The future of FinTech in Asia is as a steady development as the future of electric vehicles in California – it’s going to happen. It’s not surprising, then, that Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018 drew some of the world’s top tech firms and, of course, tens of thousands of attendees. China Mobile, China Telecom, China Transport Telecommunication Information Group, China Unicom, Datang, Dell, Ericsson, Nokia, OnStar, PwC, Qualcomm, Samsung LSI, Visa, vivo and Volkswagen, among others, were there to present their tech to the Asian market, and the world.
It’s impossible to miss all the talks surrounding the enormous potential for FinTech in the Asian market. With factors like personal income growth and increased consumption contributing to the rapid development of the region and, as such, customer needs, the demand for services presented at MWC Shanghai was clear: mobile banking, online payments and money transfers were the central topics of the event, with industry’s leaders making the future of FinTech in Asia amongst the most-discussed topics at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018, with the strategic importance of synergy between Financial and Communication industries impossible to downplay.
Currently, the competition between MNOs is cutthroat, and the customer churn is at an all-time high, so retaining customers is the utmost priority for any MNO on the market.
Already you can see, how Mobile Network Operators are looking into offering their clients enhanced financial products, with the likes of micro loans, micro insurance, international remittance, and peer to peer payments, with those products becoming not just a Value Added Service for the MNO, but a key strategic interest, a way to make sure its customer base is going to grow. So can these industry behemoths, whose number of clients is often in the hundreds of millions, quickly build, deploy, and market mobile financial services, to stay ahead of the curve, or do they turn to outside FinTech companies for help?
Among the numerous B2B products presented by the FinTech sector is Any2Any – a platform that integrates into the existing infrastructures of MNOs and MVNOs in order to provide financial services to their respective clients. It was launched by CreditPilot – a company with two decades of experience in the FinTech industry and bold plans to expand into the Asian market. Any2Any seamlessly integrates into MNOs and MVNOs infrastructure to to provide financial services to their clients.
CreditPilot, a FinTech spin-off from Megafon – Russia’s leasing MNO – started with payment kiosks, but was soon offering its services to MNOs, Service Providers, banks, and even utility companies that needed bespoke FinTech solutions to present to their clients. Now, it provides platforms for MNOs and MVNOs, including retail fintech, and Enterprise Scale Payments Infrastructure.
At MWC Shanghai 2018, it was especially noted how the business-to-business sector is a growing part of these events, as companies gather not just to impress the end consumer with the latest gadget, high-speed frequency, or never-before-seen piece tech, but to forge links with other companies, and come up with solutions for the ever-changing landscape – societal, economical, and technological. The FinTech industry is strategically placed between these huge market players, such as national MNOs, with the potential to take these companies ahead of the curve, and ensure their growth – and the region’s – for years to come.