Fintech, or financial technology, refers to any program or solution businesses use to improve or automate financial services and operations (think mobile banking, insurance, cryptocurrency, and investment apps.) 

As one of the world’s fastest-growing models, analysts predict that the number of people using fintech services will grow by up to 20% each year.

After a rocky 2020, consumers have become even more focused on digitalizing “offline” services to make their lives easier. 

This is where Fintech comes into play. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

At Scaleo, fintech publishers are growing in popularity across all advertiser verticals, generating a few times more income for brands in 2022 than in 2021, thanks to simple tech integrations, first-party data targeting, and increased consumer use.

Even if the word “fintech” is new to you, tens of thousands of consumers are forming long-term relationships with these companies daily. This is because fintech companies provide customers with one-of-a-kind, value-added ways to spend and invest their money. 

Fintech businesses are also quick to adapt, developing their own or leveraging third-party technologies to modernize traditional financial services and streamline operations.

Business-to-business (B2B) partnerships can be a critical sales channel for many fintech startups, particularly those in the insurtech industry, where high levels of trust are required. Establishing new trusting relationships may be tough, but selling through a partner with established brand credibility and a user base can help startups expand their reach and quickly onboard new customers.

Such partnerships give startups access to a consistent stream of high-quality sales leads by leveraging a partner’s existing relationships with their customers. Customers who have a positive relationship with a current brand or service provider, after all, are more inclined to purchase recommendations or new items from that brand. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

Read our guide to partner marketing software

Furthermore, when working with a revenue share, partnerships can help ensure positive unit economics from the outset in terms of Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC).

However, selling through B2B partnerships implies that startups lack a direct line of communication with clients and must rely on the B2B partner to represent them. As a result, successful sales through B2B partnerships necessitate partnerships that go beyond a legal agreement and include strategic alignment. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

Startups do not manage well when partnerships are just used to get out to a partner’s audience. Instead, the startup needs a comprehensive grasp of the partner’s client base, business and operating strategy, and communication channels.

They require complete buy-in and commitment from the partner from the beginning of the relationship in order to optimize benefits for both parties and give actual value to each.

The benefits of working with fintech affiliates

The number of fintech partnership opportunities is growing every day. Aside from its quick growth, there is a slew of benefits for advertisers who include fintech publishers in their affiliate mix:

  • Increasing opportunities: As these fintech technologies improve and add new features, consumer attention will only grow, with consumers spending more time online making financial investments, exploiting buy now, pay later opportunities, and managing personal banking. As a result, fintech – and the accompanying partnership opportunities – will only rise.
  • Simple tech integration: When working with fintech publishers, there are generally few to no integration requirements. Typically, these affiliates only need an exclusive discount code, product APIs (if accessible), and advertiser materials (logo, description, etc.).
  • Robust, future-proofed insights: Fintech partners may use their consumer insights database to assist retailers in better targeting individuals with the right products and services at the right time. Even better, the data gathered by these publishers are first-party, guaranteeing that it is not subject to expanding data privacy legislation.

Types of fintech publishers

  • Payments and transfers, also known as “buy now, pay later” publishers, are all about rapid payments. These affiliates provide customers with a variety of payment options at the moment of sale and make money transfers as simple as possible.
  • Personal finance is concerned with making better use of one’s own money. These tools are intended to assist you with improving your savings, diagnosing and tracking financial difficulties, and acting as a virtual advisor in your personal bank account.
  • Financing and investing are considered distinct from ‘personal finance’ due to a higher emphasis on company loans and investment platforms. Aside from investment guidance, financing, and investing, publishers offer both B2C and B2B financial assistance.
  • Innovative banking, often known as “Neobanks,” operates solely online and through smartphone apps. Neobanks have an advantage over traditional institutions in that they can offer more flexible processing times and robust services such as crypto banking (where you can buy Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Etherium) and currency exchange at cheaper costs.
  • InsurTech has transformed the traditional insurance system into a wholly online medium that enhances the consumer experience.

How should fintech startups pursue B2B partnerships?

Given everything we have discussed so far, the following elements are important for fintech startups to consider when partnering with B2B partners:

Create a solution for each partner that is simple and feels unique.

With these foundational elements in place, you should consider building a product that seems personalized, bespoke, and integrated. B2B partners will have their own way of connecting and communicating with customers, as well as their own set of technical requirements, internal processes, and so on. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

It is critical to create bespoke messages and ‘products’ for B2B partners to appear to be tailored exclusively for them, even if the tailoring is only superficial. Before you discuss your proposed solution, ask many questions about what they want to achieve with this partnership. Adjust your messaging based on what is important to them, even if you are prepared to offer basic features/expectations during the partnership.

Create messaging that is tailored to your partner and their audience.

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

A successful B2B partnership is one in which users perceive both brands to be aligned and to be giving new, added value by collaborating. A co-branded service is preferable, but if that is not feasible, ensure that any messaging sent to your partner’s users on your behalf is tailored to be as relevant to their audience as possible.

Construct the contract to ensure both parties’ interests are represented.

Once you’ve agreed on the value to users and have a conceptual commitment, it’s vital to formalize that promise in writing before proceeding with any sort of integration or announcement. To optimize the partnership, the contract should clearly state the terms and circumstances. Consider the desired outcomes and the work required from your partner to achieve success, such as:

  • data sharing, 
  • marketing, and 
  • technology integration. 

Make sure that the terms and conditions are built around the success prerequisites.

Ensure that the value of the offer is aligned with the partner’s target market.

For a B2B partnership to be effective, your product must be valued and relevant to the partners’ target audience. Working with your company should help your partner strengthen their relationship with their customers and/or grow their reach and revenue.

Spend a significant amount of time researching the firm you are considering, and come to the discussion prepared, with a complete understanding of their offering, target audience, potential pain spots, and areas where you believe you can add value. Examine their social media, press clips, websites, and the profiles of the people you’ll be speaking with, and tie your conversation to the buyer persona you’ve created.

So, why should brands welcome fintech partnerships?

Many fintech publishers will work with advertisers on a typical CPA basis, eliminating the need to partner with a special compensation structure.

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

Partnerships have enormous power, which should never be underestimated. This is especially true in the financial services business, which is undergoing a substantial transformation as the ecosystem shifts toward partnerships rather than single enterprises. 

Competition is heating up, and we’ve already seen tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon make moves to enter the financial sector. 

Partnerships are essential for keeping ahead in a congested industry: collaborating with the top companies specializing in a particular field saves time and resources, increases product time to market, and helps to expedite the business’s learning curve.

Partnerships are used by corporations and fintech organizations for a variety of purposes, including the following:

Technology skills that are new or better

This is the most prevalent sort of fintech partnership we see, in which a fintech or software development business white-labels its underlying technology or software for banks and other financial institutions. 

The partnership provides financial institutions with rapid access to the most recent, cutting-edge technology stack or a new capability to grow faster into new markets or reach new consumer segments without requiring in-house development activities. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

It shortens the time to market and helps to reduce the costs that would otherwise be incurred if the new capabilities were built from the ground up in-house. Meanwhile, fintech startups have access to low-cost finance through a trusted partnership, while software suppliers invest in expanding their service portfolios.

New channels of acquisition

Finding and sustaining effective client acquisition channels is one of the real hurdles that any high-growth-oriented firm has, whether it is a small challenger bank or a mature fintech looking to accelerate its scaling. 

Partnerships with organizations that already have a significant customer base are tempting because they enable access to hundreds of thousands of customers who can benefit instantly from the appealing fintech service. Meanwhile, the partner adds value to their client base while also increasing the likelihood of new revenue opportunities. 

Increased digital client satisfaction

Customers are increasingly using digital channels to handle many parts of their lives; financial services is just one industry that has been transformed by digital. 

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

With customer expectations for seamless service increasing, banks must provide fast, convenient digital services if they want to keep customers delighted and maintain their competitive advantage. 

Partnering with a fintech organization provides existing banks with a quicker path to providing the best client experience, which can be difficult to produce in-house due to obsolete technology.

Serving new customers groups

Banks will be able to service new consumer segments by combining their resources and brand power with the novel solutions developed by fintech. Such partnerships enable banks to differentiate themselves from their competitors and position themselves as forward-thinking financial institutions.

Gaining access to outstanding expertise

Financial services are no exception in an era when top expertise is in short supply across various industries. Finding qualified engineers, scientists, and other trained personnel to design, build, and support new digital platforms, products, and offerings is a challenge. As a result, it is not unexpected that many businesses partner with specialist service providers to gain access to the world’s top knowledge.

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Partnerships can provide firms with a combination of these benefits and opportunities at the same time. Fintech partnerships, in general, present a huge opportunity for leveling the playing field, reducing internal procedures, expanding technology capabilities, and, most importantly, improving the end consumer experience.

There are considerable benefits for established financial institutions, ranging from stimulating internal innovation to assuring consumer happiness and retention. Partnerships assist organizations in achieving efficiency, enabling speedier time to market, and eventually assist enterprises in accelerating revenue growth.

Conclusion

There are endless benefits to partnering with Fintech companies, even if you are already an established brand. According to McKinsey, the proportion of fintech with B2B products surged from 34% in 2011 to over 50% in 2016. This illustrates that startups are shifting away from delivering B2C products strictly and toward working with and offering products or services to existing financial institutions that control the ultimate consumer relationship. This allows the fintech company to obtain finance without sacrificing equity, secure an alternate monetization mode, and, in some situations, even establish a new strategy. As a brand, you can benefit from their expertise and experience in the field and harvest the fruits of their digital labor.

Why Should Brands Welcome Fintech Partnership Opportunities? -

Last Updated on July 11, 2023

Author

Elizabeth is a Senior Content Manager at Scaleo. Currently enjoying the life in Prague and sharing professional affiliate marketing tips. She's been in the online marketing business since 2006 and gladly shares all her insights and ideas on this blog.