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The world is still slowly coming out of its lockdown phase with some countries worse off than others. But overall, this paradigm change has brought about a huge change — particularly in the realm of Financial technology or Fintech.
The adoption rate of Fintech in six markets — Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, and the US — has grown from 16% in 2015, to 31% in 2017, to 60% in 2019.* And now with the pandemic making contactless payment a necessity, those numbers have skyrocketed.
The most popular payment apps averaged around 14 million installs per month before the pandemic, but rapidly increased to 17 million in April and surpassed 20 million installs in both May and June of 2020.*
But if there’s one element that hinders Fintech apps from massive user acquisition, it’s the question of trust.
In fact, according to a Nerdwallet survey from January 2020, one in five US adults (21%) don’t use mobile payment apps. Of those that don’t, 42% say it’s because they don’t trust the security of Fintech apps.*
Financial technology or Fintech companies can refer to a wide spectrum of services and apps dealing with money.
On one end of the spectrum, you have companies like Boost innovating cashless payments in Malaysia, or Ayopop helping users manage finances in Indonesia, or Angel Broking, which allows users to trade in the NSE stock market in India. On another end, you have everything from retail banking apps to crowdfunding and micro-payments.
But precisely because it deals with money and with intimate personal information, every Fintech brand faces the hurdle of getting customers to trust its app.
Below, we tackle the top 5 ways Fintech apps can gain users’ trust and succeed. Read on for more details or quickly jump to our infographic.
Every Fintech company has to deal with stringent compliance rules that run the gamut of acronyms, from GDPR to FTC, CFPB, FCA, CAN-SPAM, and many more — each providing guidelines for your company to follow. In the US, for example, apps have to adhere to both federal laws and various state laws.
Even more, you’ve got to ensure your mobile app security practices are bulletproof so customer data is safe and cannot be compromised by malicious actors. You need everything from physical and network security, to encryption, strict access control, and plans for business continuity in case of disasters.
Explaining in plain words what compliance efforts you’ve gone through, what regulatory policies your app now follows, what security protocols are in place to safeguard both their data and their money can go a long way toward building trust in your Fintech app.
In a recent report looking at the revenue practices of 350 Fintech startups that inspire trust in customers, there are commonalities between 80 successful companies. Among them: the tendency for firms to be transparent about their pricing, but more than that, the added emphasis on value added. These Fintech firms showed prospective users how their service could improve their lives.*
If you’re crystal clear about how much your service will cost, you’re on the right track. Users don’t want to be hit by hidden costs when they’re two months into using your tech. Explain to them the total cost of ownership and emphasize the unique selling point of your offering.
More importantly, explain and quantify the benefits that your app gives them — whether they save 6 hours a month organizing their finances, or your reminders helps them avoid expensive late fees.
And since we’re talking about using plain words… Fintech services aren’t always easy to explain to less sophisticated users. As mobile marketers, you’ve got to be able to unpack what your app does in the plainest language possible so a wide range of people understand the value of your technology, particularly those who may not have a background in finance.
Explaining difficult concepts clearly can go a long way toward building good will in your prospective users. But don’t just oversimplify matters either. Complex ideas and processes can still be tackled in an educational manner without “dumbing things down.” Your users deserve clarity, not oversimplification.
Hand-in-hand with clear marketing language, you need to have a plan in place for communicating your guiding principles to customers, investors, and partners alike.
You should be able to answer questions like: what kind of fees do you charge? How do you decide what type of third-party products get referred to your customers? What are your company’s sources of revenue? Will you charge customers directly to use your service?
One of the easiest ways to get users to place their trust (and money) in your app is to use trust signals — show off your third party reviews, security seals, accreditation, and more — on both your website and your app store pages.
Also pay close attention to the small details of how you present your brand. Is the grammar on your website or app store page impeccable? Are your screenshots and website professionally designed? Nothing screams “fly-by-night” or “untrustworthy” more than typos in your text and images or websites that look unprofessional.
Finally, nothing builds trust quite like customer testimonials. Show off those reviews and customer quotes on your website, and highlight outstanding reviews on your app store pages.
If you want people to adopt your app and use it regularly, you have to be able to instill confidence in both investors and customers that your financial technology app is secure and complies with all regulations. You have to be able to guarantee that customer data is bulletproof from external attacks or internal abuse.
But also, you have to be able to communicate all these things in a systematic way throughout a customer’s entire life cycle. You shouldn’t be sharing these things just during app onboarding, rather, engage users in a continuous cycle of communication that not just educates them but also builds a relationship that will translate to higher customer lifetime value down the road.
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