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How Are Digital Trends Disrupting the Finance Industry?
17
Oct

How Are Digital Trends Disrupting the Finance Industry?

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Although every industry has felt disruption through advances in technology, it is the finance industry that appears to have felt these digital trends the most. With the entire sector needing to develop and move forward with the times.

Here are just some of the ways that the financial sector has changed and developed in recent times:

 

Customer Personalisation 

 

When it comes to banking and financial companies, there is lots of competition. So, to obtain new customers and keep their current customer base happy, these companies are having to place a higher emphasis on personalised services and marketing.

So, to improve the customer experience, these companies are using technology to create apps and the like so that customers are always happy.

This has also seen a rise in the use of AI bots to improve customer experience. Here, many financial companies will add an AI bot to their website, where it can answer common queries for customers. As these are available 24/7, customers can get answers to questions at any time rather than waiting for a phone line to open.

 

Open Banking is Now the Norm

 

While banks have been reluctant to accept open banking, where customers can share their financial information with third parties, the customer demand for open banking is forcing these banks to make it a reality to keep customers happy.

This is particularly popular for allowing customers to use apps that can help them to track and manage their monthly spending habits in order to improve savings and help pay debts. 

 

Established Banks are Creating Their Own Challenger Brands

 

A challenger bank is a small retail bank that aims to compete with the larger banks on the market, such as Monzo. With these banks growing in popularity, many banks are losing their customers to these mobile-only banks.

To help combat this disruption, many major banks like HSBC and RBS are creating their own version of challenger banks, so that they can improve their customer base.

 

Fintech Companies Aren’t a Bad Thing

 

Although new fintech companies are indeed rivalling well-established financial companies. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not only is this encouraging companies to move with the times and improve services for customers, but to do this, many companies are teaming up with new fintech companies to share expertise. Which means the customers get the best of both worlds.

 

Cryptocurrencies are No Longer the Future

 

It seemed like cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin came out of nowhere, totally taking the world by storm. In fact, many of us thought that cryptocurrencies would be the future for us all. That was, until 2018 when the value of these currencies plummeted, bringing into question whether or not these cryptocurrencies had any long-term viability in the financial sector.

That being said, the blockchain technology that was used in cryptocurrencies is still incredibly interesting and useful. So, over the next few years, we may see this technology used in other more exciting ways in the financial sector.

 

Technology is improved every day, which means the financial sector is going to need to constantly evolve to stay relevant. Which means we can expect many notable changes in the years to come.

How to Ensure Your E-Commerce Website Localisation is Ready?
20
May

How to Ensure Your E-Commerce Website Localisation is Ready?

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Business is going global and e-commerce is booming. That means you’ll soon have to make sure that your e-commerce business is able to keep up with international demand. But, before you can do that, you’ll need to make sure your e-commerce website appeals to the international audience. This is done through e-commerce website localisation. In other words, you localise your website in order to make it more relevant to your local audiences.

Here are a few ways to go about it.

 

User Interface

 

It is easy to fall victim to the false idea that your user interface doesn’t impact user behaviour as long as it is designed well. The truth is that the design of your user interface can have an impact on how it is received among certain groups.

For instance, factors such as character choice, word length, shopping icons etc do tend to vary according to culture. So, you will have to start paying attention to these details and make the necessary changes.

Exchange Rates/Currency

 

Make sure you update prices to reflect current exchange rates and local pricing trends. There are also conversion norms that you’ll have to follow. Each country has its own norms, so take the time to research and study such topics.

For pricing elements such as VAT, make sure the necessary rules are built in for when they’re applicable.

 

Payment Processing

 

It is an established fact that online shoppers tend to prefer shopping in their home currency. So, to ensure your e-commerce website localisation is ready, make sure your shopping cart is capable of carrying out these conversions in real time. Also, pay attention to the payment processing solutions used in each market. There can be location-based preferences with regard to this as well.

 

Legalities

 

One of the harsh realities of doing business across the globe is to comply with regulatory policies and legal requirements. Now, the rules and laws vary from country to country. This is why you need to start focusing on these things and learn about them. This will prevent you from having to deal with regulatory or compliance issues in the future.

For instance, using copyrighted material for your local website can trigger legal problems. So, pay attention.

 

Conclusion

 

As business becomes more global, there is no doubt that your e-commerce website will soon have to adapt. The facts are in and the simple truth is people prefer to shop in their own language. They want businesses to truly cater to them in every way possible. This is where e-commerce website localisation steps in.

So, it’s time to adapt and catch up with the trend.

Is AI Translation Really Changing the Industry?
7
May

Is AI Translation Really Changing the Industry?

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As the business arena becomes more globalised, the need for localisation via translation grows and that growth fuels the need for better and more effective translation technologies (such as AI translation). As they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. This philosophy stands true even for translation technology.

The growth in translation needs gave birth to machine translation (MT), which overcame much of the challenges posed by traditional translation processes. But new challenges keep cropping up. Fortunately, newer technologies are showing up to save the day.

One such technology is Artificial Intelligence or AI-based translation. AI translation offers distinct advantages compared to the older MT technology. For instance, it can factor in linguistic nuances and context to provide more accurate translations.

 

Already in Play

 

AI-based translation is already at play. You can see it everywhere from Google to Facebook. For instance, if you visit an international website via Google, you’ll have the option of seeing the translated version. There’s almost no human involvement or intervention here. It’s Google’s own automated translation service.

Microsoft is also offering its own real-time translation app, which can translate speech, text, and even images. What’s even more amazing is that this application can run offline, making instant translation a reality.

Even Facebook switched to AI translation as its primary approach in 2017.

One of the key benefits of AI translation is that it factors in context and entire sentences, which boosts accuracy.

 

Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

 

Traditional MT relied upon existing translations or translation memories to get the job done. However, now, we have something called Neural Machine Translation or NMT.  NMT makes use of translation memories as well. But it goes further and uses something called deep learning to boost translation accuracy.

NMT literally builds what is called an artificial neural network, sort of a like a human brain. What does that mean? Well, it means that the system can correct itself by going back, assessing, and correcting its approach or method.

On the contrary, traditional or statistical MT relies on correlation to choose the best possible translation. This method simply does not provide the same level of accuracy.

 

Conclusion

 

AI-based translation has come quite far. However, there are still some challenges to be overcome. For instance, AI translations are still plagued by grammatical inaccuracies. There are also complaints of such translations lacking nuance.

So, human translation still remains a necessity. Though AI translation may be evolving, it is too soon to predict its overall impact on the translation and localisation industry.

 

How Artificial Intelligence Works When Translating a Language

 

How-Artificial-Intelligence-Works-When-Translating-Language

Thanks to globalisation, translation is one area that’s recently been given the Artificial Intelligence treatment. So, how does AI actually aid translation?

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