Mastering Personalization: The Key to Elevating Customer Experiences in Financial Services

Mastering Personalization: The Key to Elevating Customer Experiences in Financial Services

Finovate webinar, on demand, in collaboration with Yext

The financial services industry is undergoing significant transformation driven by evolving customer expectations, the macroeconomic landscape, and the consumer need for personalization across their experience.

In today’s financial services environment, consumers are asking more questions than ever. The days of using family advisors and banking institutions are over, and the age of the personalized banking experience is here.

Watch this webinar and you’ll learn:

  • The current happenings in financial services
  • How consumer preferences are changing and why personalization is taking over the industry
  • Technology and tools to make personalization easy
  • And much more!

Led by Julie Muhn, Senior Research Analyst, Finovate, the panel will feature:

  • Shane Closser, Head of Industry/General Manager for Financial Services, Yext
  • Steve Ramirez, Advisor, Financial Services, Yext

Finovate eMagazine: The Bright Future of Fintech

Finovate eMagazine: The Bright Future of Fintech

Insights from FinovateFall 2023

It’s no secret that we’re facing many challenges right now. Declining VC investment, rising interest rates, and the looming threat of a recession are all obviously significant obstacles that must be overcome, but we’re also seeing a surge of innovators tackling real-world challenges head on.

At FinovateFall, we’ve seen exciting automation and AI use cases, including generative AI! We also heard financial institutions talk about their digital transformation journey and how they’ve applied technology to improve their processes and enable their businesses to grow. Plus, we met with industry agnostic experts who inspired us to be better leaders and innovators and who helped us think about a future with AI and a future in the metaverse.

Fill in this form to read this eMagazine and find insights from:

  • The Finovate audience – we share the polling results from FinovateFall 2023, and find out what trends the industry is excited about
  • Azriel Chelst at FIS, who shares his fintech survival kit for the current challenging economic environment
  • Our partners and demoers, who talk about applications of AI and automation, and innovations in customer experience and business strategy
  • Fintech founders, who share their funding experience
  • Financial institutions (SVB, Truist Financial Corporation, OMB Bank), and find out about their digital transformation journeys

Unlocking Open Banking Data: A Masterclass in Cash Flow-Based Underwriting

Unlocking Open Banking Data: A Masterclass in Cash Flow-Based Underwriting

In the constantly evolving landscape of open banking, lenders are presented with a remarkable opportunity to redefine their underwriting processes. By harnessing the power of cash-flow data, lenders can elevate their precision in assessing customer risk and confidently explore untapped markets. 

As open banking data becomes more accessible worldwide, a central question emerges: How can lenders effectively utilize this data? 

Join us for a groundbreaking discussion led by industry experts in open banking, where we will delve into the current state of the open banking landscape in credit underwriting (B2C and B2B). 

Discuss strategies on how to effectively:

  • Tag and categorize cash flow data 
  • Extract valuable signals tailored to your use case 
  • Combine data from multiple open banking sources 
  • Optimize your underwriting infrastructure to better leverage cash flow data 

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to gain invaluable insights into the future of underwriting and discover how open banking can empower your lending strategies.

Moderated by Julie Muhn, Senior Research Analyst, Finovate

On the panel:

  • Maik Taro Wehmeyer, CEO, Taktile
  • Abhinav Swara, VP and Head of Credit Risk, Bluevine
  • Jonathan Gurwitz, Credit Lead, Plaid

In collaboration with

Data Modernization in Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance

Data Modernization in Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance

This is a sponsored post by Indium Software

2023 is bringing new regulations and transparency requirements to shape the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) marketplace. This guide, Navigating the Path to Data Modernization in the BFSI Industry, explores the practical steps business leaders can take to accomplish their objectives — from identifying suitable technological solutions to effectively implementing them to maximize their influence.

By following these recommendations, you as a business leader can embark on a successful journey of modernization that not only fosters growth, but also enhances the profitability of your business.

Key Highlights

  • Banking Data Modernization Challenges
  • Numbers Don’t Lie!
  • Data Modernization Isn’t a Brand-New Concept
  • Data Modernization – The Need of the Hour
  • The Journey of Data Modernization
  • First Step to Data Modernization
  • Data Modernization Roadmap: The 8 Pillars of a Winning Strategy
  • The End Objectives of Data Modernization
  • No Disruption on the Road to Digitization – Cheat Sheet: Key Tips for Next-Gen BFSI Orgs & How Can Indium Help

Read the e-book>>

Why Java-Based Viewing Integrations Are Essential for Fintech Applications

Why Java-Based Viewing Integrations Are Essential for Fintech Applications

This is a sponsored post by Accusoft.

Fintech software has become a critical component of the financial services industry, allowing customers to readily access financial products on their own terms while also enhancing operational efficiency. Digital technology continues to revolutionize the way financial institutions operate, and developers work hard to create new applications that can manage workloads previously spread across multiple systems and software.

Document viewing and sharing capabilities are among the most important features for fintech applications. While developers can use a variety of document lifecycle solutions to avoid the difficult task of building those features from scratch, the financial industry faces unique security and compatibility requirements when it comes to selecting integration partners. To fully understand these technical challenges, it’s important to understand the role of Java in the development of today’s fintech applications.

How Java Became So Important to the Financial Industry

Financial institutions were early adopters of computerized workflows. The first electronic communication network that made it possible to trade financial products outside the stock market floor was introduced in 1969. Computerized order flows became more widespread in the 1970s, with most institutions developing their own in-house systems. Digitization really took off in the 1980s and early 1990s following the introduction of the Bloomberg terminal and the Financial Information eXhange (FIX) protocol. In the late 1990s, the Nasdaq made it possible to execute securities trades without manual intervention by adopting Island ECN.

Java burst onto the programming language scene in 1995, and its arrival proved to be well-timed. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw extensive mergers and acquisitions in the financial industry, which left many companies struggling to integrate disparate applications and data. Java programming language, with its ability to support multiple platforms (“Write once, run anywhere” was an early slogan used by Sun Microsystems) proved to be an attractive solution to this challenge, and many financial applications were ported into Java. It also helped that Java was easy to use and orders of magnitude faster than legacy code running on outdated platforms.

Within just a few years, Java became the dominant programming language for the financial services industry. Its popularity only accelerated after the release of OpenJDK, a free and open-source implementation of the language, in 2007. By 2011, an Oracle report estimated that over 80% of electronic trading applications and almost all FIX engines were written using Java. Even now, nearly 30 years after its introduction, Java remains the dominant programming language used by financial services, far outpacing other open-source alternatives.

Why the Financial Industry Loves Java

Developers in the financial sector haven’t just stuck with Java for so long out of habit or inertia; Java’s distinctive features make it uniquely suited for the needs of financial applications, both for longstanding enterprise-grade banking systems and innovative new fintech solutions.

Security

It goes without saying that security is always a top consideration in the financial services industry. Banking and trading applications need to have security measures in place to protect financial data and personally identifiable information from unauthorized access. Java makes it easy to restrict data access and offers a variety of memory safety features that mitigate potential vulnerabilities, especially those caused by common programming errors. Oracle also continues to provide regular updates that patch known vulnerabilities and account for the latest cybersecurity threats.

Portability

As a platform-independent language, Java applications can run on almost any device. This has always been a major advantage in the financial industry, but it has proved even more valuable in the age of cloud computing and mobile applications. Developers can use the same code to deploy software in a virtual environment and make it accessible to end-users from their smartphones, computers, or other devices. Java virtual machines also support other programming languages, which further enhances the language’s flexibility.

Reliability

Since Java has been in continuous use for nearly 30 years and enjoys support from a robust development community, it has become one of the most reliable programming languages in the world. Potential instabilities have long since been addressed and there are many developer tools and documentation available to ensure that software is built upon a strong foundation. This is critically important for banking and financial applications, which require high levels of performance paired with fault tolerance.

The Need for Java-Based Document Viewing & Sharing

As fintech developers continue to build new applications that make life easier for customers and employees within the financial sector, they are increasingly finding that users expect more when it comes to viewing and sharing documents. Nobody wants to waste time and resources processing paper documents by hand, and most organizations want to avoid the security risks that come with relying on external applications for managing digital documents.

Unfortunately, today’s application users expect complex document viewing capabilities that are difficult for most developers to build from scratch. While there are several integrations available that can add document lifecycle features, most of them are not Java based and require additional development work to incorporate them into existing fintech solutions. Without the ability to support viewing, sharing, and editing natively within the Java application, users often turn to workarounds involving external programs, which creates security and version confusion risks.

Implementing Java-based Document Features with VirtualViewer

Accusoft’s VirtualViewer is a powerful HTML5 document viewing solution built from the ground up using Java to ensure maximum compatibility with fintech applications in the financial services industry while also meeting complex functionality and security requirements. With support for diverse document types, such as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, AFP, PCL, and Microsoft Office, VirtualViewer eliminates the need for multiple viewing solutions to create a better user experience within fintech software.

As a Java-based integration, VirtualViewer is compatible with almost any operating system and is both easy to implement and manage. No software needs to be installed on the user’s desktop, which allows fintech developers to roll out a scalable solution that meets their critical security and business continuity requirements within a single, high-speed application. VirtualViewer’s server component quickly renders and delivers individual document pages for local viewing as needed so users can access, view, annotate, redact, and manipulate financial documents on the fly. Since documents are displayed within the web-based viewer, there’s no need to download or transfer files, which enhances both security and efficiency.

When implemented as a replacement for a mortgage lender’s content management system, VirtualViewer made it possible to import and deliver more than half a million documents across the enterprise each day. Documents could be retrieved and viewed in under two seconds, contributing to a 40% improvement in mortgage processing times.

Enhance Your Java Fintech Application with VirtualViewer

Accusoft’s VirtualViewer provides true cross-platform document support for your Java-based applications. Whether you’re deploying your application within the cloud, on-prem, or as part of a hybrid environment, VirtualViewer’s powerful APIs can instantly provide your software with the document viewing and sharing features your customers are looking for. Installing the viewer takes less than ten minutes, and our out-of-the-box connectors make it easy to quickly connect to leading ECM applications, including Alfresco, IBM, and Pegasystems.

See for yourself: take VirtualViewer for a test drive and experience all the features available for your Java-based application.

Discover Bank’s $36 Million Fund to Transform Financial Health in Delaware’s Fintech Ecosystem

Discover Bank’s $36 Million Fund to Transform Financial Health in Delaware’s Fintech Ecosystem

This is a sponsored blog post by Delaware Prosperity Partnership

A new Discover Bank fund aims to increase financial health throughout Delaware while enriching the state’s innovation ecosystem and enhancing Delaware’s reputation as a hub for banking and financial services.

The Discover Financial Health Improvement Fund will support startups and early-stage technology companies that are developing solutions to improve the financial well-being of low- and moderate-income residents, communities, and small businesses statewide. Discover Bank has made an initial capital commitment of $36 million to the Fund, which was announced in June and launches this month.

“We continually explore innovative ways to support our communities in which we operate, and the initial portfolio companies in the Discover Financial Health Improvement Fund have developed technologies that improve the financial health of people with modest means and provide tools to support small businesses growth,” said Matthew Parks, Vice President of Discover Bank. “It is our expectation that these technologies can both be profitable and beneficial to the community.”

By creating a framework to drive capital investments to fintech startups, the Fund ultimately seeks to ensure that affordable and relevant financial products and services are useful and accessible to unserved and underserved individuals and small businesses. Clients for these offerings include the unbanked and the underbanked and those with low credit scores, low savings rates and/or high borrowing costs.

The mission-driven initiative is a collaboration between Discover Bank, the Financial Health Network, ResilienceVC, and Delaware-based Chartline Capital. The Financial Health Network, a leading authority in its field, will help evaluate startups for their potential impact on financial-health improvement. ResilienceVC, a seed-stage domestically focused venture firm investing in embedded fintech startups, will manage Discover’s earlier-stage investments.

Venture capital firm Chartline Capital Partners was formed under the principle that entrepreneurship and venture capital can be leveraged to improve the world. The firm invests in high-growth business-to-business technology companies serving core industries after they have started scaling their go-to-market and helps founders and management teams accelerate growth. Chartline will manage Discover’s later-stage investments.

“Throughout time, new technologies have made people’s lives better,” said Ben duPont, Chartline co-founder and Managing Director. “Chartline is honored to partner with Discover to invest in companies leveraging new financial technologies to improve the lives of low- and moderate-income people, communities and small businesses.”

The Fund has a priority focus on investing in fintech startups that are willing to operate out of the new Financial Technology Building on the STAR Campus of the University of Delaware in Newark. Fund support will then seek to spread to companies that may be located throughout the mid-Atlantic region. Companies outside the region are still eligible for funding, but the venture must be focused on materially improving financial health for consumers and small businesses throughout the State of Delaware and/or the surrounding mid-Atlantic region. Any venture focused on improving financial health – regardless of its product or service’s delivery format or specific financial topic addressed – may apply for funding.

By boosting individual startups, the Discover Financial Health Improvement Fund also will bolster Delaware’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. According to Noah Olson, Director of Innovation at statewide economic development organization Delaware Prosperity Partnership, a legacy strength in financial services, coupled with a nurturing environment for business growth, makes Delaware a great place to grow a fintech company.

“Discover, a global company with a major footprint here in Delaware, is leading by example with this new fund,” Olson said. “Adding further investment resources to a growing startup ecosystem will be beneficial for the state, as well as for the portfolio companies who are focused on financial health improvement.”

Optimize Onboarding to Maximize Revenue

Optimize Onboarding to Maximize Revenue

Markets around the world have shifted from a growth-at-all-costs mentality to a more targeted approach that emphasizes onboarding the right customers while decreasing acquisition costs. But costs alone don’t tell the whole story. Successful customer onboarding strategies take into account risk tolerance, user experience, abandonment rates, operational costs, and the lifetime value of a good customer.

In this webinar, we’ll share how some of the world’s leading fintechs have optimized their onboarding to realize double-digit verification rate increases in key markets, improve onboarding rates, and gain significant operational savings.

Zac Cohen from Trulioo will share firsthand insights, including:

  • Key strategies to immediately optimize onboarding
  • How analytics changes the game for consumer and business verification
  • Real-world examples of how optimization can improve performance, speed, and the customer experience

Efficiencies deployed only during lean times can lead to short-term gains. But optimization with an eye toward the future can drive a long-term competitive advantage.

In collaboration with

Building the Foundations for Next-Gen Technology to Transform Customer Experience

Building the Foundations for Next-Gen Technology to Transform Customer Experience

Finovate webinar, in collaboration with InterSystems, Thu 12 Oct, 3pm BST / 10am ET

How can financial services firms improve the client journey and experience? Next-generation technologies that advance digital transformation are at the heart of that answer, but these rely on the firm’s ability to gather and analyze all available data across the business.

By now, many in financial services will have adopted technologies such as AI, ML, and analytics to enhance the experience their customers receive. However, to reach their full potential, they depend heavily on a solid data technology platform to build, train, and continuously improve model quality and predictions.

Hyper-personalization can foster loyalty in an era in which loyalty has declined, and it pushes customers and investors towards those firms which can be agile in what they offer. This level of hyper-personalization offers immense growth opportunities for all providers if they can cater to small and specific groups – but on a large scale.

Watch this webinar and learn from the experts:

  • How to achieve competitive differentiation by delivering better customer experiences.
  • How to optimize your existing infrastructure with a smart data fabric.
  • How other firms are building these data foundations and the results of their deployment.

On the panel:

  • Joe Lichtenberg, Global Head of Product and Industry Marketing, InterSystems
  • Virginie O’Shea, CEO and Founder, Firebrand Research

In collaboration with

Identity Verification in the World of Global Money Movement

Identity Verification in the World of Global Money Movement

As new trends emerge, such as the growth of P2P push payments, businesses need to implement verification processes to better protect their customers. Additionally, cross-border transactions require meticulous compliance with international AML regulations which can be challenging to navigate.

In this webinar, we’ll explore the role of identity in global payments and moving money across borders. Join our experts as they discuss strategies to ensure seamless customer experiences while staying fully compliant, incorporating essential concepts like KYB and KYC.

Key points of discussion will include:

  • Best trust and safety and compliance practices for moving money cross border and instantly 
  • How account creation fraud spurs push payment fraud and ways to mitigate these joint abuses 
  • How payments can be, simply put, better 

In collaboration with

The Smarter Approach to Winning in the Battleground for Insights within Financial Services

The Smarter Approach to Winning in the Battleground for Insights within Financial Services

This is a sponsored article by Irene Galperin, InterSystems

Innovation is at the forefront of every financial institution’s agenda. The days when a household name was enough for a bank, investment manager or lender to win and retain business are fading in the rear-view mirror. Today’s customers are digitally savvy and are more demanding of their financial service providers.

To compete in a world where digitally-native innovators are proving successful at meeting changed customer expectations, financial service firms are expanding their analytical and automation capabilities.

The sophisticated analytics and processes required to provide customer personalization, accelerate the credit approval process, manage risk, and prevent fraud before it happens, are fueled by vast volumes of data with varying degrees of complexity. Robust, high performance data management infrastructure is crucial to advancing such innovation and remaining competitive.

To meet these many demands, a huge investment in technology is underway. Analysts at Gartner forecast global IT spending in banking and investment services will reach $652 billion in 2023 – a staggering amount. Spending on software is shifting from building in-house to buying solutions that provide quicker time-to-value.

Intelligent data management as non-negotiable

Gaining insight from data has become the new battleground in financial services, as organizations know they must make better use of their data to improve business decision-making.

Predictive and prescriptive analytics offer huge gains in responsiveness and efficiency, but before organizations have access to such insights, they must be capable of managing the vast amount of data they have – not all of it their own.

We can see how firms are tackling this in the real world, using a new approach to data architecture, which is the smart data fabric. A smart data fabric prepares data for analysis by connecting to existing sources without the necessity of moving data or creating new silos. InterSystems, for example, enables businesses to use this approach so they can gain a complete 360-degree view of each customer and their business, enabling one reality powered by unified, trusted data.

A smart data fabric pulls disparate types of data together from many sources in real-time, creating a useable, dependable, and trustworthy single source of the truth. This is no mean feat when data is growing exponentially, flowing into different, highly distinct silos, and in very different formats. A smart data fabric enables financial services firms to transform, validate, and prepare data for use by advanced applications using sophisticated analytics.

Superior customer personalization to alleviate difficulties

This kind of revolutionary approach to data is having major impact on one of the largest credit unions in the US, Financial Center First Credit Union (FCFCU). FCFCU has worked with InterSystems to build a powerful Customer 360 application that uses predictive analytics to indicate signs of financial distress. This enables FCFCU to intervene much earlier and more effectively, fulfilling its mandate to support people while building stronger relationships with members. Frontline employees are able to make more decisions themselves, and are spared the need to move between different applications. Following implementation of the new application, the organization had its best lending year, helping members defer payments and refinance loans.

Asset management transformation

Another InterSystems customer, Harris Associates, is an independent asset management firm in the U.S. with more than $100 billion in assets under management as of March, 2023. It has always looked to improve its ability to better manage risk and gain visibility into performance data on demand, using data to serve multiple consumers and use cases. Speed of access to reliable insights is critical. Harris implemented InterSystems TotalView For Asset Management to build a smart data fabric, aggregating data from third-party providers along with the full gamut of internal sources and applications.

The smart data fabric has met the all-important requirements for timeliness and consistency, serving the entire business and its clients. Business users across the firm are now able to make decisions using timely, trustworthy data, with the ability to drill down and get to the answers that matter to them. The whole project has radically improved enterprise and client reporting.

Leading fintech unlocks the value of data

Broadridge Financial Solutions, a $5 billion global fintech leader handling $7 trillion of fixed income and equities securities trades per day, undertook a significant data management transformation to build a wealth management solution and unlock the value of their data. Broadridge embraced the smart data fabric architecture using InterSystems IRIS.

The architecture seamlessly unifies data sources, creating golden source data that is distributed horizontally with a caching layer, all in one high-performance solution, helping Broadridge to gain real-time insights, agility, and operational efficiency.

The new architecture met Broadridge’s need for speed and enabled them to scale to five times current volume, handle two million transactions daily, and store seven years of data. InterSystems IRIS provided a 900% improvement in performance using only 30% of the infrastructure, compared with an alternative approach.

Broadridge’s success story highlights the importance of innovative data solutions in reshaping business strategies. In the digital era, the smart data fabric emerges as pivotal, unlocking data’s full potential for Broadridge and its clients.

InterSystems’ long record of achievement in financial services data excellence

These real-world use cases are just three examples of how better access to trusted data is revolutionizing the effectiveness of financial service firms at competing and operating in the digital age. InterSystems has a long track record of innovation and achievement in this field, and has gained Gartner Magic Quadrant recognition as a visionary for cloud database management systems. This validates the company’s next-generation data platform and innovative smart data services. Composable services remove the need to build custom applications when organizations want to become more competitive.

The ability to gain a complete, accurate view of the enterprise and of individual customers is critical in today’s highly competitive banking sector where new players often have leaner technology and greater agility. But what they do not have is valuable customer data, acquired over many years. For banks to compete, a smart data fabric provides the ability to leverage predictive and prescriptive analytics to ramp up innovation and efficiency. Organizations can gain a 360-degree view of enterprise data across many silos, enabling them to capitalize on their data assets and deliver innovative services in the face of increasing competition.

Java-Based Viewing Integrations: A Secure and Efficient Solution for Financial Applications

This is a sponsored post by Accusoft.

Fintech software plays an instrumental role in the financial services industry today, facilitating customer access to financial products in a manner that enhances operational efficiency and suits individual needs. The advent of digital technology continues to transform financial institutions’ operations, pushing developers to innovate new applications that can efficiently handle tasks previously distributed over numerous systems and software.

Among these capabilities, document viewing and sharing features stand out as vital for fintech applications. Developers often resort to a range of document lifecycle solutions to circumvent the complexity of building these functionalities from scratch. However, the financial industry faces unique challenges related to security and compatibility when choosing integration partners. Understanding the critical role Java plays in contemporary fintech application development is imperative to truly grasp these technical hurdles.

Why Java Is a Vital Component of Fintech Applications

As a versatile and robust programming language, Java is renowned for its widespread use across many industries, with the finance sector being one of its prominent areas of application. Its popularity is attributed to several intrinsic features that particularly suit the demands of the finance industry. Among these are its scalability, security, and platform-independent nature. In an industry where data is vast, sensitive, and continually growing, Java’s scalable framework allows for the easy handling of increased data loads and user requests.

The robust security features Java offers are crucial for financial applications that handle high-value data that is frequently targeted by cybercriminals. Java is also a platform-independent language, which ensures that financial applications can function seamlessly across different operating systems, thus enhancing their accessibility and usability. This unique blend of capabilities has made Java the preferred programming language of developers operating in the financial services industry.

Why Financial Applications Need Document Viewing and Sharing Capabilities

Document viewing and sharing capabilities are of paramount importance in the financial services industry due to several reasons. These applications often deal with an array of complex and sensitive information, such as transaction histories, financial reports, regulatory documents, and personal client data. Effective document viewing and sharing capabilities allow for seamless access to this crucial information, enabling users to make informed decisions swiftly.

Viewing and sharing features also foster enhanced collaboration among team members, as they can easily share and discuss relevant documents. Given the sensitive nature of financial data, secure document viewing and sharing is essential to protect this data from unauthorized access. Effective and secure document viewing and sharing capabilities not only enhance the efficiency and productivity within the financial services industry but also play a critical role in maintaining data security and integrity.

4 Key Benefits of Java-Based Viewing Integrations

There are a number of reasons why integrating Java-based solutions for document viewing and sharing directly into fintech applications is beneficial for developers and financial services organizations.

1. Enhanced Security

Security is a paramount concern in the development and deployment of financial applications, and leveraging Java-based viewing integrations can play a significant role in enhancing this aspect. The integrations can serve as a safeguard, acting as a centralized location for document viewing and thus offering an extra layer of protection to sensitive information. With financial data typically including a vast range of confidential and highly valuable details, the potential for unauthorized access is a considerable risk.

Java-based viewing integrations can substantially mitigate these threats. By consolidating document viewing into a single, secure platform, it becomes substantially more challenging for unauthorized users to gain access to sensitive documents. Consequently, the application becomes more robust in terms of its security framework, providing users with greater confidence in the protection of their data.

2. Greater Efficiency

Efficiency is a crucial factor in the overall user experience and performance of financial applications, and the implementation of Java-based viewing integrations can significantly enhance this area. The traditional process often requires users to open and close external document viewers, a procedure that can be cumbersome and time-consuming. However, with the integration of a Java-based document viewer, this extra step can be eliminated.

Viewing documents directly within the financial application itself reduces the need for constant switching between different software interfaces. This streamlining of the viewing process saves valuable time, reduces the potential for user errors, and enhances the overall productivity of the end user. Therefore, incorporating Java-based viewing integrations in financial applications not only simplifies the workflow for users but also creates a more streamlined and efficient user interface, leading to improved productivity and a better user experience.

3. Improved Scalability

Scalability is a critical feature that is imperative for the growth and evolution of financial applications, and the incorporation of Java-based viewing integrations can serve as a vital tool to cater to this requirement. Financial organizations continually grow and change, and the amount of data they manage and the number of customers they serve can exponentially increase over time. In such scenarios, it’s crucial that fintech software can scale effectively to meet these expanding demands.

Java-based viewing integrations excel in this area by being inherently scalable. They can be expanded or contracted as needed, ensuring that irrespective of the increasing number of users or the burgeoning quantity of data, users will always have unhindered access to the documents they need. This seamless scalability ensures that the document viewing process remains efficient and effective, thereby contributing to the robustness of the application and supporting the continued growth and success of the financial institution.

4. Smoother Compatibility

Java-based viewing and sharing integrations are invaluable for the financial industry due to their ease of integration with existing Java-based fintech applications. In the evolving world of financial technology, seamless integration is critical to ensure optimal system performance, and to avoid compatibility issues that could disrupt operations. Java’s platform-independent nature, combined with its robust and versatile capabilities, allows for smooth and effective integration with a broad range of applications. This harmonization reduces the technical challenges associated with integrating disparate technologies and contributes to an overall smoother user experience.

Streamlined integrations also enable financial institutions to harness maximum value from their existing fintech applications, reducing the need for significant system overhauls or investments in entirely new platforms. In this area, Java-based viewing integrations contribute to increased operational efficiency, a more streamlined workflow, and ultimately, enhanced service provision in the financial industry.

Implementing Java-based Document Features with VirtualViewer

Accusoft’s VirtualViewer is an advanced, Java-based HTML5 document viewer for fintech applications. It supports various formats, eliminating the need for multiple viewers and enhancing user experience. The viewer operates on any OS, offering flexible viewing without software installation. Rapidly render and access financial documents, boosting security and efficiency. A national mortgage lender achieved a 40% reduction in processing times with VirtualViewer.

VirtualViewer provides comprehensive document support for your Java-integrated applications across platforms. Its robust APIs equip your software with essential viewing and sharing capabilities, whether deployed on the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid setup. Installation takes less than ten minutes, and ready-to-use connectors facilitate swift integration with leading ECM applications like Alfresco, IBM, and Pegasystems.

Test VirtualViewer today with a free demo to explore all the functionalities for your Java-integrated application.

Why Customer-Led Growth is the Future for Financial Services

Why Customer-Led Growth is the Future for Financial Services

This is a sponsored blog post by Matt Roche, CEO, Extole

Your job needs to be easier.

What you want is reasonable: acquire customers at a reasonable cost that will stick around and grow to use your broader offering. Instead, you are getting lower account retention and more difficulty opening new accounts, originating loans, or signing policies. And it gets harder every year, with higher paid media customer acquisition costs (CAC) and lower loyalty.

There is a solution, Customer-led Growth (CLG), the strategy of putting your customers and account holders at the center of your marketing, and it can deliver higher quality customers at a lower CAC.

CLG works.

Customer-led Growth is executed as a coordinated set of programs and activities that activate and engage prospects and customers along the entire customer journey to drive high-quality/low-cost acquisition, higher LTV, and higher engagement. CLG is predicated on the simple fact that your existing customer base is your most valuable and underused source of brand, awareness, and growth.

Customer-led Growth delivers the highest quality customers of any channel. Extole has worked with leading credit card, credit union, bank, brokerage, insurance, mortgage, and fintech companies. In nearly every case, the newly acquired customers from CLG programs are more profitable than any other channel.

  • For a brokerage, 24% more customers adopted higher-value trading products
  • For a credit card company, 22% more customers made their card first out of wallet
  • For a credit union, customers executed 15% to 20% more debit card transactions

In addition, existing customers that participated in programs were more likely to be among the most valuable to the firms we served. Simply engaging in programs, whether referral, nominations, gifting, cross-sell, or otherwise led to customers that were stickier and more profitable.

If a marketing approach can deliver higher-quality customers in this economic environment, why wouldn’t you do everything possible to adopt it?

The elements of Customer-led Growth

CLG is based on a simple mechanism: offer incentives to targeted audiences along the customer journey to drive high-value engagement. The key elements of a successful strategy include:

  1. Evergreen referral and advocacy – Make referral an essential part of being a customer or account holder, providing codes, links, and tools for sharing that promote and reward natural advocacy.
  2. Challenges – Looking to increase app downloads or get customers to set up direct deposit? Test different incentives to drive higher uptake.
  3. Journey-based engagement – Introduce customers to programs at different stages, from onboarding to more mature, to keep them engaged and grow product usage.
  4. Targeted offers – Target incentivized programs to audiences, like new customers, partners, agents, or specific segments to make certain that incentives are going only to those individuals that will take action.
  5. Dynamic incentives – Allow rewarding using a huge range of incentives, including account credits, gift cards, charitable donations, privileges, and vouchers with rules crafted to make certain you are rewarding what creates value for you.

What to expect from Customer-led Growth

Most marketers will begin their Customer-led Growth journey with referral (or refer-a-friend) because it provides the fastest, most reliable return on investment and the highest quality new customers. Even firms with existing programs find that adopting purpose-built and modern technology results in significantly higher results because the experience is more seamless for customers, eliminating fraud and manual processing that prevent rapid satisfaction.

The next stage is optimization, tuning the incentive and experience and expanding the marketing of the program to ensure the widest possible participation. For an ordinary credit union, this could mean delivering 10% of new accounts with a basic program.

Driving new customer acquisition

In my experience, the best programs have delivered 30% to 40% of new accounts, a staggering result for a channel that delivers consistently high-quality accounts. In order to achieve this level, marketing teams must drive participation, usually through three techniques:

  1. Expand marketing – The number of new accounts created is a function of customer awareness of the programs and ultimately of customers taking action. Driving higher program awareness drives end volume.
  2. Segment participants – Behavioral patterns will emerge as customers engage. You will be able to distinguish simple advocates from ambassadors and superadvocates/ affiliates. Target programs to each audience to maximize yield.
  3. Vary terms and incentives – Different participants will respond to different incentives, and rapidly refreshing program structures can drive higher participation and yield.

Driving customer base revenue

Once you have established acquisition programs that are effective, then you can expand to broader programs to drive customers to higher-value segments through targeted challenge programs.

For example, for almost all firms, a customer who downloads a mobile app will have a meaningfully higher lifetime value. Create a challenge program targeted to customers in their first 90 days offering an account credit for downloading and installing the app. Other important milestones include connecting accounts, executing trades, or adopting new products, all of which can be promoted at different stages using incentives that are only available to customers that are at that point in their journey.

You can also adopt “surprise and delight” style programs that offer incentives for having done something, as a thank you for a behavior that has created value. While these are more subtle, they can have a profound effect on tenure.

The long-term benefits of Customer-led Growth

A mature Customer-led Growth approach will provide a healthier, longer-term customer base that is connected with you in a more meaningful, less transactional way. As you evolve in this strategy, you will find yourselves spending less time talking about “last click” attribution, and more time talking about customer quality by channel, rates of participation, and how incentives relate to your brand. Higher quality questions reflect higher quality marketing organizations.

Extole created CLG, and is the leading platform. Connect with us September 11-13, 2023 at FinovateFall in booth 210.


Vector illustration – Cloud computing