Neobanks

Neobanks are growing within the FinTech industry, with their increasing popularity stemming from their ability to simplify how consumers manage personal finances and banking.

Classified as FinTech firms (often startups), their primary characteristic involves utilising software and other technologies to streamline mobile and online banking. This stems from not having any physical branch, being a purely online firm without a brick and mortar location – meaning they will usually specialise in a specific type of financial account or transaction.

However, Neobanks are not to be confused with online banks, which have greater capabilities. Although, their increased simplicity adds to their convenience and streamlining the banking process.

How exactly do they streamline the banking process?

Eliminate disjointed banking by connecting banking & finances

Offer customised financial services & additional benefits

Ensure advanced safety & security via verification & role- based access control

Help run all aspects of the business together from end-
 to-end

Despite their name, Neobanks have been around since 2016 and the main factors as to why they re here to stay:

Lower costs and fees

Technology underpins their business model

More efficient services

Convenient and easy to use

These advantages that neobanks offer is felt world-wide, with a projected 52.3% growth rate of money stored in neobanks by the time we reach 2030.

Neobanks offer a wide range of career opportunities, allowing you to be a part of a smaller organisation with a higher focus on relationships, connections and learning whilst also being lean in management.

Whilst one may think that in light of Volt Bank’s recent shut-down, many other fintech firms will be struggling in the same industry space, given Volt was Australia’s first fintech firm to reach unicorn status (reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market) - so how could other banks compete?

However, a wide variety of blossoming fintech firms are eager to onboard new, driven and passionate fintech enthusiasts to their staff to an even wider list of roles.

These roles can be categorised into the following non-extensive disciplines:

Developer Blockchain developer

Front end

Back end

Responsible for creating and servicing the mobile / desktop or web applications that ensure safety and security within mobile banking. Through creating efficient and optimal code, these roles are vital in generating tangible deliverables for the team

Most notable neobanks hiring developer positions: Flare

Most dominant developer hiring tech firm: Optiver and Macquarie Group

Data Analyst

Responsible for interacting with the finance, engineering, product, and raw data to mine and analyse financial and transaction-level data. From this data, these roles are in charge of extracting actionable insights and key trends, in order to communicate this to the rest of the team.

Most notable neobanks hiring analyst positions: Data Action

Most dominant hiring tech firm: SAP and EY

Sales Representative

By establishing a technical need for the customer, this role will be an outward facing position, communicating with the client in order to promote and sell how this product ts in with their requirements.

Most notable neobanks hiring sales positions: Tyro

Most dominant hiring tech rm: Tesla and SAS

Whilst these may seem like broad titles that are “thrown around”, this only highlights the ease of transferability between positions within fintech, especially with the skills developed in how they can be applied to multiple roles.

However, whilst neobanks fundamentally rely on these positions to function, it is exceptionally more common for the larger tech rms mentioned to have open availability for these job roles - especially an entry level position, due to the sheer scale of their customer base and operations.

The Blockchain Technology

As the world begins to shift into the new digital age, Web3, people have started to reevaluate the meaning of true privacy, especially with the monopoly of giant corporations in the FinTech industry. One way to fill in the gap was through the use of the blockchain.

It digitally records information to ensure that any tampering would not be possible. Popularised by Satoshi Nakamoto, the blockchain is known to many by the role it plays in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

So what exactly is blockchain technology? It is a group of information that is stored and called a block, and every block has a storage capacity. Once that is filled, the block shuts off and links to a new block where more information can be stored, creating this long winding chain of blocks.

The previous blocks are set in stone with timestamps of when it was entered, and creates this unchanging, immovable database of information.

Each computer stores a copy of the database and whenever new information is added, it will be verified by multiple parties to ensure its validity. It is this data structure that makes it secure and reliable, preventing any tamper.

Its main goal is to further decentralise trade and give rise to opportunities for more direct, peer-to-peer transactions, omitting the use of intermediates such as banks. The financial impact of the blockchain technology is massively apparent in cryptocurrency. As the key mechanism that powers Bitcoin, it ensures public transparency as the distributed ledger exists in every computer.

Recent Trends

Blockchain technology is not limited to finance. In fact, there are several fields that could benefit from this technology such as healthcare, real estate, and information technology. This expansion was due for a long time, which can be seen in the increase of job openings in relation to blockchain and ultimately, an increase in market size.