990 million compromised and exposed data records over a period of one year across the globe sound alarming, doesn’t it? That’s the number that IBM X-Force research gives us when it examines security breaches in the firms, and finds misconfigured cloud workloads as the primary reason for cybersecurity threats. Additionally, there is a 20% year-over-year increase in the number of publicly disclosed incidents attributed to cloud misconfiguration. This blog aims at helping Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) of the fintech companies in solving a critical challenge of such misconfigurations and how they can protect their infrastructures. We also discuss how fintech companies like Cred solved the challenge of cloud misconfiguration.

What is Cloud Misconfiguration?

Cloud misconfiguration is a major compliance risk that can unknowingly expose a company’s unencrypted data to the public without authentication set up. When a company doesn’t configure the cloud-based platform or system in a correct way and leads the door open to attackers and hackers, it is called cloud misconfiguration. It can take many forms, such as-

• Improper network functionality
• Storing encryption keys and passwords in open repositories
• Creating public accessibility to storage buckets
• Unrestricted access to exposed data stored on the cloud

Examples of data and security breaches are countless, but one that’s worth taking notice of is the FedEx security breach in 2018. The company unknowingly exposed thousands of scanned documents including drivers’ licenses, passports, and delivery mail forms due to the company’s inability to secure its AWS cloud storage server.

Cloud Misconfiguration: A Critical Security Threat for FinTech

Cloud-native platforms have become bait for fintech companies to build resilient and agile application architectures, but the truth is that compromised cloud security is the biggest threat that would stop established players in financial services and fintech companies from using cloud capabilities to their full potential. And, 62% of the IT and cybersecurity professionals surveyed by Crowd Research Partners identified cloud misconfiguration as the most critical threat to data and security.

Classic cloud misconfiguration reasons include-

• Unrestricted Outbound Access
• Unrestricted Access To Non-HTTP/HTTPS Ports
• Unrestricted Inbound Access On Uncommon Ports
• Unrestricted ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) Access

While the cloud assets are on a rise, the attackers are increasingly using cloud-based messaging and storage services to blend into legitimate traffic. And some groups are experimenting with new techniques in encryption and code obfuscation to go unnoticed. The more time attackers have inside the compromised security environment of an organization, the higher the cost of a breach- $5 trillion to be precise, industry research says, and a vast majority of these breaches are a result of cloud misconfiguration. Also, longer periods of undetected attacks give hackers access to more accounts, devices, and data pieces.

This has raised many alarms across Information Security teams of the fintech companies, while also posing some serious questions- how effectively are they protecting their customers’ data and securing their own digital assets? What are they doing to overcome this challenge? One of the critical questions is also about the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) for such attacks.

How to Eliminate Cloud Misconfiguration Challenge?

When it comes to protecting digital identities, and securing valuable data some steps can help businesses in avoiding data breaches. Valuebound suggests the following methods on how FinTech companies can eliminate cloud misconfiguration challenges (Fig. 1)

Adopt Cloud Security Posture Assurance Software

Cloud helps with standardization and automation. Hence, the conventional security assessment methods with required manual auditing can be done away with. Cloud security posture assurance software is the answer because by calling cloud platform APIs, it retrieves real-time and actual configurations of cloud resources that have been consumed. Thereafter, the software compares it with the set standard, which allows organizations to understand baseline deviations through reports and dashboards. Such software and products can typically facilitate compliance reporting for various regulations, laws, and frameworks including PCI, HIPAA, CIS, and NIST.

Adopt DevSecOps Operating Model

Many fintech executives are already recognizing a trending security shift towards DevSecOps operating model. If your organization is adopting security assessment methods, it is also essential to understand that integration of security in the process of continuous governance is a must. At the focal point of the DevSecOps operating model is setting up a security baseline which acts as a yardstick for monitoring and tracking actual status or issues through resolution. DevSecOps also implement continuous compliance assurance to check risk exposure and actual status of compliance.

Adopt Minimalist Authority Principle

Outbound traffic must use the minimalist authority principle to combat the challenge of unrestricted outbound access. A common practice among the majority of AWS users is to configure inbound ports in the security groups while forgoing outbound ports. Imposing limitations on outbound traffic can direct traffic only to servers and applications which need to communicate. This helps in bringing down the risk of data exfiltration, internal network scans, and lateral movement. The servers may also require RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) or SSH (Secure Socket Shell) inbound ports in managing them.

Restrict High-Level Ports to Necessary Systems Only

Many services use TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) internet protocol suites and ports to obfuscate what’s running in their cloud environment, but this is not enough. It will not protect your organization from random internet scans or a smart hacker. Some of the services can open uncommon ports too, which often go off the radar. In such a case, you must ask if your web server has a statistics page or PHPMyAdmin functioning on port 8443, or Apache Tomcat services leak on port 8080. High-level ports are ideal to be restricted only to necessary systems.

Block ICMP

ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) is among the most important protocol, and leaving it unattended on the internet can expose your fintech company to vulnerable attacks. ICMP’s most common practice is using ICMP Echo for verifying is the servers are responsive and online. ICMP Echo, therefore, acts as a top-notch diagnostic tool for security professionals. But here’s a catch. It is also an excellent tool for hackers who can use Nmap or Fping to ensure that your server is indeed online. So what’s your best bet? Block ICMP!

Setup Robust Network Detection And Response (NDR) Mechanism

Until the most recent times, it was very difficult to parse and capture network traffic in the cloud, which was one of the critical reasons why cloud security lagged behind conventional security. But with the network detection and response (NDR) mechanism monitoring network communication in real-time became possible. It is hence seen as the easiest and quickest way to stay ahead of hackers in a dynamic and complex ecosystem. NDR enables rapid threat detection and deep visibility on-premises, in real-time. The gap is also closing in with the advent of Azure and AWS traffic mirroring solutions.

How Fintech Firms Solve Cloud Misconfiguration Challenge?

“One of the crucial Key Performance Questions (KPQ) for any incident response process is to continuously improve and reduce Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) from days to seconds,” says CRED. To solve the critical challenge of cloud misconfiguration, CRED uses the tool DIAL (Did I Alert a Lambda?).
DIAL is an automated tool that monitors, detects, and alerts cloud misconfigurations across all its AWS accounts. DIAL overview (Fig. 2) shows how its inbuilt detection mechanism works to prevent common misconfiguration mistakes that can jeopardize AWS infrastructure.

Composed of a bundle of AWS services like EventBridge, API Gateway, and LAMBDA, DIAL is deployed in  Master-Worker architecture and is ideal for use in AWS organization. With DIAL’s deployment, CRED’s MTTD is anywhere between 4 seconds to 10 seconds only. That is how CRED uses DIAL’s capabilities to reduce average detection time, and scale at large.

Select a vendor with proven product capabilities

Bringing managers at infrastructure management, security operations centers, information security, and DevOps to have a common understanding of cloud misconfiguration can help an organization implement best practices for cybersecurity for the cloud.

A vendor with proven product capabilities and best practices in implementing such cloud security assurance processes, along with introducing newer opportunities can transform your product into an integrated digital asset with high-level, unbreachable security. If you are looking to partner with one such vendor, drop us a hello and we would be happy to engineer solutions for your challenges.
 

Between 2019 and 2020, reportage of Phishing and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) grew by 40%, while identity theft, merchant fraud, malware, and cyber espionage grew by 20%, as per CERT-In study. With such increasing trends, Cybersecurity in fintech has become one of the most critical pain points of the industry, especially in a growing economy like India which is at the cusp of digitalization. With an increasing number of financial services hopping on to the technology bandwagon and more patrons choosing digital modes of payments, the risks of online fraud, information theft, virus attacks, and identity cloning are only going to further increase in the coming days.

Attackers’ playbook includes applications and web portals with compromised cybersecurity; and cyberattacks appear in the form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), ransomware, application vulnerability exploits, merchant frauds, spam, and reconnaissance attacks. Other examples of cybersecurity threats include software supply chain attacks and account takeovers (Fig. 1)

Not only can such attacks cause serious financial loss, but also lead to a dent in the brand’s value apart from paralyzing infrastructure and critical customer-oriented services. Therefore, along with the diverse and deep digital experience, there is also a critical need to secure a business and its customers from damaging, costly, and frequent cybersecurity incidents. Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS) or third-party security risk management is at the core of every fintech’s agenda. Cybersecurity is now given high priority status at product design and decision-making levels across Information Security Professionals and fintech companies’ leadership teams. But what are the fintech security challenges that companies face?

Some of the current fintech risks and challenges concerning cybersecurity

• Identity Management- When a user subscribes or registers to an app, a fintech company gathers data, which creates digital identity management and data ownership concerns. But what happens to a customer’s data after they’ve canceled a subscription? Data deletion mechanisms, therefore, need to be in place, the absence of which can cause compliance issues and data stealing by attackers. This takes us to the next pain point of cybersecurity, i.e., data security.
• Data Security- $18.5 million approximately! That is the annual cost spent by capital market firms and banks on combating cybercrimes, underscores the Accenture study. Hackers target system weaknesses to exploit information like financial data, contact, and personally identifiable information. 64% of the fintech companies are aware of such data breaches only until it’s too late.
• Regional Security Requirements- Fintech companies must follow regulations concerning regional data protection and KYC (Know Your Customer) practices. Privacy legislation at a regional level limits FinTech software on the data that it can collect and process. Fintech companies also need to make an understanding of how different countries can interpret the same legislative concepts. FinTech apps therefore must be built with practical tools and an understanding of the local regulations. In the absence of this, a FinTech company may isolate itself from certain markets.

Apart from the aforementioned challenges, Deloitte mentions the following challenges in managing cybersecurity as well (Fig. 2).

But, what are the factors or underlying reasons that can cause such security threats as far as cybersecurity and data protection are concerned?

Factors attributing to cybersecurity threats

A lot of attacks mentioned above are caused due to factors like:

• Inadequate security on devices of end-users
• Unpatched and vulnerable operating systems
• Installing cracked applications on devices
• Incomprehensive designing of security controls for products that digital payment products
• API exposure to untrusted and untested interfaces due to multiple data interface across product

All the aforementioned challenges can be tackled with the software development vendor and engineering partner who understands these concerns in and out. Valuebound has helped FinTech companies worldwide in building secure products with careful methodologies and frameworks. We suggest following FinTech cybersecurity solutions to make your platform safer and secure.

Cybersecurity Solutions for FinTech Companies

Companies that give due importance to financial well-being and brand value must also leverage the latest data security techniques and methodologies. What can a FinTech company do for data protection and cybersecurity?

Let’s consider some of the industry best practices for building FinTech products with robust security.

Data Encryption

Encryption is a process of encoding critical information into codes that need special keys for deciphering it in an understandable and readable format. FinTech companies can secure data with complex technologies and encryption algorithms like RSA (highly secure algorithm with private and public encryption keys), Twofish (freeware algorithm encrypting data into 128-bit blocks), 3DES (encryption method preferred for credit card PINs encryption), P2PE and EMV.

“Technologies that devalue data such as– Tokenization, P2PE, EMV & 3DS can play a critical role in helping prevent theft incidents from becoming breaches,” says Nitin Bhatnagar, Associate Director, India, PCI SSC. The goal behind data encryption is the elimination of persistent value in data that is used to perform a transaction. Hence, if an attacker tries to steal information or data, the merchant, consumer, and system still remain secure.

Tokenization

The process of replacing sensitive information with a generated number or token is called tokenization. Unique databases or token vaults may be used to decrypt original data into readable formats. To make a FinTech app even more secure, companies can also encrypt a token vault.

Today, tokenization has emerged as a real game changer, especially in the payments ecosystem. It must be adopted to ensure payment security, improve payment data security, and also address consumer privacy concerns.

Role-Based Access Control

A FinTech app typically can include the roles of an IT Specialist, admin, manager, support staff and the customer. Role based access control (RBAC) can then be used to restrict access to a network depending upon the user’s association with the FinTech company. This ensures restricted or varying access or regular employees and end-users who then cannot use corporate information. Conclusively, it reduces security threats, both internally as well as externally. RBAC-enabled product development requires solid engineering capabilities and robust technical expertise.

Implementing Authentication Technologies

One-Time Passwords (OTPs), mandatory change of passwords, monitoring suspicious activities like failed logins, short log-in sessions, and multi-factor authentication are some of the authentication methodologies that help in securing data by understanding and analyzing user behavior. Dynamix extra layers of protection can help users in completing their transactions safely and securely.

DevSecOps

DevOps is the common practice among most software development companies, but now with cybersecurity being at the core of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), DevSecOps has become the new vogue. What’s the difference? DevSecOps means the prioritization of developing a secure codebase with the same DevOps principles, i.e., CI/CD (Continuous Integration/ Continuous Development), collaboration, automation, and communication. DevSecOps only shifts its focus on embedding security at the early stages of SDLC. DevSecOps methodology uses cybersecurity at the central part of the production pipeline with other phases like architectural designing, coding, and testing.

Building secure FinTech products and solutions

The average data breach costs in 2021 is $4.24 million, a 10% rise from 2020 findings, according to IBM and Ponemon Institute report, and the most common initial attack vector is compromised credentials. This speaks volumes about the concerns of FinTech companies in developing a secure FinTech solution. So how do you plan to build a secure app with limited resources? Valuebound’s product engineering team builds a secure platform and high-grade product with all regulations and security concerns under consideration.

Our team sprints with clients to create a validated hypothesis with a security roadmap, analysis and risk log, cloud assessment, AWS Security Maturity document, and budget. If you wish to develop a secure FinTech solution or have a compliant concern, speak to us to learn more about our software development and product engineering services for FinTech cybersecurity.

Fintech market in India, valued at INR 2.30 Trillion in 2020 and expected to reach around INR 8.35 trillion by 2026 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~25%, has been one of the highest-growing technology segments globally. Among the most significant innovations in financial services that emerged is - lending and payments. While conventionally these two areas were only dominated by established players, they are now the battleground of over 2/3rd of the world’s fintech companies which are valued at over $1 billion, also called ‘unicorns’.

Speaking specifically about India, the country is now among the biggest markets where structural enablers to set up and incubate fintech have joined hands strongly and at the right time. India has the highest FinTech adoption rate globally of 87% which is significantly higher than the global average rate of 64%. So what has driven the digital engine for the financial sector of the country? Deloitte’s report says, ‘Internet data access, smartphones along with utility infrastructure including Aadhaar based authentication and India fintech stack capabilities are likely to provide the impetus to India’s FinTech sector.’

To improve operational effectiveness and better customer reach, the Indian financial service industry and fintech companies have adopted cutting-edge technology, but the pace of technology adoption has not been proportionate to its potential, which has led to gaps in the penetration of financial services. Some of the key challenges that the FinTech industry faces today include data and payment security, compliance, lack of awareness of end-users, working alongside legacy systems like banks, and ensuring user retention and user experience.

In this insight, we talk about the challenges of the two top FinTech companies- CRED and RazorPay and tech and business solutions to these challenges.

Before we survey these companies, we must understand what is a fintech?

Fintech companies are the ones that offer applications of technology to financial services or products in a way that is economically viable. India’s fintech companies can be categorized across six segments- Payments, Credit, Investment Management, Personal Finance Management, BankTech and InsurTech.

The opportunities for fintech companies in an expanding market like India lies in shaping their customer behavior and addressing challenges in the financial industry with the right technology solutions. There’s a threefold opportunity for a fintech company in India which are-

1. Fintech startup can reduce costs and improve financial services quality because it is not burdened by IT systems, legacy operations, and physical networks. Therefore the advantages of sleek operating models can be passed on to the customers.
2. Fintech industry can develop innovative models for risk assessment by leveraging unique fintech technology like AI/ML, big data, and alternative data for underwriting credit or developing credit scores for customers with poor credit history. This will improve financial inclusion in India.
3. FinTech can create a stable, secure, and diverse financial service landscape since fintech companies are not so homogenous as compared with the incumbent banking system. These companies offer to learn templates for improving culture and capabilities.

By learning to adopt best practices, a FinTech startup can stand the test of time. But what defines best practices? In an interview with PCI Security Standards Council, Adelia Castelino, Co-founder Managing Director, In Solution Global Pvt Ltd. says, “The four main areas of innovation that are responsible for this growth are: Hyper-personalized customer service, tokenization, cloud-native payment platforms, and e-converse through e-commerce. The common theme among these innovation drivers is the security of data and convenience for the consumer.”

Top FinTech companies in India, CRED, and Razorpay work proactively to provide a secure ecosystem to customers, thus becoming popular unicorns in lesser time.

What does CRED say about the FinTech ecosystem, challenges & solutions?

CRED was founded in 2018 and is pitched as a reward-based credit card bill payment platform. CRED became a FinTech unicorn in 2021. Himanshu Kumar Das, Head of Security, Risk & Compliance, CRED states, “The recent innovations in Fintech which help ensure safer, securer and lightning-fast transactions with enhanced user experience have completely transformed and modernized banking and financial institutions.”

The challenge: There is more data available in digital format now. Payment providers and financial services face a key challenge of securing customers’ personal information considering their digital footprint and personal data is their identity appendage. For this reason, Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS) has become a strategic focus area for organizations. Critical security challenges in the payment ecosystem include ransomware and account takeover.

A lot of security threats and cyberattacks are attributed to factors like cracked application installation on devices, unpatched operating systems, multiple data interference which causes API exposure to the untrusted interface, and lack of security focus on third-party vendors.

“Building a secure and robust Fintech application or product is an extremely challenging and complicated and moreover a very expensive and time-consuming task,” says Himanshu. So, how does CRED ensure safe and secure transactions for customers?

The solution: As an effective and essential security solution, CRED uses tokenization and encryption in the FinTech space. CRED suggests using complex encryption algorithms such as 3DES or, RSA to protect critical data. Tokenisation has emerged as the latest trend for implementing security solutions associated with credit card numbers and payment data. The technology uses a generated number called ‘token’ which replaces credit card numbers, so as to protect sensitive customer data.

CRED also suggests designing and implementing robust frameworks for cybersecurity. Identification of ‘crown jewels’ and protecting them from Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), Phishing, Malware exploits, Social Engineering Methods, Application vulnerability exploits, Identity Thefts, Spam, and Merchant Frauds.

Rapid innovation in technology has revealed multitudes of new enablers which include API-driven composable micro-services, Cloud Native Architecture, AI-ML powered data analytics, risk and fraud management, and Public-Private sandboxes- all of which enable support innovation, security, and also regulatory reform. Multi-factor authentication using trusted devices, and the use of biometrics for authentication have further enabled FinTech companies to stay a step ahead of criminals.

With the rising number of online transactions, providing a secure payment gateway becomes mandatory to overcome other challenges like user retention and user experience. Razorpay is another exemplary B2B fintech startup that provides APIs for payment gateways.

What does Razorpay say about the FinTech ecosystem, challenges & solutions?

Founded in 2014, Razorpay started off as a payment gateway, but soon entered other spaces like payments, lending, banking, and SME payroll management. It joined the unicorn Fintech club of India in 2020. Razorpay is the converged payment solution that enables merchants to accept, process, and disburse payments with the help of its product suite.

In 2021, the company says that Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities recorded noteworthy growth in volumes of online transactions, 45.56%, and 54.33% respectively. This FinTech company has earned the trust of over 5 million small and large businesses for payments. Razorpay hails as the most valued, privately-held fintech company and has also recorded an impressive 3X rise in its transactional volume, logged at 400% in September 2021.

The challenge: Despite being a success story, Razorpay’s recent cybercrime story speaks volumes about security challenges. According to the PCI Security Standards Council, India ranked very high on the list of countries that are a target for cyber-attacks. A key reason for this is the lack of awareness of end-user devices. “CERT-In publications show that, between 2019 and 2020, reportage of Phishing and DDoS grew by 40%, while identity theft, merchant fraud, malware, and cyber espionage grew by 20%,” says Adelia Castelino.

The second challenge that Razorpay speaks of is collaborating with legacy financial services like banks. “A fintech startup intervening with the banks’ legacy systems can cause the emergence of new, unforeseen risks like strategic risks, compliance risks, operational risks, cyber risks, and more,” says Razorpay.

The third challenge that Razorpay highlights is maintaining customer relationships and retaining customers. “If you want your customer base to stick with your product and keep coming back, you need to make sure you retain your customers for the long run by building long-term customer relationships.”

The solution: Fintech at the early stages of adoption in a disruptive economy must focus on educating people about the concept, says Razorpay. To make the app more secure, solutions like real-time notifications and alerts, data encryption and obfuscation, two-factor authentication, and behavior analysis are suggested.

Speaking of working with legacy systems, the FinTech company suggests that the most innovative solutions will emerge from collaboration. One example of such tech collaboration is the company’s neo-banking platform, RazorpayX. “We started our neo banking journey by creating a whole new platform on which we could build products and integrations. We created an entire API and dashboard payouts platform over a virtual account setup that merchants could use during the early access in 2018,” says Razorpay. It also built RazorpayX with Current Accounts in collaboration with RBL Banks to include standard banking services like accounting statements, debit cards, and cheque book.

As for user retention and user experience, Razorpay explains that the trust component in a building environment like India is still in infancy but the solution lies in not necessarily selling your product, but “making them understand what the innovation is, and how and why it can be beneficial for them to use the services.” Providing quality service, building great customer relationships by tracking customer journeys, and understanding how they interact with your product provides insights into what works and what doesn’t. User retention, thus greatly depends upon customer satisfaction and happiness.

Summing Up

India is amongst the fastest growing Fintech markets in the world and as of 2022, there are 6,636 FinTech startups in India. The future of fintech and industry 4.0 is emerging in the country. A FinTech company can thrive in a disruptive economy by overcoming challenges by partnering with engineering solutions vendors who help create a successful Fintech MVP platform. If you have a project blueprint or need a hand in solving challenges, touch base with us to learn how we’ve helped our FinTech clients overcome critical tech challenges during the lifecycle of their super FinTech App.

Globally, fintech companies raised more than $90 billion in the first three quarters of 2021, almost double the pace in 2020, with 42 new fintech unicorns minted in the third quarter alone, says McKinsey.

Finance as a sector includes financial service companies and fintech companies, and the sector juggernauts towards digital transformation with strategic technological trends. Before we dive into these trends, we must first understand what is fintech? Financial Technology, also known as FinTech, is described as the new technology which automates or improves the functioning of financial services. FinTech companies help the finance sector with better efficiency and delivery through algorithms, software, computers, and smartphones.

In our blog series on FinTech insights, we are going to discuss extensively about the FinTech trends shaping the industry. In this blog, we are going to discuss the challenges of the fintech industry in India and the technologies used to solve those challenges.

What challenged the status quo for FinTech Companies in India?

“Increased demand for inclusive financial services, customer expectations, and the business need to reduce costs while providing faster, safer, and more reliable services underpin the rise and growth of FinTech companies,” explains EY. So what challenges the status quo in the financial services sector?

1. Firstly, more fintech companies want to be branded as digital-native in the FinTech landscape. This means that several services which traditionally were dependent upon human capital for loan disbursal, real-time payments, investment advisory, peer-to-peer lending, and other financial services, are automating tasks through one ‘Super App’.
2. Secondly, there are now efficient and sleek offerings from FinTech companies, which help businesses in reducing costs and providing more customer-driven services.
3. And thirdly, rising advancements in technologies like data science, automation, and AI/ML push traditional financial services companies towards a digital environment.

Current status of FinTech in Asia

“People skipped the cards stage altogether in the Asia-Pacific market. Then newer technologies came in, mostly mobile-payment-based, a lot of wallet platforms. Basically, every single company that has a substantial number of consumers decided to start monetizing these consumers by providing payment applications that replace the need to use debit or credit cards,” says Arik Shtilman, CEO of FinTech platform provider, Rapyd (U.S.). This explains one of the most significant trends, i.e., payments accounting for almost half of India’s FinTech unicorns (42.9%).

Zeroing in at a granular level in Asia, if we speak specifically about India we see that country’s total fintech opportunity is set to rise to $1.3 Tn by 2025, according to Inc42’s State Of Indian Fintech Report, Q2 2022. There are 102 unicorns in India, and the latest entrant to the list is neo-banking FinTech start-up, Open. The total number of FinTech companies in India is 21. So what shifts are paving way for technology trends in the FinTech industry?

Large Shifts for FinTech Companies

Three shifts that are playing out across Asia, according to McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) research are:

• More consumers reaching the highest tiers of the income pyramid, and movement within the consuming class is likely to be a larger driver of consumption growth than movement into it,
• Cities driving consumption growth, but increasingly diverse cohorts within cities account for promising growth sources, and
• Relationship between income and consumption breaks down in some instances, new consumption curves are emerging in specific categories.

Sitting upon these shifts, there are 10 critical technology trends playing across the FinTech industry in India.

10 Technology Trends Driving FinTech Industry in India

1. The Rise of SuperApp: FinTech, corporate giants, and BigTech are racing toward creating a one-stop shop for offering a comprehensive financial service platform.
2. BNPL rewriting credit: Buy Now Pay Later has become a new buzz-phrase in the FinTech industry in India. It allows consumers to leapfrog credit cards, and directly get instant digital credit during purchase.
3. InsurTech, a rising example of product innovation: Its digital distribution is making penetration of insurance products easier and accessible for consumers.
4. Neobanks serving underserved or unserved customer segments: There is an increase in hyper-personalized banking services.
5. WealthTech rise during COVID: This trend has transformed the investment environment of the country, and serves as a critical vertical in scaling-up new equity investors.
6. API banking development: Embedded banking is helping each financial (or non-financial) company in adding FinTech as a strategic feature to enhance customer experience.
7. MSME becomes a battleground for FinTech: Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises have shown massive acceleration towards the digital landscape, thus making it a ripe market for disruption.
8. Digital Lending attracts most investors: This is the most-funded FinTech business model and is maturing further with an increased focus on collections.
9. Digital Payment account for the biggest sub-sector: This sector continues drawing large funding, and has the most number of firms queuing for IPO. Major unicorns like PhonePe, Paytm, and BharatPe being heavily payment-focused (Fig. 1).
10. Rise of Crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, digital tokens like NFTs, and digital cash rely heavily on blockchain technology. Despite becoming popular, the major hiccup in this sub-sector is regulation and compliance.

Road Ahead for FinTech in India

India’s FinTech journey is unique because governments, regulators, financial institutions, and FinTechs contribute collectively towards making the finance sector digital-native. Yet, the technological challenges and policy rails need to achieve and sustain higher growth for successful collaborations.

Strategic adoption of technology trends can lead to transformational evolution in the way financial services or products are delivered to end-users and helps in creating exceptional value for customers.

If you are facing a tech challenge in deploying a project or need a hand in starting a project, reach out to us to learn how Valuebound has successfully converted ideas into unique digital solutions through a team of creative product engineers and developers.

By rethinking their business models and embracing the innovative strategies of digital-only banking, traditional banks could boost revenues by nearly 4% annually, resulting in more than half a trillion dollars in additional revenues by 2025, according to Accenture. And as per the 2022 Digital transformation and Next-gen technology survey by Broadridge, about three-quarters of C-suite executives across top financial firms have successfully transitioned from paper to completely digital communications.

Cloud migration seems to be an easier road for financial services companies if they set the goal of digitizing and modernizing their everyday business functions. But, what constitutes a successful formula for driving digital transformation in finance using the cloud? “If there is one thing separating these digital transformation leaders from the rest of the pack, it is their capacity to fully embrace the cloud,” says Mark Schlesinger, former CIO of Broadridge Financial Solutions. Such an embrace needs advanced stages of digital transformation.

Only 28% of the digital transformation business leaders have been able to achieve the advanced stages of transformation across the company, suggests Forbes. And only 14% of the companies sustain digital transformation and see improved results. Challenges in achieving advanced levels of cloud transformation in financial companies can be listed as-

• Creating centralized data platforms
• Technological execution capabilities not scaling up their tasks
• Rise in expenses due to staled technological environment
• Inability to align digital capabilities and changing demands of the market
• Complex infrastructures choke data requirements needed for sophisticated analytics

Such advanced cloud technology implementation has been an enabler of success, and companies that have deployed such digital efforts derive multiple benefits. The firms that are struggling with that cloud transformation must develop a long-term plan based upon the exact business outcomes desired from cloud deployment.

Top 5 strategic recommendations (Fig.1) to help you understand your enterprise’s full cloud potential are:

• Considering PaaS (platform as a service)
• Reimagining existing operations
• Migrating current applications from physical-security perimeter to cloud
• Planning cloud transformation with DevOps through containerization
• Reviewing people strategy to ensure successful model enhancement

Consider PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)

Focusing your business investments in domains where the cloud helps in increasing revenues and margins is one area where financial companies can enable business-technology transformation. Data and Digital Platforms or DDP are among the crucial elements of driving cloud transformation for finance. DDP makes use of components like microservices, APIs, and a data lake, which allows companies to build applications in scalable and modular ways and gives them real-time data accessibility. Tech vendors can enable the processing and governance of DDPs through PaaS.

Cloud-native financial companies push code releases into production at a faster speed with the help of end-to-end automation. Automated cloud platforms help companies to release codes 100-1000X in a day, which helps them in meeting demands sooner, and get feedback faster. McKinsey suggests that the companies which adopt cloud platforms have 20-40% faster time-to-market for newer capabilities.

Reimagine existing operations

Businesses can reimage operations by adapting AI and natural language processing (NLP) which support digital customer service. Financial companies can also adopt optical character recognition (OCR) and robotic process automation (RPA) which streamline everyday processes like credit card processing, account closure, accounts payable, and report automation.

Cloud-first technologies can help employees in setting up operational metrics or KPIs, which offer higher transparency to the organization. Major cloud-service providers offer various native services which also provide access to the 3rd-party ecosystems. Such services have also evolved to move beyond the basic infrastructure, and include advanced functionality, such as data aggregation, facial recognition, and quantum computing.

Citing a real-world example, Rob Cameron, CEO of Barclays Payments says, “It’s about looking at how we can use technology to change processes to the benefit of the customer.” The company, for example, recently transformed its onboarding process. Rob Cameron says, “Our digital POD worked to build a better journey while also attacking the underlying questions set. Their work reduced the questions by 75% for new bank customers and by nearly 95% for existing bank customers.”

Barclays Payments now uses technology to inherit the remaining data across. The company had launched this digital initiative at the beginning of 2020, and to date, has seen call time reduction by 2/3rd, which indicates that agents are spending time on finding solutions for customers.

Migrate current applications to the cloud

Moving legacy systems to the cloud offers several benefits like improved performance, full compliance, and reduced license fees. Roughly 1/5th of the companies spend enough time and resources on building zero-trust applications which require no network perimeter. Many CIOs and CFOs opt for this model because this acts as a great combination of security, protection, and cost.

At the top level, companies can focus remediation on fixing compliances and security and later optimize the systems. Either this or they can also optimize all apps on the go. The kind of migrating path a financial company takes depends on the kind of risk they’re willing to underwrite. Migrating first, and optimizing later can help in breaking through the gridlock that several companies experience in cloud transformation. However, this approach needs company leadership to accept that some of the applications would cost more in the immediate run.

Top Leadership must define a clear strategy for replacing their legacy systems and leveraging the cloud for supporting existing business priorities. With clarity, you can also set a business case for those apps or workloads which will benefit the organization most with early migration.

A company requires the highest investment in rewriting the existing application into cloud-native platforms. This yields the most improvement in terms of agility and cost of ownership.

Rewriting an app for cloud-native requires the proprietary services of tech vendors. Some of the apps which were designed natively for cloud architecture can easily be configured to the present systems. However, such sophisticated plans require application developers and engineering skills, which financial companies struggle to have in-house. Having a mature full-stack DevOps tech vendor can build the cloud into your present legacy network design.

Plan cloud transformation with DevOps through containerization

“Containers are a way of packaging an application so that it’s easy to get the application and run it in any kind of environment. So, a lot of the complexity of installing and configuring an application is taken away. Containers let a developer abstract all of that and make a very simple package that’s easy to consume,” Tim Hynes from Rubrik, a cloud data management company defined containerization.

Through containerization, developers put together the tools, libraries, settings, code, and runtime engine in one package, and make it portable. This makes the software easy to be deployed in a cloud environment and needs fewer resources to function. Refactoring applications or software in containerization offers greater flexibility, sustainability, higher productivity, agility, and scalability. The payback period of most companies with this effort is no longer than 18 months, explains McKinsey.

Docker containers are aptly fit for DevOps because it allows the teams to break huge applications into microservices, which can then be rapidly updated or deployed. This provides quicker development velocity.

Planning cloud transformation with DevOps across apps and software with the use of containerization can also offer cost-efficiency. Designing and running containerization with pre-defined standards facilitates a predictable pathway that can also provide the repatriation of software or apps from one cloud to another during migration.

Review people's strategy

Successful cloud transformation in financial companies draws a parallel with other factors like people’s strategy. How will the organization change after digital transformation? What would be the new business model enhancements? What changes will be there in the organization’s structure? Business leaders would have to revisit business and IT amalgamation to support such a transformational shift. Since cloud innovation and transformation will bring in a natural change in the organizational chart, it would also be a good time to rethink and review how to adopt a culture with continuous learning or experimentation.

Key Takeaways

Cloud transformation in finance can scale up through vendor support so that various teams can unify on the recommended strategy suggested above. Automating infrastructure provisioning and application delivery with calculated risk assessment is possible through the continuous integration/ continuous delivery (CI/CD) approach, while also keeping security governance using DevOps in mind.

If you have an application migration or cloud deployment project that needs a hand, drop a hello to us to know how we have successfully converted codified blueprints to modern architectures with our unique product engineering capabilities.
 

Opigno LMS is a Drupal-based open source Learning Management System, for any organization, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and any other enterprises. Organizations like SPIE, World Anti Doping Agency, CaterTrax, Maastricht University etc. adopted Opigno LMS today due to easy accessibility, flexibility, scalability, extensibility, and user-friendly features. Opigno pitches itself as an ideal choice for mid-sized companies to handle training and monitor progress. Since the system is developed around being a learning management solution the adoption can range between schools, colleges, universities and companies which handle training programs for new recruits.

What makes Opigno enterprise-ready?

Opigno LMS offers a customizable e-learning platform with innovative and collaborative features with business as well as a human-centric approach. Continuous support from its consultants and experts makes it a no-cost, no-maintenance solution.

Some of the key features of Opigno include:

• Freedom to create engaging training
• Customizable and engaging content, thanks to the great authoring tools
• Mobile learning & Multilingual management
• Fine-grained content management within the training, courses, modules, and activities
• Guided training creation wizard
• Graphical learning path manager
• Reusable content at all levels (activities, modules, courses)
• Reporting & analytics capabilities such as global user dashboards, and skill management tools

Opigno LMS features makes it an interesting and popular choice among various enterprises. But how do you get started with this? In this blog, we aim to provide a stepwise tutorial on how to install Opigno LMS. For installing the Opigno LMS in your localhost follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Setting up Installation Commands

Installing Opigno LMS on Ubuntu -

If you are using Ubuntu, follow the following points:

• Open /var/www/html folder in the terminal
• Create one folder in html 
• Execute this command to install opigno-composer in the newly created folder

composer create-project opigno/opigno-composer:^3.0

Installing Opigno LMS on Windows -

If you are using windows, the following steps will help you install Opigno LMS:

• Visit /xampp/htdocs
• Create one folder
• Execute this command to install opigno-composer in that newly created folder

composer create-project opigno/opigno-composer:^3.0

This will install the latest version of Opigno-composer in your system.

Step 2: Installing Opigno LMS on your OS

Once the commands shown in step 1 are successfully executed, we now install Opigno-LMS. To install Opigno-LMS, follow the following steps:

• From the terminal, visit the folder opigno-composer, which is freshly installed.
• In this folder execute the below command:

composer require opigno/opigno_lms:^3.0 dompdf/dompdf:0.8.5 --with-all-dependencies

This will install Opigno-LMS with all dependencies.

Step 3: Making Basic Changes in Opigno LMS

Now that the Opigno LMS is installed, some basic changes are needed within the settings. You must follow the following points step by step:

• Visit the websites/default folder, and create the settings.php file from the default.settings.php file, which would already be there.

• Give write access to the settings.php file, so that it will be able to mention the database and the connection associated with it at the time of installation. For giving write access you can execute the command:

  sudo chmod 777 -R settings.php

• Create a directory named “files” inside the default folder where you just created the settings.php file.

• Give write access to the files directory also. For giving write access you can execute the command:

  sudo chmod 777 -R files

Step 4: Installing your site

After executing all the aforementioned steps, you are now ready to install the site. For installing the site visit path:

localhost\<your_folder_name>\opigno-composer\web

At this stage, the drupal installation will be visible to you. Fill in all required details like database name, username, and password, and continue the installation.

Step 5: Site Configuration

After installation, you will be prompted to configure the site. Configure it by providing the site name, site email address, and other details.

This completes your site configuration.

Step 6: Completing Opigno LMS Installation

Now the system will try to redirect you to \user path. If that is not accessible to you, it shall say No requested URL found.

To fix this issue, create a virtual host for the site and provide the path up to the web folder. Once the virtual host is created, try to access the site with the virtual host. It will send you to a login page, as shown in Fig. 1 below.

               

Fill in the credentials you entered at the time of site configuration (refer to Step 5) and follow Fig. 2 below.

               
After verifying the credentials you will be logged in and the dashboard will be visible to you, as shown in Fig. 3 below.

          

Opigno LMS installation is now complete. The above steps should have helped you complete the installation process locally. 

Conclusion

Opigno LMS allows you to derive multiple benefits like flexibility, scalability, interoperability, excellent customer experience, and a unified platform that can control, analyze, and track the movement of your content.

We look forward to your queries and suggestions. Drop us an email or write to us in the comments section below. Also, let us know what other tutorials might interest you!

Razorpay Payments is the converged payment solution that enables merchants to accept, process, and disburse payments with the help of its product suite. This payment gateway allows businesses to access all kinds of payment modes, such as credit & debit cards, UPI, and mobile wallets. Razorpay Payments can easily scale itself to match the growing demands of a business, which is why it has become one of the most sought-after payment infrastructures. 

Razorpay Payment enables end-to-end payment solutions. It is the payment gateway system that can be easily added to the app or web platform for a faster and seamless checkout process. This blog is a complete step-by-step guide for setting up Razorpay Payment Integration into a Django backend with React's front-end app, which is a full-stack payment gateway application. Razorpay Payment is not just easy to use, but also very smooth for integration.

Before we move to the tutorial part, let us understand the Razorpay payment flow (Fig. 1). This has been taken from the official documentation of Razorpay for Integration.

Getting Started with the Razorpay Payment Gateway Integration

The tutorial below is a step-by-step guide to going live with Razorpay Payment integration. The reason it is easier to set up this integration is that Razorpay Payments gateway is a developer-friendly platform with a variety of libraries, APIs, and plugins. Supporting the extensive sets of modes for payment, Razorpay Payment integration supports versatile businesses, and hence, remains much in demand. So let’s get started with the tutorial on Razorpay Payment Gateway integration.

Step 1: Setting up Razorpay Account

You need to sign up for a Razorpay account to use the Razorpay Payments access to the Razorpay Dashboard. To create a Razorpay Account:

• Click here to check official docs from Razorpay for creating and setting up an account.
• Businesses can only accept payments from customers after they have created a Razorpay account. Once the KYC (Know-Your-Customer) verification is complete, the money is settled into your account with Razorpay.
• Razorpay Setting allows you to get your Razorpay Key Id and  Razorpay Key Secret from Razorpay Setting.
• To check the Razorpay Dashboard -> go to the settings (Fig. 2 & Fig. 3)

• Click on API Keys

• Click on Generate Test keys.

The popup will show you the Key Id and Key Secret. Click and download the file, and store that API key somewhere since we are going to use it later in our next few steps.

                    RAZOR_KEY = YOUR_KEY

                    RAZOR_SECRET = YOUR_KEY

• Finally we can see Keys are Generate.

Step 2: Create Django Project Backend

For creating Razorpay orders and handling Callback API, follow these steps shown through codes below:

• Install Razorpay's python package
  • $ pip install razorpay
• Install djangorestframework
  • $ pip install djangorestframework
• Create Project
  •     $ django-admin startproject myproject
• Create payments app
  • $ python manage.py startapp payments

CORS is very important to access other domains and here we are using React Js. Since it is a completely different domain, that is why we are adding CORS Headers for a smooth transaction between the cors domain i.e our Django App and React js App. Read More Here.

• $ python -m pip install django-cors-headers

To use the app in our project we need to specify our app name, rest framework, and corsheaders in the INSTALLED_APPS list as follows in settings.py:

                    INSTALLED_APPS = [

                               'django.contrib.admin',

                                …

                               ‘payments’ ,   # add like this

                                'rest_framework',   # add like this 

                                ‘corsheaders’,  # add like this

                      ]

To Access CORS Domains, we also need to add middleware in your settings.py file.

• MIDDLEWARE = [

                            'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
                             …
                            ‘corsheaders.middleware.CorsMiddleware',  # add like this
                    ]

                CORS_ORIGIN_ALLOW_ALL=True  # add like this after middleware.

If we want to use our app URLs, we need to add them in URL patterns.

Now also add the Payment Model in our admin.py file for GUI view of Tables in Browser.

In the admin.py file add the code shown below:

The Setup part is now done and hence, we can move to the actual coding. Follow the instructions below for completing your tutorial.

• Create the Order Schema in payments 

With the help of codes available across multiple sources, you can create Order Schema in payments, and make migrations for the payment app. For doing so, hit the below commands to migrate this model into the database:

$ python manage.py makemigrations payments

$ python manage.py migrate

And with this, we have set up our model. It is now time to write API Logic to perform operations. But before moving to that part, first, we’ll understand the flow of Razorpay payments. To understand this, let us first explain the Code Logic or Views.py file in the payments app. 

How do the payments actually work in Razorpay Payment Gateway? We’ve got you covered in the dev language for better understanding:

1. Initiate a Razor order from the Django server.
2. Pass order Id and all options to the React front end.
3. The user clicks the payment button and pays with one of the payment methods listed on the front end.
4. Razorpay Payment System will handle payment success or failure.
5. On failure of payment, Razorpay will try to retry the payments in the front end only.
6. On success, Razorpay will make a post request to a callback on our server.
7. Verify the payment signature and other details to confirm that the payment is authentic and not tampered with.
8. Once the signature is verified, capture the payment and send the success response to the front end.

Since the Razorpay amount works in sub-units of currency, therefore while passing the amount we multiply it by 100. For example, INR 200 would become 20000 paise.

Add API logic for creating orders and verifying payment signatures (views.py) 

The codes mentioned below will help you add API logic which is needed for creating orders, and also for verification of payment signatures. 

Add API routes for orders and for verifying payment (urls.py)

Below is the code that will help you in adding API routes meant for orders and verification of payment.

Create a constants.py file in the same dir for easy access

Also, add one more file constats.py for easy update of payments status using the code written below:

And with this, we are done with our backend Django setup. Now the next step is to set up the react frontend and make payments with APIs.

Step 3: Set up React front end and make payments with APIs

In order to set up React front end, refer to the official documentation of React JS Here.

Create a simple project with React App by referring to the Official doc. 

Follow the codes below for further steps:

• $ npx create-react-app my-app
• $ cd my-app
• $ npm start

Your folder structure will look like this (Fig. 7).

In App.js under the src folder paste the below code for a smooth transaction.

Step 4: Start the React project -

$ npm run start

Step 5: Start Django Project -

$ python manage.py runserver

Code GitHub Link - https://github.com/SwapnilPawar88/Razorpay-Django-ReactJs-App

Conclusion

Razorpay Payment Integration allows your corporate customers to simplify, automate, and accelerate the pace of their financial operations. Whether it is accepting payment, reconciling transactions, or managing cash flow, a simple Razorpay Payment Integration will help them get various benefits like flexible payouts, excellent customer experience, and a unified platform that can control, analyze, and track the movement of money. 

Let us know what other payment gateway integrations might interest you! We are looking forward to your queries and suggestions. Drop us an email or write to us in the comments below.  
 

87% of the healthcare providers or HCPs are looking for either completely virtual or hybrid meetings with the pharmaceutical reps even after the pandemic, states a 2020 Accenture research. 67% of the HCPs think that pharmaceutical companies have a scope of improving communication, which could help physicians with better prescriptions to their patients, suggests Chief Marketing Officer at Sermo, a world leader offering actionable insights for the healthcare community. Digital transformation through an omnichannel commercial model is at the forefront of several pharma companies, yet these digital dreams remain deferred.

Harvard Business Review in its report ‘Why So Many High Profile Digital Transformations fail?,’ highlights “We think there’s something more here than executive over-exuberance of slowing markets. This kind of unfortunate decision has happened over and over again, in wave after wave of transformative business technology.”

Key lessons which emerge from heavy commitments and investments in raising digital capabilities include product desirability and the economy of a country. Our previous blog spoke extensively about the 5 challenges of pharma companies in adopting analytics-enabled omnichannel commercial models. This blog will cover a 5-step journey called REACT, to omnichannel commercial transformation for pharma companies.

REACT: Strategic Journey to Omnichannel Commercial Transformation

With a clear definition of business objectives, a pharmaceutical company can align its strategic vision to the solutions that it aims to pursue. To convert traditional models into omnichannel digital commercial models with the agile approach, we suggest this 5-step transformative journey REACT(Fig.1):

• Reach out HCPs by setting your business objectives and strategic vision
• Enhance the patient experience by offering treatment options specific to the population, instead of one-size-fits-all
• Act towards data-driven health care and dynamic delivery; & Adopt by leveraging robust analytics and data capability, and shifting towards innovative modalities
• Covert potential customers by building trust in the brand, and finally engage them for retention, and
• Test with the created MVP on selected population, region, and product

Step 1: Reach Out HCPs

A company should map out its specific growth plans, like reaching out to more HCPs, maximizing awareness around new product adoption, and developing new indicators. Priorities and use cases will also define the scope of advanced analytics, including modeling approach, types of data requirements, end-users, user interface design, talent requirement, and features involved. This step will therefore standardize the actions of your sales reps, and improve and optimize the content through personalization, messaging, and channel deployment.

Step 2: Enhance patient experience

Customer experience and personalized care have become the keywords of the pharma industry as customers continue to dictate their choices and preferences. Pharma companies must therefore consider the technology platforms which can interface with their stakeholders and are critical in improving enhanced engagement. Sameer Lal, SVP at Indegene, a leading pharmaceutical company, says, “We aim to bring together leaders from the industry to evaluate practical applications of modern technology for increasing the efficiency of the organization, enhancing communication, and improving compliance.”

Pharma companies must consider building capabilities across digital engagement. Since there is a transition from a one-size-fits-all approach toward a specific population, region, and demographics-based treatments, therefore the pharmaceutical companies must work by building blocks that can lead to improved outcomes. Investing in digitally-connected and hyper‑personalized services can help by reducing costs and driving adherence.

Step 3: Act & Adopt

The emergence of new models and improved care are the key drivers for enhanced processes, systems, and models pushed through new requirements and data explosion. Advanced analytics and robust data can help in omnichannel interconnectivity which drives more targeted marketing strategies and leads to enhanced agility and mobility. Pharmaceutical companies that can leverage advanced analytics and data capabilities gain an advantage through dynamic forecasting, sales force performance analytics, advanced segmentation, predictive pricing modeling, and contracting analytics. The shift towards new and innovative modalities can transform core business processes in contemporary commercial models. All this, in turn, frees up a company's resources and allows it to focus on improving quality, strategizing, aligning, and decreasing the costs of managing such initiatives.

Step 4: Convert potential customers

For any pharma company that aims at becoming a market leader in inorganic growth and therapeutic area, it is essential to focus on product desirability. For the ad hoc or targeted support, a pharmaceutical company must focus on bolstering its portfolio, while also looking at capabilities to build partnerships and purchases to increase its competitive ability.

The average organic customer acquisition cost (CAC) in the pharmaceutical industry is $196. Companies derive CAC by Total Cost of Sales and Marketing by Total New Customers. For converting potential customers, the companies need to focus on building trust which can happen by offering value-based care, and affordability. Continuous innovation, improved data systems, and standardized data sharing models for accessing adherence data can help in delivering value. The companies must therefore focus on outcome-based and risk-adjusted models to offer value, outcomes, and affordability, and convert potential customers.

Step 5: Test with the created MVP

A pharma company can build momentum by testing out a value-adding MVP or Minimum Viable Product. The company can also focus on single indications in the pilot country or even smaller geographical regions within a country. This will help the company in offering tangible showcases for personalized approaches to engage HCPs. The choice of indication or a product should have a balanced approach between its ease of implementation and impact (value to the customer).

For developing MVP, for example, McKinsey suggests that a pharma company can create a product or indication with a large sales force, strong competition with more growing space, a high-value proposition, the flexibility of content customization, and more customer data. Rich data availability can create impactful analytics. However, the country or region that a pharma company selects must be important and should have strong data availability and willingness to change.

Conclusion

Targeted investments for analytics-powered omnichannel commercial transformation models for pharma companies can lead to improved outcomes. So how do you equip your field force for reaching out to the right customers? How Do you empower your business with the right tech capabilities? How can you leverage analytics and data for deploying impactful strategies like REACT? If you’re looking for the right answers to these questions, reach out to us to learn how we have digitally enabled our pharma clients in empowering their end-users.
 

31% of the CEOs of large companies believe that the top challenge to accelerating digital transformation was difficulty making quick technology-related decisions, says a report from KPMG. Other challenges that hinder the pace of digital transformation in the finance sector are- security, rapid burst of innovative technologies, implementation of technology, and matching customer expectations.

While 92% of finance leaders across 89 corporates have started their journey to introduce digital interventions in the finance function, only 11% believe they are at an advanced stage according to EY Report ‘Digital disruption in finance”. In this blog, we aim to assist decision-makers in navigating their route to their company’s digital transformation by speaking about key technologies, and enterprise-ready digital solutions.

Digital Transformation in finance has now become an essential part of goal setting across financial services companies, thanks to readily available business data, and the ability of teams to process such huge data. Algorithms and analytics, better connectivity tools, improved platforms, cloud computing, and sensors have made accessibility to data easier. The finance teams must work on continuous redesigning of processes to ensure digital transformation, versus the repetitive traditional processes, which tend to slow down the pace of execution.

Some of the clear benefits of digital transformation include- automated and accelerated processes, tangible financial gains, reduced errors, and improved efficiencies. Jennifer LaClair, the CFO of Ally Financial, an industry leader in digital excellence, suggests, “The CFO function plays a critical role in driving Ally’s digital transformation. We partner closely with IT, strategy, and business leaders to assess business opportunities and ensure the most effective allocation of investment dollars and capital.”

Deloitte suggests critical technological predictions for finance in the times ahead. These suggestions are based on what finance leaders are presently doing, and what technologies are available, or would dominate in those areas (Fig. 1). Blockchain, Automation, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are some of the key technologies discussed below.

Blockchain

Digital transformation fintech solutions include blockchain, which makes use of distributed ledgers in making data and transactions secure. Blockchain helps with reduced costs of database maintenance, faster operations, and real-time contracts. Finance and accounting processes can be largely transformed using blockchain technology. Key functions like accounts payable, trade finance, and general accounting are excellent candidates for the adoption of blockchain technology.

Automation

40% of the financial activities like general accounting, operations, revenue management, and cash disbursement, can be fully automated, suggests a McKinsey Global Institute research. 17% of such activities have the potential of being mostly automated. These figures suggest that CFOs and other financial companies’ leaders can simplify core transactions through automation.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a kind of automation software that helps in scheduling the timely performance of redundant tasks like data entry. Companies applying RPA at scale have adopted the technology by redefining their internal processes and altering operations. RPA helps in reducing the human error rate, thus increasing compliance. Also, it helps with reduced operational costs.

For instance, Zurich Insurance experienced a 50% cost reduction in the pension and insurance division in the UK, and thus implemented the technology in other divisions in fewer than 2 months. RPA solutions helped Bancolombia, Columbia’s largest bank, in enabling their clients with better management of their investment portfolio. As a result, it is felicitated with the award for Digital Transformation in the largest company in Columbia.

Artificial Intelligence

AI can be used to identify patterns and enable predictive analysis, thus helping with outliers identification. Among many use-cases, this can help eliminate fraudulent practices or at-risk parties automatically. You can use such digital tools for picking out patterns to mark non-payers or avoid such kinds of transactions, thus eliminating disagreeable entrants, which can dilute the customer base of a company. AI also carries out most of the operating activities with almost negligible human intervention. AI-enabled decision-making can help financial companies with gaps identification, making forecasts, and measuring expenses- leading to optimized business processes.

For example, Ant Financial crossed the 1 billion mark in the number of customers in just 5 years of its launch. Spun out of Alibaba, Ant Financial Services Group makes use of data and artificial intelligence and serves over 10x more customers than any of the largest banks in the U.S. The number of employees here is just 1/10th. Built on the digital core, the company today competes with the top financial companies of the U.S., like JP Morgan.

Advanced Analytics & Insights

Mining business data through automation techniques, statistical methods, predictive modeling, and machine learning has become essential for strategic decision-making. Financial leaders must work in tandem with strategic and IT teams and assess business through their leaders to identify broader ways in which AA and data insights can uncover business value. Advanced Analytics and data mining through insights have multiple use cases like risk management, managing talent, preventing fraud, optimizing prices, and exploring various other applications. It can be covered across various areas such as data visualization, graph analysis, data processing, and mapping customers’ behavior.

The time to act is now!

“The most important thing is to make the technology inclusive - make the world change. Next, pay attention to those people who are 30 years old, because those are the internet generation. They will change the world; they are the builders of the world,” says Jack Ma, Founder & Chairman of Alibaba Group. Therefore, financial services companies should work closely with engineering solutions partners and strategic decision-makers to initiate digitization in financial companies.

A financial service company can set clear expectations, and ensure strong talent leadership to drive growth through technology. If you have a clear agenda and need to discuss the digital transformation of your financial company across pain points, get in touch with Valuebound, an enterprise digital experience company in India.
 

77% of the marketers in the Pharma sector believe that the omnichannel commercial model is the right way forward. One dimensional strategies with limited healthcare practitioners (HCP) engagement and disconnected promotions are no longer considered best practices. Even as face-to-face HCP visits still remain relevant in Asian markets, they too have reached the tipping point in terms of effectiveness. 87% of healthcare providers (HCPs) want either virtual or a mix of virtual and in-person meetings with pharmaceutical reps, suggests Forbes. As a response, pharma companies in the Asian markets have started to transform the way HCPs interact. At the core of new digital strategy is aggregation and synthesizing of behaviors and trends via deep insights, actionable data and advanced analytics.

However, misconceptions and myths around omnichannel, analytics and digital approach remain a key problem in Asian market. Over 50% of the senior marketing executives in pharma companies struggle to gather actionable insights itself from data as per a report by Eversana. In this blog, we aim at answering these challenges around adopting analytics-based omnichannel commercialization in Asia for pharma, and develop a four step digital strategy (Fig. 1).

Why does omnichannel digitization via analytics matter?

While sectors like banking, retail, and media have already seen benefits from the use of Advanced Analytics (AA), pharma is yet to improve its commercial model through data which can be positioned as the strategic asset. Today, sales reps find it challenging to customize and optimize the complex channels, frequency of interactions, and content for specific HCPs who expect relevant and tailor-made content to their patients and practice (Fig. 2)

McKinsey suggests that the leaders who have adopted AA along with an omnichannel approach for the commercial model saw 5-10% revenue growth, 10-20% better market efficiencies & cost savings, 3-5% prescribes increase, and 5-10% higher satisfaction amongst HCPs. Such improvements are a result of differentiated insights through AA which can guide commercialization such as, creating channels and personalized messages for each HCP, and allocating resources.

Suggested Strategy for Omnichannel Marketing

The Omnichannel commercial model helps in upgrading the way pharma works, by upskilling for a tech-enabled world, and personalized engagement which creates value. Continuous feedback from the market helps in strengthening optimization power and predictiveness of analytics systems.

We suggest a four pronged strategy involving data gathering, developing analytics models, building the right team, and adopting the same (Fig. 3)

What kind of data needs to get gathered?

Data collection through CRM systems around HCP interaction details, market-specific data like competitive landscape, demographics, sales data, content, and through third-party is already available with the marketers. For developing an omnichannel commercial model for pharma, such datasets can be interconnected to create a holistic view of HCPs and customers. For developing insightful analytics, McKinsey describes six criteria for data requirements:

• Sales data about products for each HCP or certain groups of HCPs. This helps in understanding sales estimation at individual HCP level, thus understanding sales impact through analytics.
• HCP interactions data which is customized at individual level. This helps in channel and frequency recommendations.
• Messaging/content data which is interconnected to interaction data. This helps in content modeling.
• Product data which is mapped across sales and interactions with individual HCPs.
• HCP characteristics data including basic details, demographics, patient estimate at brand level. This helps in sales estimation at individual level, and also enables micro-segmentation.
• Market data like epidemiology, market access, competitive environment, market events, and market access.

Compliance and regulatory requirements must be fulfilled for each country during the data collection process.

What are the analytics insights from data gathered?

Advanced analytics can help pharma companies gain deeper understanding and insights across macro trends, which are:

• Focus on customer experience- At the core of omnichannel approach is customer-centric experience, which must flow across channels in a seamless manner. Mary Alice Dwyer, Chair of Medical Affairs Digital Strategy Council says, “A company must embed digital in its operations and ways of working, rather than bolting it on as a separate project or through a separate team,”
• Personalized Care- Audience segmentation using derived analytics can enable personalized engagement, which is measurable and assists pharma companies in charting the future campaigns with impactful messages, especially before launching a new drug. Patient-focused marketing can boost engagement rate by 20-90% depending upon the segment.  
• Dynamic delivery models with Innovative solutions- like AI and AA have the capacity to digitally transform commercial models of pharma companies. Insights through advanced analytics enable strategizing, improving product quality, and ensuring consistency.
• Data-enabled healthcare-  Companies that can leverage data have the edge over competitors in terms of contracting analytics, predictive pricing modeling, dynamic forecasting, advanced segmentation, and sales force performance.

What kind of talent requirements do we need?

Analytics-driven marketing efforts require pharmaceutical brands to partner with tech companies that are data-driven. Typically, omnichannel commercial model of pharma companies require tech team which includes-

• product owner
• translator
• data engineer
• data scientist
• change manager

On the functional side, the companies would need representatives like marketing manager, sales director and medical adviser. (Fig. 4)

Average penetration of digital talent for Asian countries is double that of the US, suggests APEC Closing the Digital Skills Gap Report, 2020. The pharma companies face the major challenge- job profiles of designer, translator, data engineer, and data scientist in life sciences and healthcare sector. While hiring tech talent for pharma could be challenging, it shouldn’t stop the companies in pursuing holistic omnichannel commercial models. But, the change must begin from the top. Harvard Business Review report notes, ‘It has never been clearer that leadership — both good and bad — cascades down to impact every single aspect of the organization, with as much as 50% of the variability in group or unit performance being attributable to the individual leader.’

How to adopt Omnichannel model pan-organization?

A company’s success or failure for any of its digital capability depends on several factors. Harvard Business Review, in its report ‘Why so many high profile digital transformation fail,’ underscores 4 main reasons:

• Economy of a country or product desirability can affect omnichannel commercial model adoption for pharma companies. That is why, leadership should not see technological innovation or digital marketing solutions as its only salvation.
• Advanced Analytics for an omnichannel commercial model is not a plug-and-play thing, but is a continuous process powered by robust change management within an organization. It requires infrastructure, IT systems, projects, and skills Additionally, it requires ongoing monitoring and introspection.
• Digital investments must be calibrated towards industry readiness focused on both customers, and competitors.
• If the efforts aren’t going well, there must be a call for a new model.

Looking ahead

Pharma marketers may be tempted with the idea of radical technological change in the early phases of the new technology to dominate new markets, rather than  learning about the market through valuable insights. Investing ahead of a new technology curve in pharma only makes sense when the marketers are aware about where the curve actually is. The way forward is clear-headed decisions regarding the omnichannel commercial model for pharma companies through advanced analytics. In our next blog, we shall focus more on the “how to” part of solving the omnichannel commercial model for Asia-pacific Pharma companies by discussing a 5-step REACT journey to achieve transformation.