The Fintech Talent Development,Competency, and Manpower Study

The Fintech Talent Development, Competency, and Manpower Study 33 Ten Observations About Fintech in Hong Kong Observation 9: Customer Adoption Hinges on Building Trust Customer adoption is frequently reported as a key growth driver of the fintech industry, as it allows the industry to learn and adapt while attracting more players to participate. According to a study conducted by EY in 2019 5 , customer adoption in Hong Kong was maturing and still behind leading geographies such as Mainland China and India. For digital-native organizations, one of the key barriers to overcome is insufficient customer trust. Our survey found that it is three times more common for digital- native organizations to face challenges in customer trust than traditional banking organizations. This finding suggests that while customer trust may be inherent to most traditional financial organizations, digital-native organizations might possibly be burdened by limited existing clientele, track records, and organizational scale. In addition, elderly or less tech-savvy clients are less likely to use apps or the latest technology, and prefer to have face-to-face interactions. Distrust of technology is something digital-native organizations might experience from certain categories of customers. There were some digital-native organizations we surveyed that found success in establishing the same level of trust that traditional financial organizations enjoy. In addition to ensuring cybersecurity measures and regulatory compliance are in place, they have been able to build trust through a variety of efforts including proactively engaging with potential customers to understand their needs, and educating customers to help alleviate any concerns about using their products and services. 5 EY Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019 it was 3x more common for digital native organizations to identity "customer trust" as one of their top challenges than traditional banking organizations (39% vs. 12%) 3x Exhibit 10 Gaining customer trust as one of the top challenges