Over the past few years, a significant shift in the banking and financial industry has been driven by digital transformation. One of the most notable trends in this environment has been the move from open banking to embedded finance. This cognitive shift is of great importance for both consumers and businesses alike.
Open banking explained
Open banking refers to the practice of opening up banking data, products, and services, to third-party providers, typically via application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing customers to share their banking data with other financial services providers, such as budgeting apps, investment platforms, and lending institutions.
Open banking and the consumer
Open banking has several consumer benefits, allowing them to easily integrate all of their financial data into one place and giving them a more holistic view of their financial situation.
Open banking also enables them to access new financial products and services previously unavailable to them, such as personalized investment advice and lower-cost loans.
Open banking and business
From a business perspective, open banking can help banks and financial institutions maintain their competitiveness, which fosters innovations and development more efficiently and effectively.
Banks can tap into new revenue streams and expand their customer base by opening their information, products, and services to third-party providers. Additionally, this enables them [banks and financial institutions] to collaborate and work with fintech start-ups and other innovative companies to develop new products and services.
Embedded finance explained
Open banking has undoubtedly impacted the banking and financial industry. Embedded finance is an emerging trend involving integrating financial products and services into non-financial applications and platforms, such as e-commerce sites, social media platforms, and ride-sharing apps.
Embedded finance in everyday life
One of the most recognizable and prominent examples of embedded finance is the BNPL (buy-now-pay-later) model. BNPL has become increasingly popular in recent years, with [BNPL] customers splitting their purchases into smaller payments, usually with no fees or interest. This service is often directly integrated into e-commerce sites, making it user-friendly.
Other examples of embedded finance include buying insurance within a travel-booking app or directly obtaining a loan from a budgeting app.
The key benefits of embedded finance
The key benefit of embedded finance is that it makes banking, financial products, and services more accessible and convenient for consumers, as they can access them within the applications and platforms they already use.
Embedded finance and business
From a business perspective, embedded finance can assist companies in increasing their customer engagement and loyalty, generating new revenue streams. For example, a ride-sharing app offering loans to its drivers could potentially encourage, and retain the drivers, as the benefit for them is easy access to finance and financing. Similarly, an e-commerce site offering BNPL may see increased sales and loyalty
Conclusion
The cognitive shift from open banking to embedded finance represents an essential and advanced development and innovation throughout the banking and finance industry.
Whereas open banking has enabled greater access to financial information, products, and services, embedded finance takes this further by directly integrating this information and these products and services into non-financial applications and platforms.
These digital advances, developments, and innovations have the potential to make banking and financial products and services more accessible and convenient for consumers while helping businesses to stay competitive and create and innovate more quickly.
As a fintech, Youtap can continue to generate and develop software that supports open banking and embedded finance. Whether this is for applications or loyalty programs, mergers or not, Youtap continues to have the solutions to any problems that may occur due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s digital invasion and inclusion.
As these trends evolve, it will be interesting to see how they shape the financial in the coming years. Moreover, it will be interesting to see how Youtap responds to the increased dominance of open banking, embedded finance, and the digital transformations sweeping the world.
