Overcoming common pain points when growing a FinTech firm

Picture the scene. A FinTech firm launches and business booms for the first year. It’s matched for the second year, but then a deflated feeling starts to sweep throughout the office daily as more and more challenges present themselves as obstacles to business growth and attracting further funding.

Maybe this sounds familiar? Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s still relatable in an unpredictable climate. Yet what if the business had a solution to every challenge in its first year? What if they’d planned for these stumbling blocks at the start and had a clear strategy in place to overcome them? Maybe their enthusiasm would still fuel each working day and help them achieve their growth ambitions. Let’s take a closer look at the challenges.

Appointing leadership roles

Many emerging FinTech firms started with an idea conceived by just one or two people, and their utter belief and passion drives the business at pace. Until a point. Appointing a CFO is one of the first HR challenges at a leadership level that growing FinTechs face, and finding the perfect candidate is a cause of sleepless night. One approach that is being increasingly adopted in financial roles across many sectors is employing a consultant or accountancy firm to act as CFO.

Drawing on the expertise of someone who has many years within banking and financial services has many benefits and inherent within the role of an interim CFO is that they are in place to achieve very specific strategic aims. Instead of searching for that long term fit, FinTech’s are better turning to an adviser and mentor knowledgeable in the sector, challenges and stage where the business is in its lifecycle. BrightBridge has worked with Jonathan Smith on a number of occasions in his financial leadership roles, across FinTech, FX and Digital Assets sectors. He set up Aiteo Consulting as a ‘hands-on’ solutions provider to start-ups and scale-ups, supporting fundraising and building out finance functions. Having someone in an interim role that has developed capabilities in core accounting, implemented finance systems and created business plans time and again, will add immense value and help a business put its best foot forward from day one on the job.

Raising capital

Finding clients, investors and partners to aid growth is a common challenge across the FinTech industry. While financial acumen combined with cutting edge technology seems an attractive asset across multiple industries when it comes to making a sure bet FinTechs need to focus on potential target customers for their pitch. Investors want to know a business understands what its customers need and how they can support them. It is then that they have the confidence and reassurance to invest. Jonathan Smith of Aiteo Consulting has this advice: “Growth gets noticed and second to that, robust and actionable plans for growth than can be evidenced with confidence. To present this view of your business, it is essential to illustrate you really understand your customer – from how they buy to what they need – and relate this to the specifics of scalability. It’s also important to the right investors and gaining the support of an experienced FinTech investor can, of course, support a business financially, but it can gain from their strategic experience, contacts and competitive intelligence.”

Adhering to regulatory compliance and addressing cybersecurity

Not only is meeting compliance standards a regulatory requirement, it’s a huge beacon signalling a reputable business that can be trusted. FinTech is a heavily regulated industry with GDPR, FCA and industry regulation all providing rules and guidelines for us to follow. Employing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System such as Oracle NetSuite OneWorld provides a comprehensive system to support a business in meeting its compliance standards, across multiple jurisdictions in real-time. Similarly, NetSuite immediately resolves any lack of confidence in current software, and it can be used as a guarantee to potential investors that safeguarding comes as standard to protect all data. FinTech companies have access to highly confidential and sensitive data from bank details to net worth so a platinum standard of security is essential.

Streamlining processes as the business grows

The more a business grows, the greater the need for additional resource. Without which, growth cannot be achieved as teams only have the time to focus on the day-to-day rather than implementing any growth strategy. NetSuite immediately relieves the pressure on internal teams and gives them the tools they need to maximise their time and concentrate on their wider objectives. Jonathan Smith, who has propelled FinTech companies like Koine in his role as interim CFO, explains: “With real-time reporting, the ability to manage transactions in crypto and global currencies, consolidated financial statements with multi-jurisdiction tax localisation and automated audits, NetSuite streamlines processes and simplifies business structure. Having focussed more than one ambitious FinTech company by using NetSuite to its full potential I can say with certainty that the solution grows alongside a business, at the same pace, to not only provide constant support but it is a solid foundation that actually facilitates growth.”

If your business is experiencing any of these pain points, contact us for an informal discussion about how BrightBridge can implement the number one cloud solution to aid your business growth.