In a context where digital transformation is a strategic imperative for players in the financial sector, companies offering financing solutions such as buy now pay later, leasing, factoring, or consumer loans face numerous challenges. To remain competitive and meet growing customer expectations in terms of speed, simplicity, and personalization, they must be able to rapidly develop and deploy innovative new digital services.

However, the complexity of information systems, development costs and timelines, as well as the shortage of technical skills can hinder this necessary agility. This is where low-code comes in, an innovative approach allowing companies to create applications quickly, with little or no coding. By leveraging visual tools and pre-built components, low-code democratizes software development and enables financing companies to be more responsive.

As a true accelerator of digital transformation, low-code is emerging as a strategic lever for financing players looking to innovate quickly and cost-effectively. In this article, we'll see why this technology is set to revolutionize the industry, and how companies can leverage it to boost their performance and deliver a differentiated customer experience.

The Challenges of Digitalization for Financing Companies

Digital transformation has become a major challenge for financing companies, which must rapidly adapt to changing consumer habits and expectations. In the digital era, consumers are looking for financial services accessible in just a few clicks on their smartphone, with seamless and personalized journeys. To meet these new requirements, financing players must rethink their approach and invest in technological innovation.

An Increasingly Competitive Market

With the arrival of new digital and agile entrants, such as fintechs and neobanks, the financing market has become ultra-competitive. These disruptive players are shaking up the industry by offering innovative, user-centric solutions, forcing traditional players to reinvent themselves to stay in the race. To stand out, financing companies must be able to quickly launch new offers tailored to customer needs.

The Complexity of Information Systems

However, the digitalization of customer journeys often faces the complexity of existing information systems. Financing companies have to deal with heterogeneous technology architectures, legacy software, and data silos, which make it difficult to develop new digital services. Modernizing these systems can be time-consuming and costly, hindering the innovation capacity of these players.

Lack of Technical Resources and Skills

Finally, to successfully carry out their digital transformation, financing companies need specific technical resources and skills, particularly in software development. However, in a context of IT talent shortage, it can be difficult and expensive to recruit and retain these profiles, which limits the ability of these players to innovate quickly. It is therefore essential to find solutions that democratize application development and involve business experts more in the creation of new digital services.

Low-Code, an Innovative Approach to Rapidly Develop Digital Solutions

To address the challenges of digitalization, financing companies can leverage an innovative approach: low-code. This technology allows them to create applications quickly and cost-effectively, without the constraints of traditional software development.

What is Low-Code?

Low-code is an application development method that requires little or no programming skills. Using visual interfaces and pre-built components, users can create applications by simply assembling blocks of functionality, without having to write complex code. Low-code relies on standardized data models, workflows, and user interfaces, allowing companies to gain speed and efficiency in creating digital solutions.

The Benefits of Low-Code for Application Development

Low-code offers many benefits for financing companies looking to accelerate their digital transformation:

• Rapid development: Thanks to visual tools and pre-built components, low-code enables the creation of applications up to 10 times faster than with traditional methods.
• Cost reduction: By accelerating development timelines and reducing the need for specialized labor, low-code significantly reduces the costs of creating and maintaining applications.
• Agility and flexibility: Low-code platforms allow applications to be easily modified and evolved according to needs, promoting an agile and iterative approach to software development.
• Enhanced collaboration between IT and business: By making application development more accessible, low-code promotes the involvement of business experts in the creation of digital solutions, improving alignment between IT and business.

With low-code, financing companies can overcome obstacles related to the complexity of their information systems and the lack of technical resources, to innovate faster and effectively meet customer expectations.

The Benefits of Low-Code for Financing Companies

Beyond the benefits related to application development, low-code offers strategic advantages for financing companies. By adopting this approach, they can accelerate their digital transformation, gain competitiveness, and improve the customer experience.

Accelerate Time-to-Market for New Financial Services

In a constantly evolving market, the speed of bringing new offers to market is a key success factor. Thanks to low-code, financing companies can develop and deploy new services in record time, whether it's to offer innovative payment solutions, personalized credit offers, or budget management tools. By reducing development timelines, low-code enables these players to quickly adapt to market trends and meet customer expectations.

Optimize Costs and Resources

Low-code also allows financing companies to optimize their costs and resources. By automating certain development tasks and reducing the need for specialized labor, this approach reduces the costs of creating and maintaining applications. IT teams can focus on higher value-added projects, while business experts can actively participate in the development of digital solutions, without needing advanced programming skills.

Improve the Customer Experience with Seamless Digital Journeys

By enabling the rapid creation of intuitive and personalized applications, low-code helps financing companies improve the customer experience. With attractive user interfaces and seamless digital journeys, customers can easily access the financial services they need, from their smartphone or computer. By offering a high-quality digital experience, financing players can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, while standing out from the competition.

Foster Innovation and Agility

Finally, low-code stimulates innovation and agility within financing companies. By democratizing application development, this approach encourages intrapreneurial initiatives and the experimentation of new ideas. Teams can quickly test and iterate new concepts, leveraging functional prototypes. This increased agility allows financing players to continuously adapt to market changes and stay at the forefront of innovation.

How to Implement a Low-Code Strategy to Succeed in Your Digital Transformation

To fully leverage low-code and succeed in their digital transformation, financing companies must implement an adapted strategy. Here are the main steps to follow:

Define Your Goals and Priorities

The first step is to clearly define the objectives of the digital transformation and the priorities in terms of application development. This may include improving the customer experience, optimizing internal processes, creating new innovative services, or modernizing information systems. Based on these objectives, the company can identify the low-code projects to implement as a priority.

Choose the Right Low-Code Platform

Choosing the low-code platform is crucial for the success of the digital strategy. It is important to select a solution adapted to the specific needs of the company, in terms of functionality, scalability, security, and integration with existing systems. Criteria to consider also include the platform's usability, the richness of the ecosystem (templates, components, training), and the support provided by the vendor.

Train and Involve Teams

To foster the adoption of low-code within the company, it is essential to train and involve teams. This involves raising employee awareness of the benefits of this approach, as well as implementing training programs tailored to different profiles (developers, business experts, managers). The goal is to create a culture of innovation and collaboration around low-code.

Implement Appropriate Governance

Low-code doesn't mean the absence of rules. It is important to implement appropriate governance to frame the development of applications and ensure their quality, security, and maintainability. This involves defining best practices, development standards, and validation and testing processes. A central team can be in charge of supervising low-code projects and supporting teams.

Measure Results and Adjust Strategy

Finally, to effectively steer its low-code strategy, the company must regularly measure the results obtained and adjust its approach accordingly. Performance indicators should be defined to monitor project progress, adoption of the low-code platform, productivity gains achieved, and user satisfaction. This data will help identify areas for improvement and evolve the low-code strategy in a continuous improvement approach.

Examples of Success Stories from Financing Companies that Adopted Low-Code

Several financing companies have successfully adopted the low-code platform Basikon to accelerate their digital transformation and boost their growth. Here are three concrete examples that illustrate the benefits of this approach:

Orion Leasing: Explosive Growth Thanks to Digital Agility

Founded in June 2021, Orion Leasing offers leasing services for various equipment to businesses of all sizes. By adopting Basikon, the company experienced **spectacular growth**: +100% revenue year-over-year and a tripling of its customer base. According to Laimonas Belickas, CEO of Orion Leasing, the key to this success lies in the implementation of a fully digital integration process and a configurable customer portal offering scoring services and an online store. These innovations allowed Orion Leasing to conclude a strategic partnership with Apple in the Baltic region.

Leascorp: Unparalleled Flexibility to Serve a Network of Partners

Specialist in financial leasing, Leascorp relies on a network of partners to market its solutions. With Basikon, the company found the **flexibility** it needed to precisely adapt to the needs of each partner, while streamlining its growth. Thanks to the platform's advanced integration and configuration capabilities, Leascorp can now easily provide its partners with either a simulation and contract generation portal, or a direct API connection with their CRM. This digital agility has allowed Leascorp teams to gain productivity and focus on serving partners.

Calvin: A Flexible Platform to Digitalize the Customer Journey

A leasing broker specializing in financing equipment for mid-sized and small businesses, Calvin chose Basikon for its flexibility. According to Thomas Le Forestier, COO of Calvin, the platform allows them to quickly create white-labeled partner pages, with simulation, contract communication, and e-signature features. Onboarding, contract creation and management, as well as partner monitoring are thus simplified and dematerialized, giving Calvin a differentiating competitive advantage.

These success stories show how low-code, and more specifically the Basikon platform, can help financing companies digitize their processes, gain agility, and grow rapidly by leveraging an ecosystem of partners. By adopting this approach, these players can focus on innovation and service quality, while streamlining their operations.

Low-Code, a Major Asset for Successful Digital Transformation in Finance

In conclusion, low-code is emerging as a strategic lever for financing companies looking to accelerate their digital transformation and remain competitive in a constantly evolving market. By enabling the rapid development of custom applications, while reducing costs and timelines, this approach offers many benefits:

• Accelerated time-to-market for new digital financial services
• Enhanced agility to continuously adapt to customer expectations and market changes
• Optimized resources and costs through automation and streamlined development
• Improved customer experience through seamless and personalized digital journeys
• Facilitated collaboration between IT and business teams to innovate more effectively

The success stories of companies like Orion Leasing, Leascorp, or Calvin concretely show how low-code can transform the processes and business models of financing players. By leveraging specialized low-code platforms like Basikon, these companies were able to digitize their customer journey, launch new innovative offers, and grow rapidly by taking advantage of an ecosystem of partners.

To succeed in their low-code shift, financing companies must adopt a structured approach, clearly defining their objectives, choosing the right platform, involving their teams, and implementing appropriate governance. By placing agility and innovation at the heart of their digital strategy, they will be able to seize growth opportunities and sustainably differentiate themselves in their market.

So, are you ready to embark on the low-code revolution to boost your digital transformation in finance?