The financial services industry has seen a breathtaking amount of innovation over the last
decade thanks to fintech applications that streamline user experiences and improve
operational efficiencies. Many of these solutions incorporate third-party viewing integrations
that allow people to view and manage documents, eliminating the need to switch back and
forth between different software.

Implementing specialized viewing technology saves time and resources during the development
process so fintechs can get their products to market faster. By selecting the right integration
partner from the beginning, they can put themselves in a position to scale capabilities in the
future without suffering unexpected costs or compromising performance.

Viewing Integrations and the Problem of Scale

Fintech developers often turn to API-based viewing integrations like Accusoft’s PrizmDoc
because they provide the tremendous power and flexibility that modern financial services
applications require. Whether it’s file conversion, robust annotation, document assembly, or
redaction, fintech software must be able to provide extensive document processing features to
meet customer expectations.

In order to implement those advanced viewing capabilities, the developer usually needs to set
up a dedicated server as part of their on-premises infrastructure or in a cloud deployment. One
of the biggest advantages of API-based integrations is that customers only have to pay for the
processing resources they use, but this can also pose some challenges when it comes to scaling
application capacity.

As fintech companies expand their services, they need to be able to deliver document viewing
capabilities to a larger number of users. If each viewing session requires the server to prepare
and render documents for viewing, costs can quickly escalate. As server workloads increase,
viewing responsiveness may be affected, resulting in delays and slower performance.

While some users may still need to use server-based viewing to access more powerful imaging
and conversion features, many customers simply need a quick and easy way to view and make
minor document alterations. Fintech developers need a versatile solution that can meet both
requirements if they want to scale their services smoothly.

Introducing PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing

PrizmDoc’s new Hybrid Viewing feature provides fintech applications the best of both worlds by
offloading the document processing workloads required for viewing to client-side devices.
Rather than using server resources to convert files into SVG format and render them for display,
Hybrid Viewing instead converts files into PDF format and then delivers that document to the
end user’s browser for viewing.

Shifting the bulk of document processing work to client-side devices significantly reduces server
workloads, which translates into lower costs for fintech applications.

For documents not already in PDF format, the PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing feature offers new PDF
viewing packages that pre-convert documents into PDF for fast, responsive local viewing.
By reducing the server requirements for rendering files, fintech providers can easily scale their
applications without worrying about additional users increasing their document processing
costs. PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing also eliminates the need for separate viewing solutions
implemented to work around server-based viewing, which allows developers to streamline their
tech stack and further optimize customer experiences.

5 Ways Hybrid Viewing Enhances FinTech Applications

PrizmDoc’s Hybrid Viewing feature provides FinTech developers with several important benefits
that improve application flexibility and deliver greater value to their customers.

1. Resource Savings
   Hybrid Viewing minimizes server loads by offloading the bulk of the processing required to view
   a document to client-side devices. Reducing server requirements translates into lower costs and
   frees up valuable processing resources for other critical fintech workloads.
2. Scalable Viewing
   Shifting the processing work required for viewing to local devices allows fintech applications to
   scale their user base with minimal cost.
3. Enhanced Performance
   Offloading document preparation to the end user’s device improves viewing speed and
   responsiveness, especially for large documents.
4. Increased Productivity
   Diverting workloads to client-side devices allows application users to process, view, and manage
   multiple documents faster. Fintech developers can leverage Hybrid Viewing to provide a better
   user experience that helps their customers to be more efficient and productive.
5. Improved Storage Management
   For documents not already in PDF format, Hybrid Viewing can utilize PDF-based viewing
   packages that are significantly smaller than conventional SVG viewing files. Files can be
   pre-converted for fast, easy viewing without taking up extra storage space.

Enhance FinTech Applications with PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing

PrizmDoc’s new Hybrid Viewing feature allows fintech developers to seamlessly scale their
application’s viewing capabilities without having to deploy new servers or rethink their cost
structure. Shifting document processing to local devices provides end-users with faster, more
responsive performance, especially when viewing lengthy documents. By keeping
viewing-related costs low, fintech developers can focus their resources on developing new
application features that help their products stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

To learn more about how PrizmDoc’s Hybrid Viewing can benefit your fintech application, talk
to one of Accusoft’s PrizmDoc specialists today.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro

The following is a sponsored post from WSO2.

The customer journey is vital in today’s financial services landscape and cloud-enabled business innovation is the vital ingredient.

A good user experience is a critical factor in helping consumers differentiate between firms and helping brands build lasting relationships with customers.

According to the Harvard Business Review, firms with leading customer satisfaction rankings can grow their revenues two and a half times faster than their competitors. Moreover, research by Forrester demonstrates that customers are over twice as likely to stick with a brand when their problems are solved quickly.

Yet, great digital experiences rely on intuitive GUIs and an agile, cloud native strategy, both of which are not easy to achieve. In this article, we’ll demystify how to get started with cloud computing in software engineering for banking and help you develop a leading customer UX.

What Are the Challenges of Cloud Business Innovation in Banking?

Approximately US$1.3 trillion was spent in 2020 on digital transformation, yet Deloitte data shows 70% of projects fail. That equates to over US$900 billion wasted — so what’s going wrong?

Just as an HD TV relies on good HD content, great apps need high interactivity with data, an always-on presence, security, and scalability to perform under high demand.

Eric Newcomer, WSO2 CTO, argues that cloud business innovation goes wrong when there’s a messy middle. In other words, when there’s a lack of clarity about how strategy, outcome, and skill coordinate the microservices within a platform, cloud business innovation becomes dysfunctional.

Within banking specifically, the stakes of digital transformation are extremely high. Today’s financial services firms must deal with an onslaught of cyberattacks and regulatory constraints, not to mention increased competition from new fintech entrants better-equipped to deliver excellent customer experiences. So how can financial institutions ensure they foster an innovative and successful cloud-first environment?

How to Overcome These Challenges

Great cloud computing in software engineering needs equally great cloud native practices and technology, focusing specifically on integration and APIs. Without this focus, customers lose the always-on, always integrated feel that today’s users demand.

Therefore, financial services firms require an all-in-one platform delivering accelerated and enhanced engineering processes to speed up innovation in their cloud environment.
Unfortunately, building robust and agile platforms from scratch can be timely and costly.

Instead, partnering with existing solutions providers allows financial service firms to focus on developing cloud banking innovations and better deliver security, compliance, and ideal customer experiences. You can read more about overcoming challenges for banks to generate fintech innovation here.

The Role of Digital Platform-as-a-Service Within Financial Services

An “opinionated” digital platform-as-a-service (digital PaaS) accelerates cloud banking innovation by tackling some of the core complexities of developing digital applications. As a result, you can build, deploy, and iterate new versions more easily.

Digital PaaS platforms enable diagrammatic and low-code functionality, providing a great developer experience. In turn, your teams can increase their productivity and attention to quality assurance for end-users.

Moreover, digital PaaS integrates with automated deployment tools using Docker and Kubernetes. As a result, you can test, develop, and deploy new user features for maximum customer satisfaction faster than ever before, using just a few clicks.

Digital PaaS solutions deliver seamless platform functionality and integration with your existing data warehouses, allowing you to leverage efficient and scalable consumer solutions.

How Low-Code Digital PaaS Enables Cloud Computing in Software Engineering

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to cloud computing in software engineering, so what makes a digital PaaS-based method the most appropriate for financial services?

A digital PaaS approach provides a highly stable environment to create and manage APIs since it establishes core conventions and assumptions within your workflows. These assumptions include the programming language and dev environment, all the way to the publishing process on software marketplaces. As a result, you can remove barriers to collaboration and shorten project lead times. Similarly, as a cloud-enabled solution, you provide collaborative space for your teams to work.

Moreover, you can easily build platform microservices and provide teams with autonomy over their software output. Software teams can publish updates to critical platform elements accordingly without jeopardizing the rest of your platform or relying on slower project teams, keeping your user experience competitive.

However, the benefits don’t stop when you hit publish. Digital PaaS solutions allow you to run professional DevOps systems and make improvements in step with live user trends. Consequently, you can remain competitive and establish a close relationship with customers.

Finally, once your APIs are built, you can share them through marketplace and import or export data with other SaaS platforms. As a result, you can leverage other data sources for enhanced features. For example, you can capitalize on open banking ecosystems, enhance your security through additional identity checks, and more.

And so, with complex development and deployment tasks that are both easy to learn and use, you can deliver fresh digital services faster — and more accurately — than ever.

Introducing Choreo by WSO2

With around only three in ten digital transformations being successful and the heightened competition within banking today, financial services companies need to innovate at speed and scale.

Choreo is a digital PaaS that helps companies manage and develop APIs, services, and integrations quickly. Choreo enables developers and operations teams to go from ideation to production in hours or days versus weeks and months via a seamless environment that eliminates the complexity of cloud native computing.

Choreo provides a diagrammatic and pro-code environment side by side, allowing you to create an outline and make detailed tweaks in minutes. It includes a developer marketplace with over 400 pre-built connectors that makes it easy to discover, reuse, publish, and share.

With security and transparency at its foundation, you can easily trace code changes and root issues across your entire development history. You can also benefit from AI-assisted coding and enhanced governance features.

Find out more about Choreo and create an API with just a few clicks.

Photo by Nejc Soklič on Unsplash

This is a sponsored article by Kim Minor, Senior Vice President Global Marketing at Provenir.

To compete successfully in our digital-first, instant gratification world, you need a risk-decisioning ecosystem designed to intelligently serve customers. A solution that not only connects every piece of credit decisioning and AI/ML software you own, but also enables you to access any external and internal data source in real time to auto optimize decisions—along with the impact of those decisions—across your entire customer lifecycle.

But many financial services providers are unable to tie all these elements together because legacy risk analytics offerings just weren’t built that way. So, as a user you’ve had to look to multiple products when you want world-class solutions for data and AI-powered decisioning. You’ve relied on vendors to make changes. You’ve relied on multiple user interfaces (UI) to keep control. You’ve waited months for solutions to go live, and… you’ve needed to replace technology a few years later when it can’t expand and scale with your business.

Whether you’re a startup with a single product line, or a unicorn offering a range of financial solutions, you need to create a financial ‘home’ for your customers, which means delivering a great customer experience from start to finish, regardless of changing dynamics.

Here are the five key features of a risk decisioning platform that will enable you to create world-class customer experiences:

No-Code Management: to integrate systems, change processes and launch new products

In a survey of 400 decision makers in fintech and financial services organizations across the globe, 78% of respondents cited low/no code UI as a feature they have or that would be most important when selecting an automated risk decisioning system. Inflexible solutions that require a vendor or your IT department to connect to a new data source, make workflow changes or launch a new product hinder time to market, increase costs, and put you behind your competitors. Look for a solution that has pre-built data integrations and a visual, drag-and-drop interface to easily and quickly make changes to respond to evolving consumer needs.

Connected Data: easy access to real-time and historical data

Through our survey of decision makers, we discovered that credit risk decisions rely more on historical than real-time data. Sixty-one percent of respondents use both historical and real-time data when making credit risk decisions yet only 11 percent mostly use real-time data. To make accurate credit risk decisions, easy access to data across the whole credit lifecycle is a must. And all teams must have access to the same data sets to ensure big picture decisioning. Without it, the insights needed to get new products and processes to market faster and to make intelligent risk decisions remain hidden in silos of data.

Centralized Control: data and AI-powered decisioning across the customer lifecycle

To power continuous innovation across the customer lifecycle, organizations need to be able to launch, learn, and iterate with ease, but separate solutions for data and AI-decisioning slow innovation down. Consumers expect their experiences to be seamless, giving them access to tailored financial services products while also protecting them from financial fraud. To support this consumer need and business strategy, financial services organizations need to combine data and decisioning into one cohesive solution that can provide the technology to access, analyze, and action data across fraud, identity, and credit decisioning processes.

Auto-Optimization: decisioning that gets more accurate every time it’s used

Do you know how your current risk models are performing? Or whether model drift is occurring and unhealthy? How long would it take you to respond to performance changes once they’re spotted? Traditional decisioning has relied on human intervention to spot model performance changes and identify efficiency improvement options, meaning improvements happen on an ad-hoc basis, if at all.

To operate at maximum efficiency and run the most accurate models possible, your AI-powered decisioning and data solution needs a centralized UI that connects all necessary data so it can be used to power a continuous feedback loop, where both historical and real-time data are used to auto-optimize performance on an ongoing basis. Model performance and accuracy can be monitored and adjusted in real time.

Grow and Expand with Confidence: Technology that scales and grows with your business

One of the biggest obstacles financial services companies face is having technology that can support their business as it evolves and grows. For example, people often find it a challenge to support decisioning as application volume grows and their offerings expand. Sometimes the impact can be from delays waiting for vendors or in-house teams to make changes; often it means procuring or building new solutions to fill in technology gaps or completely replacing existing solutions. Whatever the path forward, the impact is the same… delayed growth, limited agility, and user frustration. To preempt future technology challenges, look for options that empower you to grow, expand, and change direction.

To truly thrive in an increasingly competitive industry, you need to provide consumers with world-class customer experiences. A unified data and AI-powered decisioning platform lets you make smarter decisions, faster. Use your technology’s powerful data integration and automation capabilities to create streamlined user experiences and drive real-time decisioning.

About the Author: Kim Minor is Senior Vice President, Marketing at Provenir, which helps fintechs and financial services providers make smarter decisions faster with its AI-Powered Risk Decisioning Platform. Provenir works with disruptive financial services organizations in more than 50 countries and processes more than three billion transactions annually.