Growth through digital strategy and partnership with Fintech

Mārtiņš Bērziņš, Head of Digital Customer Experience, Deputy Business Development, Citadele Bank

Mārtiņš Bērziņš, Head of Digital Customer Experience, Deputy Business Development, Citadele Bank

Nowadays, every business realizes that the only sustainable strategy is a digital strategy, and the right Fintech partner for implementation and execution is key.

Increasingly, businesses in different industries, including the financial industry, choose to use partners to develop a specific aspect of their operations rather than developing their tools themselves from A to Z. Citadele - a modern banking platform for individuals and businesses in the Baltics - has worked with Fintech companies on the development of several of its tools, both through the purchase or integration of prepared products, and by collaborating on the development of new services.

Businesses accept innovations gradually

As the public’s desire to digitalise and work remotely grows, we wanted to know what businesses feel and can implement around this trend. From the results of survey at the end of 2021, we found out that 24 percent of Latvian businesses want to develop alongside their customers by offering them digital options, but they lack the resources to do so. In such cases Citadele already offers digital tools Klix, Klix Pay Later, Citadele Business Portal, etc. that don’t require enormous investment.

Unfortunately, 35 percent of those surveyed state that they see no need to offer new digital opportunities to their customers.

This means that it is our job to show that these new tools and options could be of use to the business by making every day processes easier, as it is difficult nowadays to imagine a business without at least some digital aspect. It will help them both to save time and become more competitive in order to reach their customers more successfully.

Fintech companies trusted partners for digital transformation

To understand the potential that a partnership with a Fintech company could bring, each company must be able to identify the business operations in which they will operate and be the most knowledgeable, and the ones in which the Fintech company will be more knowledgeable. In this way, companies can untangle the processes which they must develop themselves, as others simply cannot, from those which already have an established technology or process, developed thoroughly and available instantly as a ready module without the need for significant improvements in order to be integrated into the company’s operations.

To understand the potential that a partnership with a Fintech company could bring, each company must be able to identify the business operations in which they will operate

For example, looking at Citadele’s experience, becoming a bank customer remotely is almost completely a Citadele-created tool. The exception is the computer vision algorithm, which helps in the identity verification process; the selfie the customer takes is processed for Citadele by a partner who has developed and trains a special algorithm. Additional added value is given by the fact that the partner works with various forms of ID documents for different countries and is knowledgeable about current and important issues: for example, what kinds of identification can be forged, and other risk factors.

I recommend to find a trusted partner to other businesses who wish to take the digital development path. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and Fintech companies are well- regulated enough that, after checking the respective licenses, you can securely collaborate on new innovations or the use of existing Fintech innovations in order to digitise your business.

I believe that, in the next three to five years, there will be hardly to find business that is 100 percent offline or don`t use digital tools either in-house or provided through partnership with Fintech companies.