Why partnerships in fintech are building the industry
Partnerships in any industry can be key to producing the highest quality results most efficiently. Fintech is no different in this regard. Every company specialises in its own niche and can bring its expertise and unique experience to the collective project making itself irreplaceable. But the minute each brand decides to take care of every aspect of the project without external support - it loses right away due to insufficient competencies and expertise.
It is a win-win
First and foremost two or more companies cooperating will benefit from using each other’s products, which they would not be able to produce at this standard on their own. They can also decrease the production cost, boost their sales and most importantly create the most effective product for the customers thus, retaining the existing ones and acquiring new clientele. Obviously, partnerships require constant engagement between the parties. If the communication on one side is neglected or the partners do not engage equally, it is very likely that the trust between them will not be fully developed and the product will not achieve its full potential.
Building credibility & reducing development costs
Partnering with established financial institutions can help many fintech companies gain credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of their current and prospective consumers, as well as other stakeholders. This can be particularly important for fintech companies that are operating in heavily regulated industries, such as banking and insurance. Additionally, since building new technology from scratch can be expensive and time-consuming, by teaming up with others, each fintech company can share development costs and repackage or bundle products and services more effectively and efficiently saving their budget for other priorities.
One partnership takes on the other
If you team up with one partner and your cooperation turns into a fruitful experience with positive results, there is a high chance that you will be introduced to the partners of their partners! It works the same as networking. You grow your chain network through building relationships with different people and in the case of fintech, it is mostly with the suppliers, aggregator providers and innovators etc. Knowing many of them will enable you to diversify your partners depending on the project you’re working on and choose the most suitable one.
Your client gets the best product possible
Every company specialises in its niche, such as payments or lending, and usually does not have expertise in other areas. By partnering with other fintech companies, you can gain access to new technology and expertise that can help you improve your products and services. Additionally, you can enhance your own product offerings and provide more comprehensive solutions to your customers. For example, a payment processing company may partner with a fraud prevention company to offer a more secure payment solution. In early 2022, AAZZUR partnered with a leading embedded finance experience platform Rails in an innovative ‘Front-end-as-a-Service’ offering for DACH (German, Austrian, Swiss) clients.
Whilst Rails provided regulatory and technical expertise via its payment infrastructure for accounts and cards management, in turn, AAZZUR offered front-end layers, integration and value-added financial products to DACH clients of both companies who want to enter the BaaS and embedded finance space or even build their challenger bank. The partnership with Rails enabled AAZZUR to increase its number of compliance-ready core banking products while becoming the front-end BaaS provider for a large number of Rails’s DACH clients.
About the author: Philipp Buschmann, co-founder and CEO at AAZZUR , a one-stop shop for smart embedded finance experience. Recognised as a rising star in the FinTech space, AAZZUR’s mission is to build profitable banking whilst empowering consumers with access to better-informed financial choices.
Philipp is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience of working in Challenger Banking, Financial Services, IT and Energy across the world. He took one of his businesses public - Ignis Petroleum was publicly listed in the US and Germany.
Having started as a developer in Financial Services, Philipp has first-hand experience of the banking revolution from both a technology and financial perspective. His interest in behavioural economics helped inspire AAZZUR’s revolutionary work on customer centricity in banking.
Philipp holds an MBA from the London Business School. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and loves exchanging ideas, insights and discussing FinTech's future. He has spoken at major Fintech events including Money 20/20, MoneyLive, Finovate, Fintech Matters, and the Future of Retail Banking.
