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PwC: Increasing partnerships between financial services and FinTech companies

21/04/2017 12:49
88% of global financial services companies concerned they will lose revenue to innovators

A large majority of global banks, insurers and investment managers intend to increase their partnerships with FinTech companies over the next 3 - 5 years and expect an average return on investment of 20% on their innovation projects, according to a new PwC report Redrawing the lines: FinTech’s growing influence on Financial Services.

The report, drawing on a survey of over 1,300 respondents globally, shows clear signs the finance industry is getting to grips with innovation. One driving factor behind these partnerships is an increasing fear within the industry that revenue is at risk to standalone FinTechs, with 88% of financial services respondents seeing it as a real threat (83% in 2016). On average, up to 24% of revenue is thought to be at risk.

As a result, a mutual understanding is emerging between the two parties - FinTech start ups require the access to capital and customers provided by incumbents, and big financial firms are starting to understand how FinTech could be the key to finally overcoming legacy technological and customer communication issues.

Turning threat into opportunity

The report shows that partnering with FinTechs will be a key way for firms to outsource parts of their R&D and bring their strategy to life, ultimately allowing them to offer new products to customers much more quickly.

Mobile money services are becoming a gateway for accessing populations previously unserved by banks. PwC predicts that using mobile technology to help new customers gain access to finance could open up a demographic worth $3 trillion to the payments industry.

Start-ups applying AI to financial services have been funded extensively, receiving an average funding of $1 billion annually over the last two years, according to data from PwC’s DeNovo platform. The report shows that AI, and the data and analytics tools behind it, will be used by banks, fund managers and insurers to coach their customers through daily interactions on the best financial decisions for them.

Block chain is coming out of the lab

? Over three quarters (77%) of global financial services companies plan to adopt block chain in live production systems by 2020
? Funding in block chain companies increased 79% year-on-year in 2016 to $450 million globally
? Almost a quarter (24%) of global financial institutions say they are now ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ familiar with block chain technology

The report makes it clear that block chain is moving from hype to reality and real life use cases are set to become much more common. With the potentially huge back-office cost savings and transparency gains block chain can provide, the technology will receive increasing investment as finance firms explore its ability to ensure they are fit for future growth.

Survey respondents believe the most likely use cases for block chain will be payments, funds transfer and digital identity management. Opinions around use cases for block chain vary by country, often driven by the level of development in the technology in each geography.