The Miles Davis quote, “It took me years to play like myself,” was the only thing I could think of when I first got asked to write for Finotta. Not because I’m a huge jazz fan (I’m not that old), but because Finotta is the first fintech I’ve seen in a long time finally forgoing the trite pecuniary manifesto in search of an actual, real solution.
If you’ve been in banking …or maybe if you just have insomnia, you‘ve probably read about the fintech solutions that are here to bring banking into the 21st century. They’re praised for being the new way for banks to get in front of customers, they’re the revolutionary companies to rethink what banking could be — they’re the saviors of the finance industry….
But there’s just this one little thing. Our normal bank interactions still, kinda, sorta, suck…
Wait, hold on — let me explain.
Quick poll: Who among us has in their lifetime had 5 personal and wonderful digital banking experiences? … 3? … 1? To be clear, I’m not talking about in-person. We all know banks are built upon the foundation of handshakes, swag bags, and somehow remembering your kid’s favorite sucker flavor. No, I’m talking about mobile apps, live chats, and all those please-don’t-make-me-speak-to-anyone-or-get-off-my-couch services.
Now that we’re all on the same page, it begs the question — what in the world have our heroic fintechs been doing exactly? … Besides taking investor $ and making some really beautiful slide decks. Seriously, you’ve never seen a better PowerPoint in your life.
*chef’s kiss*
When can we stop subscribing to this ridiculous industry, ackamarackus? (I’ve been dying to find a way to drop that word in for weeks.) Honestly, I and the other 200 million Americans who have had to endure depressing digital banking experiences are tired — sure, it’s a meme, but at some point, we gotta be in this for more than the lawlz. I mean, we couldn’t tell you our bank's suite of services if our lives literally depended on it. We also don’t know wealth management from a hole in the ground, but that’s for another diatribe.
Can you imagine if we, aka the majority of the United States, were actually empowered by our banking experience and not just exhausted? Think of the good that could do for this nation… Think of the good that could do for your own financial institution! Imagine if one day the average American could say “credit score” or “refinance” without twitching like an epileptic at a disco.
But so far, we, your customers, have been served the same fluff over and over. Sure, we appreciate the effort put into that shiny overlay. And good on you for talking about budgeting and gamification in the same board meeting. But we’re still hoping for a bit more here. What if instead of focusing on how to provide the next dopamine hit, you, our banking institutions, focused on how to enable sincere cross-departmental collaboration so that we could easily access all your services seamlessly via your bank’s app. AND in that same breath, you could better understand and serve our holistic financial needs at a glance. That’d be totally cool!
What if our banks could understand their customers in real-time and we could get a wonderful user experience all in the same application? Well, did you already forget about the title of this piece?
Don’t worry — this call to action is a simple one. You don’t need to conduct a meta-analysis of each client segment or create a 4-part dissertation on customer engagement trends in the financial technology industry. All you need to do is come to the platform that is bringing everything together. Finotta was created so that there could finally be one source of truth.
They’re compiling and extracting all the best practices so that you are able to have practical steps that actually solve. your customers’ digital needs. Hallelujah! It’s still insane to me that this is revolutionary. But let’s be honest it is, and there are hundreds of millions of us who have been waiting for it. Finotta is doing the work so that you can focus on what matters most. Sincerely solving customer problems and getting robust, meaningful banking experiences fully into the digital era.
Check out more of her blog on medium: https://medium.com/@megawrites