.
What to expect in the Fintech Space in 2021
KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) are topics that are really hot currently in both Australia and globally. This will bring great career opportunities on the traditional banking side as they struggle to improve on this.
With a more general view within the fintech space is the consumer side and being able to onboard the consumer. Struggles around the verification process have become an issue and one that will require innovation to solve.
Other opportunities include within the infrastructure space; as companies look for ways to bring services to the market, quicker and cheaper.
Fintech Australia provided some much-needed information about the fintech industry within Australia.
