3 Digital Services That are Changing Finance for the Better

Taking control of your financial situation used to be a lot of footwork and largely something reserved for those able to afford premium services. Like much of the financial and property sectors, the mobilization and digitization of services have revolutionized the process of setting up, withdrawing, interaction and managing much of our financial lives.

It hasn’t all been about access, however. Beyond that, we’ve also been able to educate ourselves on some of the more complex and intimidating financial decisions that everyone has to make but many don’t fully understand. Re-mortgaging, investing and CX have drastically shifted from closed-off, specialist topics left to professionals, into easier to understand services and concepts that have helped many.

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Housing Matters

Comparison sites are commonplace in several industries. In the case of mortgages and re-mortgaging, though, the educational side and simplification of a previously difficult service has significantly lowered barriers for existing homeowners, or those aspiring to be. Online platforms are accessible and often free-to-use, which differentiates them from personal mortgage advisors entirely. The concept of mortgaging is complex enough before we begin to wrangle with the process of re-mortgaging, which is often treated with reticence due to a perceived difficulty in understanding all the facets involved. Online services have directly challenged those assumptions by offering attractive and direct platforms that cater to beginners first. Mortgage comparison web sites such as Trussle don’t necessarily offer a new service that has not been offered before; it’s the accessibility and the quality of delivery of said service which enhances their standing.

Trading Places

Digitized trading has been a massive factor in the growth of micro-investing and small-time investors. Platforms like Freetrade and Robinhood are trailblazers in this industry, combining simple user experiences with easy access and real-time notifications. Concepts like fractional shares and clearing periods – perhaps more nuanced features of trading – are presented in straightforward ways, allowing a free user to experience the full spectrum of diversified portfolios, all via the comfort of their mobile phone or desktop, without the need to invest too much money. The questions of the usability of micro-investing (often little more than many investments of spare change) may well have grounding. Returns are small if anything at all. However, the habitual nature of portfolios, the long-term approaches and a simple introduction to them cannot be seen as anything more than a positive step in democratizing a financial service.

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Budget Up

Budgeting is something many younger people are familiar with. A wealth gap exists in the western world that means huge swathes of the populous have to live from paycheck to paycheck. Thankfully, help is at hand. Budgeting apps, often entirely free, make use of open banking protocols to provide a bird’s eye view of individual accounts and deliver holistic images of spending that the individual may never have had the ability, or patience, to collate and evaluate themselves. Some such services, like Yolt, also partner with fintech brands to create and/or support similarly helpful platforms like Pensionbee or Bulb, all with the same goal; to make people’s financial lives that much easier.

With the birth of fintech as an industry of challengers and innovators, the status quo has certainly shifted. Improved control of one’s finances might have once meant being able to visit a bank on a weekend to pay in funds. Nowadays, we can understand, interpret, build and manipulate our financial worlds in ways that actively make our lives better and allow us to plan our future with more confidence than ever before. In any industry, that’s a cause worth fighting for.