Fintech and your career

Technology at banks, insurance companies and other financial organisations is much more than a support function. It’s often at the cutting edge of change and innovation, making the fintech sector an exciting area for technologically minded graduates with an interest in finance to begin their careers.

What is fintech?

Fintech, or ‘fin tech’, is a blend of the words ‘financial technology’. Essentially it refers to any technology in finance that replaces traditional ways of doing things. You’re very likely to have encountered fintech as a customer – for example, if you use mobile banking or contactless payments. However, fintech takes a wide range of other forms, including:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as chatbots that respond to customers’ queries more quickly
• Systems that process investment banking deals automatically, instead of bankers writing them by hand on paper tickets
• Algorithmic trading: using algorithms to make complex decisions much faster than a human could
• Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin
• Open banking: allowing non-finance organisations to access bank data for customer convenience (such as apps designed to help people keep track of their spending or messaging apps that enable people to transfer money to their friends)
• Online-only banks, loan providers or other financial services
• Insurtech: tailoring insurance to individual customers (rather than grouping customers together based on the level of risk involved), so that policies can be priced more competitively.

What are fintech companies?

There’s no single definition of a fintech company. Broadly speaking, the term tends to refer to either the backend of traditional financial organisations (such as retail or investment banks, investment management firms and insurance companies) or technology start-ups that seek to solve a finance-related problem. One major financial firm, for example, describes itself as ‘a tech company that does credit cards’. Sometimes these start-ups are referred to simply as ‘fintechs’.

To avoid being left behind, established finance companies compete with start-ups by adopting similar technologies and services, as well as looking for ways to be more innovative than them. Sometimes this requires a change in thinking or structure to revolve around innovation, rather than simply investing more money in technology.

Routes into fintech jobs

Fintech graduate jobs vary as widely as the organisations that recruit for them, but some of the main routes into a fintech career are:

• an ad hoc vacancy with a small or medium sized employer or fintech start-up
• a technology-specific graduate scheme with a finance organisation such as a bank or investment management firm (or a technology company that builds fintech software)
• a general or rotational graduate scheme at a financial organisation, before choosing to specialise in technology.

The skills, experience and qualifications you need for fintech jobs

Some employers require a technology related degree (such as computer science, engineering, physics or maths), but this is not always essential. Your experiences outside of your degree are also valuable for showcasing your skills and motivation – for example, if you’ve learned programming languages in your spare time.

Don’t worry if you don’t have much finance knowledge, although it will help demonstrate your enthusiasm for the role if you do. A willingness to learn and ability to pick up new skills quickly is more important than your existing knowledge because you will be given training on this once you start the job. An analyst at a major international bank said: ‘You are always encouraged to learn new things. I had two months’ orientation before joining my first rotation, which included a mixture of very technical and financial/economic topics.’

Make sure you also draw upon any unrelated work experience as evidence of your transferable skills. Some of the most valuable skills for fintech jobs include:

Skills and jobs trends

While the technology and fintech sectors in Ireland have been the unwelcome source of some sizeable job layoffs over the in the recent past, the sector still remains strong and growth focused. The fintech sector is critically reliant on a supply of highly skilled people who combine financial services knowledge with technical expertise.

Fintech companies still experience a shortage of highly skilled talent. Skillnet Ireland is a government initiative which helps companies bridge the talent gap to help them grow their business. In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mark Jordan, Chief Strategy Officer at Skillnet, said that it can be challenging to select which area of Fintech to approach when considering a career. ‘If you think of the type of organisations trying to enter into the financial services market as fintech companies, it includes all of the payment services, the peer-to-peer lenders, the digital wealth advisers and the trading platforms,’ he said. From a skills perspective, he has seen high demand for automation of business operations, data scientists and cyber security, as well as cryptocurrency and blockchain. ‘On the transversal side, we are seeing demand for core competencies such as customer-facing user interface and user experience (UI/UX) skills, all around understanding what a customer journey might look like,’ he added.