Fintech bootcamps have become quite common in the last few years and one should expect them to stay relevant for the coming years. Why? Simply because fintech has disrupted the industry, more and more businesses are now realizing the importance of fintech. Soon businesses will have to adopt fintech or face an existential crisis. But adopting fintech is not a very smooth process.

For any business, adopting fintech comes with a few obstacles or concerns that need to be addressed first.

• The cost of fintech adoption
• Encouraging change and overcoming resistance.
• Skill up-gradation of the workforce

Cost of fintech adoption | Fintech Bootcamps

The cost is mostly the biggest obstacle, in particular for smaller businesses. Larger and more established businesses can afford to incur the expenditure but small businesses working with conventional systems may struggle to embrace the cost of change.

In such a situation it is usually better to focus on a more outcome-based approach instead of a problem-based approach. The outcome-based approach focuses on the results that the business can benefit from and then it works backwards to address the obstacles. For a small business, using the outcome-based approach may reveal the opportunity for better profitability and thus it may encourage the decision-makers to go for the fintech adoption in spite of the heavy cost.

Encouraging change and overcoming resistance | Fintech Bootcamps

Another very common obstacle in the way of fintech adoption is the resistance to change. Studies in organizational behaviour have proven that resistance to any change within an organization is an ever-present phenomenon.

It is almost natural for workers to resist any sort of change that alters their way of working. For this reason, behavioural researchers have come up with theories and a set of protocols that managers and organizations can adopt to overcome this resistance and encourage change.

The most common way to overcome any resistance to change is to address the concerns of the workers and educate them. Most if not all cases of resistance to change occur from the lack of knowledge or awareness. Managers and organizations can conduct workshops to make sure that the workforce understands how important fintech adoption is.

Another very important reason that gives rise to resistance is that workers feel that the change will result in reduced job security. For this, the organization needs to communicate with the workers in an effective manner.

Skill Upgradation | Fintech Bootcamps

Organizations should carry out skill up-gradation bootcamps for their workers. This is one way of overcoming resistance to change. Once the workers understand that the organization cares for them and is going to offer training so that they can not only upgrade their skills but also increase their employability, the workers will embrace change. This is one reason why skill up-gradation bootcamps have become very common in the industry.

Who are these bootcamps for? | Fintech Bootcamps

Businesses making the transformation usually encourage their employees to attend such bootcamps, often financing the cost. Businesses are however not the only ones with their eyes on such bootcamps.

Graduates and job seekers aiming to increase their employability are also frequent attendees at fintech bootcamps because these bootcamps help them in adding on more relevant skills and staying employable.

Who arranges these bootcamps? | Fintech Bootcamps

Fintech bootcamps play a key role in pushing the fintech industry towards mass adoption. These bootcamps supply the market with individuals who have got relevant skills. Fintech bootcamps are arranged by educational institutions and at times also by charities and organizations.

As stated above bootcamps have become common in the industry because every sector is becoming tech-driven. Fintech bootcamps are however different from the more generic tech bootcamps that are prevalent in the market. Generic tech bootcamps usually focus on specific applications and are almost always based on coding.

Fintech bootcamps are different because they are tailored for finance professionals. The needs of finance professionals are slightly different. They are not required to know the ins and outs of coding, they need to learn skills that can help them integrate their existing capabilities with technology.

So for instance a professional working in the finance department of an organization will need to learn how to forecast and carry out what-if analysis over various scenarios. This requires integrating accounting knowledge with ERP systems. Accounting professionals thus may be required to learn Python and SQL and then learn how to design systems.

Finance professionals need to understand that they have a very specific skill set. Organizations have finance departments and IT departments. Individuals in the IT department of every organization are specialized in data security. A professional with a background in IT will not know how to carry out financial analysis or risk management. This is what the background of a finance professional is and thus if finance professionals top up their skills to work with fintech, they become system designers and data managers.

Some industry experts believe that over time the roles of IT and finance departments will merge. To an extent, this is true because every aspect of business will become tech-driven but there will always be a very specific niche for finance professionals. Their core competencies differentiate them from IT professionals.

IT professionals know the ins and outs of technology, they can code, create programs, systems and flows. Finance professionals know how finance works, they know what to do with data and how to make sense of it. They know how to design the systems.

So if you are a finance professional, looking to upgrade your skills then look out for fintech bootcamps around you. They can be a great opportunity to learn new skills with hands-on experience to increase your employability.