Visionary
‘I have a dream’ these leaders inspire and motivate, their ability to see what could be in the future enables them to make quick decisions orientated around that goal. They can’t stand still though and wont hang around unless growth is in prospect.

Technical
Experts in their field and able to lead other experts but few others, better used as thought and opinion formers than strategic business leaders.

Strategic
These folk are energised by grappling with a complex problem and breaking it down into manageable chunks. Their big brains need to be stimulated and they are at their best when given the freedom to exploit a wide network of contacts and tools to achieve their goal. They are rarely sufficiently entrepreneurial to set that goal for themselves and work best when serving a board.

Operational
If its just about management and keeping the machine running an operational leader will build sustainable and efficient processes that keep the ship sailing smoothly, operational leaders don’t rock the boat.

Coach
As the name suggests the Coach will bring out the best in the team, always looking to develop the firms talent and grow from within.

Success is dependent upon getting the right fit of leader for the organisation and the trading environment.

Traditional banks and financial sectors have been playing catch-up for many years. Ever since the Fintech revolution started during the last financial crisis in 2008, banks have been left back because of their reluctance to embrace changes and new technologies. The fintech revolution has brought better finance management tools, mobile payments, crowdfunding, fast loans, peer to peer lending. Startups understood that splitting banking services into separate ones and mastering at least one of them will give them great customer satisfaction. The key for fintech UX is to balance simplicity and security.

The most successful fintech apps are designed to offer a convenient and user-friendly experience that offers additional features for safe managing users’ finances. Making a fintech app requires an eye for detail. We have experience developing Fintech apps, and we have learned about the issues designers face. You can take a look at HUBX, one of the apps we developed for our clients. Here are some of the design principles we believe you need to consider when making a fintech app.

Focus on the customer journey
To make the app interactive and simple, you need to work on the page layout, content display, and task flow to begin with. Like the B. J. Fogg’s Behavioral Model suggests, it is important that a user is motivated to use the app. The app should be able to solve a persisting user hardship and bring something new for enhancing user convenience. Because of that, it is very crucial to grasp the client’s product basics, knowledge of target audience, and stakeholders. Placing immediate call-to-actions should help users take the desired actions and detailed information should be available when asked for. With this practice, your app will be able to enhance the user’s confidence in smoothly handling their finances.

Avoid information overload
When creating a design, you should always understand and think of the people who are going to use it. Most fintech users can’t make sense of field-specific terms or understand the meaning of certain data. The most common mistake in the finance industry is overloading the user with a lot of information. Many app designers don’t understand that this will cause users to spend more than half of their time understanding what each number means, when nobody wants to look at boring text and excel sheets of just numbers and try to make sense of it. The idea you need to keep in mind is defined by a quote: “If we design it well enough, perhaps they won’t know it’s a financial service at all”. In practice, this means clean and simple interface that focuses on what the user is really trying to do.

Simplify complex data into action
Because these apps come with an inevitable amount of friction, they need to have a simple UX design that requires little effort from users. It’s imperative that fintech apps can translate complex financial data into simple, meaningful, and actionable information. In fact, simple interfaces are handled better and memorized easier because neural links are formed faster and easier when the brain is not overwhelmed with too many things. When interacting with the app, the brain tries to simplify the perception of things in order to predict the interaction result. This means that the solution offered to users should be predictable and it needs to offer a sense of control for the user. Too many elements can confuse or scare the user, so it’s best to avoid any technical and intimidating aspects of personal finance.

Stay Consistent
A successful design has the purpose of connecting the commercial goals of the organization and the development options it has access to. Any design that is used by the company will need to have the ability to evolve with the changing objectives of the business.
Guide the user
Because each user will have different ideas when they use the app, using shapes and colors as a guide through certain processes will contribute to the effective fintech UI.

Security
When it comes to finances, the most important aspect is security. Designing an easy way to conduct transactions comes with the challenge of making a secure and safe transfer of funds. Fintech apps have to ask their users for a lot of personal information that will meet financial regulations and fulfill their functions. In order to properly and safely handle the money of the users, these apps also have to add extra security features, like additional log-ins and notifications. Requiring so much information from users is a major hurdle for fintech apps, so it is important to explain to the users why specific data is needed and try and ease their uncomfortable feelings.

Choice of Background
App background is worth considering because it is directly related to the efficiency of the app. Fintech design is responsible for the look and feel of an application, and that means deciding the tones and the background colors. Icons and logos need to match the background so that these items can be easier to locate and navigate. Being on a mobile device also sets parameters of how users will see the platform. For example, lots of apps like Twitter and Messenger are starting to create a “Night Mode” setting so users eyes can adjust to night lights instead of using a plain white or brightly colored background.

Animation
Today, animation is a standard app design element that will please the eye of the users and provide them with excellent UX. And the possibilities of using animation are almost limitless. But animation and its use should not be the only design element – it is just an elegant addition to the overall design, not a complete replacement. For simple actions of the user on the site – like signing in, pressing a button, or the opening of the menu, it is not appropriate to use complex animation scripts that can distract the user from the goal. The best animation is barely noticeable when interacting with the app interface.

Functional animation
The use of animation in a smooth transition helps with orientation on the elements of the product management interface. Functional animation helps inform about the result of the action that the user has just performed, but it also enables you to show requested data with graphs and charts. The use of animation in a smooth transition will help focus on the elements of the product management interface.

Colors
Color pallets are more than just visuals, they represent certain types of information. Choosing a strong color scheme helps lay the foundation for the use of images for visualizing various investment strategies. Studies show that 60% of people decide whether they’re attracted to a product or a message based on color alone. By providing color associations with goals and clear financial targets, users can understand and see the expected outcome of their investment. Like we mentioned before, fintech apps need to keep the data visualization in priority while selecting the color scheme for the app. For example, the colors red and green represent buy and sell, and if your palette drowns out these colors, information will be lost. Vivid graphics and illustrations enhance the experience, which is important in order to make a dry subject like investing more exciting. This is especially challenging for an investing app, not only because the content needs to be open and easy to understand, but also engaging to promote usage.

Display of content and device adaptation
Fintech apps need to be able to display large amounts of data in large tables – reports, statistics, investment reports, etc. In order to properly do that, you need to display these adequately on both the web and mobile versions of an app. All the information that users are expecting to get, must comfortably fit into any screen to provide great UX for any display size or context.

Create Data Learning Loops
To create a good user experience, it is important to acquire as much updated data as possible. Today, top technology entrepreneurs like ZestCash and Billfloat are using Google-like processing technologies and online social and financial data to transact advice and serve their clients in a smarter way. All it takes is to apply for savvy analytics to gain a better understanding, and even be able to predict behaviors of various digital channels all of which gives you insight into your consumer.

Voice-activated interfaces
The voice-aided approach in fintech app interface is becoming a growing trend. The voice-enabled interface will significantly improve the mobile app’s functionality. This growing trend is becoming critical to many industries and target audiences. The voice-enabled interface can, for example, significantly improve the online shopping experience in eCommerce, assist visually impaired customers to ease the access to the mobile app’s functionality, or even streamline financial transaction flow.

Biometric authentication
Among the future fintech features a successful mobile app must have is biometric identification. Many companies have started replacing or improving on the inconvenient password-based security solution with the fingerprint input. However, soon we will be able to see features like biometric authentication options like facial recognition. Because these biometric options offer good user experience, it might be a good idea to start thinking about implementing them into your new fintech design.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Personal Financial Assistant
The technology of full banking automatization, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics will lead the financial industry to a new level in the near future. In fintech apps, artificial Intelligence has manifested as a personalized financial assistant and advisor. Voice processing artificial intelligence is offered as an instant service in the majority of customer experience scenarios. Combining big data with behaviour-based predictive analytics in fintech user experience will ensure the precise moment when the user is ready to accept the proposal.

Transparency
Since fintech solutions are detached from physical branches, it would be best if you provide as much related data as possible to keep the products understandable so the users will not have to spend time on help and support channels.

Conclusion
While most companies try to redefine the market, you have to put your customers first, and design plays an essential part in the end user’s journey in fintech.

Why Team Building Is Important
The benefits for the different stakeholders must be present for any team building effort to be successful. All parties need to be committed to the process and take it seriously. Try to think of the ‘team’ as having the following stakeholders:

– The customer

– The business

– The team leader

– The individual team member

– The team as a whole

By realising and considering each stakeholder you can then begin to see that team building training play a large role in the organisation. The actual team building activities can be based on any activity in which team members rely upon each other in a trust situation or bring them together in a spirit of cooperation and mutual understanding. Obviously you can’t take your customers out team building but if your staff have undergone team building activities, and your senior staff are well versed in team building training, then the customers will benefit as well.

Team building training is important for any business management to understand and to get the best from their team situation. Activities may be planned at a weekend away, a week at a resort, or even something simple every Friday night. Good team leaders will know and recognise a potential team building opportunity and take advantage of it.

How Team Building Works
Team building can work on all levels for all business sizes. Project managers may need to work together to get a large organization involved or it may be a business owner with two or three employees. By bringing these people together and putting them into a situation or relaxed fun where they might rely on each other for support gives them a new perspective on colleagues and the company.

Once a rapport has been established, and activities enjoyed, the flow on effect back at work continues. Workers who may be in different departments may never meet in the day to day running of a large business. The opportunity to meet and get to know one another in a less formal environment puts a positive spin on the team and they are more likely to consider that person or department when decision making or recommending purchases to customers.

The customer benefits from the familiarity between departments and can see staff ready to go out of their way to assist them to find what they need. The team then works together for a successful sale, even if in another department.

Actual team building activities can involve large efforts that might cost a lot of money, or less costly but effective activities. Once in the situation team members are made to rely on each other. This might be a simple exercise of trusting that people you have never met before will catch you when you fall, or it may be a full scale weekend in teams of paintball. The most important part is the trust building and the reliance on each other as a team to succeed.

Examples of Team Building Activities
Team building activities might include:

– Team sports days

– Design an outfit catwalk day

– Novelty race days (egg and spoon, sack race etc)

– Prepare a menu, cooking challenge

– Camping/survival challenges

– Sailing

– Amazing race style challenge

Anyone involved in corporate training with team building exercises should try to think outside the box and make activities that will also be a lot of fun and allow for individuals to get to know others along the way. Nothing should be discounted unless it has an overt danger or risk attached to it.

Training in Team Building Skills Increase Production and Staff Morale
Being trained to take advantage of team building opportunities means your team leaders or project managers can constantly work on building the company team efforts. This brings the company together as a whole and staff will feel validated and important to the company.

Knowing the workplace cares about individuals will boost morale and the level of positive activity at work. Satisfied workers will do their best for the company and for their teams. This leads to more productive output and more sales. Customers return to companies that give great customer service and make recommendations for family and friends to go there as well.

All staff members will benefit from team building exercises, and all senior management will benefit from team building training to identify and execute team building activities.

Digital Cargo applications bring the following advantages in transportation processes:

1 . Faster and more effective data transmission: Less of time and paper, caused by use of documents, is prevented in operational processes, ensuring transmission of the details faster and without any error.

2 . Enhanced traceability in details: Any and all data regarding the transportation processes can now be displayed instantly and all shipments are traceable by the authorized persons throughout the transportation period.

3 . Higher data quality: Less of time, caused by documentation process, is eliminated, and all data are archived and kept up-to-date more smoothly, and maintained for longer years.

4 . Provision of more up-to-date details: Any and all details regarding AWBs are kept up-to-date by means of fast data transmission with interstation systematic messages, and users can access all up-to-date details at any time.

5. Environment Friendly: Waste of paper, caused by documentation processes, is eliminated, resulting in protection of nature.

6. Keeping up with technology: Any and all AWB details are transmitted to the electronic medium, enabling all concerned departments to access the most up-to-date and accurate details. This creates the ideal environment for the technological developments such as automation, monitoring and reporting, etc.

And, exercises in team building support a strong company culture. Regular efforts that engage employees with company goals, values, and standards of performance can not only establish a wholesome culture, but also maintain it. How do you get started? In the next few paragraphs we outline how to set up effective team building events and provide examples that can work well in recycling facilities and manufacturing environments.

GETTING STARTED: FOCUS ON THE DETAILS
Before setting up your event, you’ll want to clarify the details. What is the purpose of the team building event, what results do you expect, who will participate, when and how long will it take, and what is your budget?

There are many possible outcomes for a team building event: relationship building among team members, celebration of success or accomplishments, and communication skill building to name a few. A team building event can also be linked to a problem area or weakness that needs addressing. Establishing a purpose and setting goals will keep you focused and create a standard by which you can measure your success.

Next, decide who will participate. Is the event catered towards the entire company, a specific department, or members of a specific leadership group? If your company has multiple shifts, think about how to include all employees.

Consider how much time you’ll need to achieve the goals of the event and where to hold your activity. Team building can be as casual as an after-hours get together or as formal as a highly structured company-wide seminar. The structure depends on the purpose. A celebration for hitting a production goal or safety target might be held off-site, whereas a seminar on developing specific new safety skills might be better suited for an in-house meeting room.

Once the purpose and structure of your team building event have been set, establish a reasonable budget to cover location fees, supplies, food and beverage. Even in-house meetings can incur a cost if refreshments, a catered meal or compensation for off-shift employees become part of the equation.

COMMUNICATING AND SETTING EXPECTATIONS
Achieving your team building goals is linked to what the participants come to expect or what they hope to gain. Your employees might be hesitant or dubious about the experience if it is a first for the company, but clearly communicating what to expect can calm their nerves and get your activity started on the right foot.

Setting expectations is vital, but it is helps build enthusiasm during the run-up to the event. Managers and leaders should personally invite participants and make sure they know the time and location details. Email reminders, handouts and posters can also help build energy and awareness.

THREE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING:
One of the keys to improving bonds between coworkers is to pick an activity that allows them to share information about themselves. “Two Truths and a Lie” is an easy exercise to get the sharing started. Here’s how it works. Ask participants to think of three things about themselves that others may not know; two things should be true and the third should be made-up. Go around the room and give each person a turn to share their two truths and a lie. The team has to guess which one is false. This is a quick, fun activity that helps team members get to know one another as people, not just co-workers.

CELEBRATION OR SUCCESS:
This type of event often involves an off-site activity. It may require a larger budget to cover food, drinks, admission fees, or potentially all three. Think about what your team might enjoy doing together: bowling, miniature golf, go-kart racing, paintball, and laser tag can instill a team mindset and draw the participants closer together. Bigger budget? Consider working with an activity company that specializes in Amazing Race-style events, escape rooms, or scavenger hunt games. Overall, events such as these unite team members and are a great way to recognize and reward team and individual achievements.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
If your goal is to improve communication skills, look to activities like Lost At Sea or Lost On the Moon, which require teams to focus on thinking and persuasion skills and identify effective tactics for communicating. Both examples can be completed in an hour and require no facilitator, supplies or special training. These activities also form a solid foundation as a first-time time team building exercise and set the stage for more complex communication skill building in the future.

CONCLUSION
There are dozens team building activities you can use to develop relationships among co-workers, celebrate successes, and build communication skills. Regardless of the event’s purpose, always make sure you take time to organize the details, set goals and communicate your expectations to the team.

Whether the event is taking place in a meeting room or at a commercial event facility, make sure that engagement and a positive experience are top priorities. Lastly, incorporate team building as an ongoing part your company culture. One-off events can be fun but making team building activities a regular part of your operation will lead to better communication, improved morale, and higher productivity.

1. Usability and user goals
   You’re stranded on a street in a fairly new city and it’s raining heavily. You fire a cab hailing app (on a friend’s recommendation). As a user, what is that one thing you’re hoping to get done as soon as the app opens? If your users have a possibility of being stuck in such a situation, design your mobile app for such users and their goal. Create a UX flow that allows them to book a cab in minimum time and steps. No gimmicks, no jazz — just pure simplicity in the way the user expectation is met!
2. Define a clear action button
   Also known as a CTA (call-to-action), this is the button that makes sure that the user, in the example above, gets a cab. A couple of things to note while defining your action button. One, it must define the action clearly. In the cab app, the action button could be ‘request a cab’ rather than a plain ‘submit’. It will explain the purpose better. Two, an action button should be easily visible and approachable. It is hard to reach the top-left corner of a mobile screen for a right-handed user without stretching or using both the hands. Hold the mobile in your hand and notice the screen area your thumb can reach easily without a stretch. This could be the area to place your action button.
3. Bandwidth is expensive
   Another deterrent in a mobile user experience is high bandwidth consumption. Limit the information to be downloaded on the go. Background services consume a great amount of bandwidth. Create reusable graphic assets for different tasks within the app, such as a cab icon to indicate moving cabs through the city, on a map. Request user choice beyond a section for further download of information, graphic assets, images and videos. Optimise fonts, images and video for mobile consumption. Let’s not make requesting a cab more expensive!
4. Don’t drain the battery
   In Nov 2018, Google at Android Dev Summit, revealed on how a smartphone spends its battery life. They shared that the biggest factor in battery consumption are screen brightness and screen colour. If the app is heavy on calculations or complex navigations, there is a higher chance of mobile battery drain. Background services such as location detection are high on battery consumption as well. The last thing a user needs in an city with heavy rain is their mobile battery running out. Keep the UI simple — lesser, darker colours, shorter navigation and to the limited background services.

This special review by IAOP is based on an evaluation of the entire scoring history of a company since the start of The Global Outsourcing 100 and the World’s Best Outsourcing Advisors programs. The listings are divided into seven categories:

1. Best of GO100 Leaders, featuring companies with the overall highest average scores over all years in the Leaders category. 
2. Best of GO100 Rising Stars, naming companies with the overall highest average scores over all years in the Rising Stars category. 
3. Best of WBOA, recognizing advisory companies with the overall highest average scores over all years. 
4. Multiple Appearances, listing companies that have made the list for at least three years. 
5. Fresh Faces, featuring companies that made their first appearance on the list within the last two years.  
6. Rising Stars to Leaders, including companies that initially made the list as Rising Stars and later made it to Leader. 
7. WBOA 10-Year Club, highlighting advisory companies that made the WBOA list in each of the 10 years the list was compiled.

Outsourceo is proud to be chosen for the Best of The Global Outsourcing 100 list, as it highlights our dedication to clients’ needs and our strong commitment to engineering excellence.  IAOP’s recognition of Outsourceo brings the entire IT industry to the global level.

Over the last few years, many derivate and blockchain-inspired projects have been created. Most of them are not technically blockchains, but rather distributed ledger systems.

Let us dcode the how to build a blockchain in just eight steps. For simplicity, I have used the terms blockchain and distributed ledger system interchangeably in this article.

Step 1: Identify a Suitable Use-case

There’s a ton of hype around blockchain. I’ve read that blockchains can erase global hunger, make the world corruption-free, end poverty and do a lot more without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, that’s not true. So, step 1 is to identify a use-case that makes business sense.

There are 3 things that blockchains can do very well:

Data Authentication & Verification: this includes immutable storage, digital signatures and encryption. Data in almost any format can be stored in the blockchain. Blockchains can create public-private key pairs and also be used for generating and verifying digital signatures.
Smart Asset Management: this includes issuance, payment, exchange, escrow and retirement. A smart / crypto asset is the tokenized version of a real-world asset e.g. gold, silver, oil, land.
Smart Contracts: This is a term most often mis-understood, but that’s something for another day.

Step 2: Identify the Most Suitable Consensus Mechanism

The original blockchain, which powers the bitcoin crypto-currency, used proof of work as a consensus mechanism. But today there are multiple distributed ledger systems that offer a host of consensus mechanisms such as Proof of stake, Byzantine fault tolerant, Deposit based consensus, Federated Byzantine Agreement, Proof of Elapsed Time, Derived PBFT, Redundant Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Simplified Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Federated consensus, Round Robin and Delegated Proof of Stake.

Depending upon your use-case, you need to choose the consensus mechanism that makes the most sense.

Step 3: Identify the Most Suitable Platform

There are many blockchain platforms out there today and most of them are free and open source. Depending upon the consensus mechanism you chose in step 2, you need to select the most suitable blockchain platform.

Some of the more popular platforms, in alphabetical order are:

1. BigChainDB
2. Chain Core
3. Corda
4. Credits
5. Domus Tower Blockchain
6. Elements Blockchain Platform
7. Eris:db
8. Ethereum
9. HydraChain
10. Hyperledger Fabric
11. Hyperledger Iroha
12. Hyperledger Sawtooth Lake
13. Multichain
14. Openchain
15. Quorum
16. Stellar
17. Symbiont Assembly

Step 4: Designing the Nodes

Blockchain solutions can be permissioned (e.g. a Government run land registry) or permission-less (e.g. Bitcoin, where anyone can become a miner). Blockchain solutions can be private (e.g. a contract management system implemented in a pharmaceutical company), public (e.g. an asset backed cryptocurrency) or hybrid (e.g. a group of banks running a shared KYC platform).

Another factor to consider at this stage is whether the nodes will run on the cloud, on-premise or both. Then comes hardware configuration issues like processors, memory and disk size. You also need to decide on the base operating systems (usually Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Red Hat or Windows).

Step 5: Design the Blockchain Instance

Most blockchain platforms need very careful planned configuration for the following elements:

1. Permissions
2. Asset issuance
3. Asset re-issuance
4. Atomic exchanges
5. Key management
6. Multi signatures
7. Parameters
8. Native assets
9. Address formats
10. Key formats
11. Block signatures
12. Hand-shaking

Some parameters can be changed at run-time but some cannot, so this is a very crucial step.

Step 6: Building the APIs

Some blockchain platforms come with pre-made APIs while some don’t. The major categories of APIs that you would need are for:

Generating key pairs and addresses
Performing audit related functions
Data authenticatin through digital signatures and hashes
Data strage and retrieval
Smart-asset lifecycle management –issuance, payment, exchange, escrw and retirement
Smart contracts

Step 7: Design the Admin and User Interface

At this stage you would need to choose the front end and programming languages (e.g. HTML5, CSS, PHP, C#, Java, Javascript, Python, Ruby, Golang, Solidity, Angular JS Nodejs). You would also need to choose external databases (e.g. MySQL, MongoDB) as well as servers (including Web servers, FTP servers, mail servers).

Step 8: Adding Future Tech

You can greatly enhance the power of your Blockchain solution by integrating Artificial Intelligence, Biometrics, Bots, Cloud, Cognitive services, Containers, Data Analytics, Internet of Things and Machine Learning.

Paris FinTech Forum 2019 is a high-end event placed in 2 exhibition halls, 4 exceptional stages, 2 workshop rooms, and 8 lounges for networking. As the forum aimed at showcasing the latest developments and trends in the financial industry, Intellias was there to capture all the insights firsthand.

Our FinTech practice Leader, Kevin Hopster, was one of the PFF 2019 attendees and have already shared her impression of the first day at PFF 2019. And now, she’s sharing most trendy and innovational ideas from the second day at the conference.

Paris FinTech Forum addressed all critical issues of digital finance: the two days of the conference were full of valuable information and actionable insights. Today, technologies create many opportunities for financial institutions to grow. But to win the market, banks and financial institutions have to be open to innovations.

Outsourceo was at PFF 2019 to grab the trends that will shape the FinTech future. Now, being armed with the hottest ideas, we’re more than ever ready to consult you on the innovational solutions and technologies to enhance your financial services.

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Laura Bernary

Designer

is an author, speaker and professor known for her expertise in website content strategy and user experience design (UX). She has led projects for companies including The Belause Times, The Gorgenius, and Time, Inc.

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Laura Bernary

Designer

is an author, speaker and professor known for her expertise in website content strategy and user experience design (UX). She has led projects for companies including The Belause Times, The Gorgenius, and Time, Inc.