Differentiation through innovation: Banks pick fintech firms over bigtech

As the focus on product differentiation through innovation and technology increases, banks are increasingly turning to fintech companies over their bigtech counterparts. The agility and fast-paced innovation by fintech companies makes them the ideal partners for banks, especially in product development and innovation.  

“Fintechs bring fast-paced innovation to specific areas, and make prototyping and piloting of ideas easier,” said Rajiv Anand, executive director, Axis Bank.

Banks have steeply increased their fintech partnerships over the past few years. Axis Bank, being one of them, has interacted with over 200 start-ups through the bank’s innovation lab for fintechs, Thought Factory. It is