Last updated on July 4th, 2016 at 10:59 am
The quest for better user experience, says one fintech expert, is driving the continued disruption of banking and finance. Whether its currency exchange or alternative currencies, new payment systems, invoicing, lending, managing cash flow and sourcing investment and fraud management, fintech is enabling improvements to every area of process.
“Each of these areas have historically been part of the banking infrastructure,” Montreal-based fintech expert Ferhan Patel told B2B News Network. “However, nowadays consumers are looking for a better user experience in everything they do and will no longer tolerate outdated and poorly built solutions. Fintechs are all about solving pain points and enhancing the user experience.”
Find him on Twitter: @FerhanPatel
Ferhan Patel accidentally got into fintech 12 years ago when he ran into an issue with a frozen Paypal account. Seeking a better solution, he co-founded a technology company called AlertPay in 2004 “without realizing where this journey would take me,” he said.
He’s consulted for various companies in relation to e-commerce payments, mobile payments, digital wallets, compliance and fraud mitigation. Today, the payment guru – who holds five designations including Certified Financial Crime Specialist, Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist – is working with a new fintech startup, Payment Rails.
Based in Toronto and Montreal, Payment Rails is a cloud technology platform that enables businesses to send payments to any individual or company anywhere in the world, in any currency, and to all major payment methods. The company has a mission to simplify cross-border payouts for online marketplaces, share economy, on-demand and crowdsourcing platforms, ad networks, affiliate platforms, app stores, crowdfunding platforms, and to grow businesses with international payout needs. Payment Rails gives businesses access to its massive global banking and payments network.
Although Patel said that banks have been very hesitant about Bitcoin, “the underlying technology for Bitcoin, the blockchain, is a very impressive technology that banks and major financial institutions are embracing,” he said. “Banks are experimenting with blockchain/Ripple in order to make swift transfers ‘real-time’ instead of the 1-3 business days.”
