CEO of RootAnt: Financial Institutions' User Experiences are Lagging Behind

With an ever-increasing amount of competition, companies need to work harder than ever to attract clients and retain them once they've jumped on board. In recent years user experience has become a differentiator for the industry, as the offering of streamlined solutions and a diversified API suite is truly a game changer - particularly in the APAC region. However, the financial market is lagging behind, with their user experience seriously dropping the ball.

To help firms get back on top, Rootant, a Shanghai-based financial services firm which has been a big advocate on the importance of user experience has now developed an educational course to help firms with this and, as a result, become more competitive. To find out more, we spoke to Lincoln Yin, founder and CEO of RootAnt.

You have recently opened a training and academy course for Agile design thinking - why did you decide to do this?

We’ve noticed that nowadays it’s very hard for financial institutions to increase customer retention when their User Experience is not satisfying enough. Most of the firms are suffering from their outdated and complicated legacy core system. They are in need of professionals who have the ability to help them focus on the whole organisation and build an inside-out management team which will be able to plan and execute an easy, personalised and user-friendly transformation in an agile approach. These kind of professionals, however, are quite scarce in the financial industry. So Defín was specially set up by Rootant to serve as a design lab to provide a series of training on “Agile design thinking for the finance industry”.

Where do you offer this course?

Now financial firms have their presence all around the world. We’ve learnt from our clients, who are located in different countries and even continents, that the better user experience is in demand globally. So the training we offer is worldwide and supported by our global team of experts.

What role do you see Defín playing?

We are trying to build a compound talent pool for the finance industry. A consensus on the methodology of design and agile thinking is key to the transformation and change of management throughout financial institutions. Defín serves as a training supplement to help create a more open and collaborative environment during this transformation.

The combination of finance, design and technology seems unique. What do you think of the current market and global future prospects?

It’s noticed that the financial industry has fallen a decade behind the Internet industry in terms of its user experience. Fortunately, there are more and more financial institutions realizing it and seeking transformation now. So we believe the future of digitalization and internet-enabled business in the financial world is very bright and clear. Rootant with its professional knowledge and rich experience has great confidence in itself to develop compound talents. Once such talents pool have been built up, these professionals are going to make their corporations more competitive and speed up the transformation in the whole financial industry.

Do you plan to offer similar initiatives like this in the future?

Our courses are closely focused on Agile Design Thinking for the financial industry. In the future, there is going to be international learning tours, during which the participants can understand the best practice from the first-rate financial institutions in the world and easily have an insightful communication with other talented peers.