The Fintech Weather Report: A Global Journey from West to East

While innovation in digital banking often feels like a universal language, are the challenges and solutions the same in London, Budapest, and Tashkent? What can mature markets learn from the explosive growth in developing regions, and vice versa? And fundamentally, are the underlying rules of innovation universal, or do culture, user expectations, and market maturity create entirely different playbooks for success? We explored this global perspective, charting a course from the established West to the dynamic East, at the second event in our Ergomania Business Breakfast series.

 

Our host, András Rung, founder of Ergomania, was joined by Harlan Cockburn, a writer and researcher who has spent years interviewing Fintech and banking leaders around the world for Ergomania’s Flavors of Fintech book series. Unlike a typical industry executive with a singular focus, Harlan brought a unique, synthesized perspective. He described himself not as an expert making predictions, but as a journalist observing the global landscape: "I don't make the weather. I look out the window and I see the weather. So I can say to you, today is sunny, and you go, 'Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's useful'."

This refreshingly candid approach framed the conversation as a weather report on the state of global Fintech, revealing surprising trends in user experience (UX), the cultural nuances that define digital success, and where the next innovation storms might be gathering.

The Great Fintech Curve from West to East

The journey began with a look at the global map of Fintech maturity. Harlan described a distinct and telling curve. "Generally speaking, Western Fintechs are much more mature and much more sophisticated," he explained. "And then, as you travel east, things become a little bit more sketchy until you get to what we once called the Far East, which is Japan, where things are very sophisticated and very organized again, very mature."

However, the most fertile ground for observation isn't at the extremes, but in the dip in the middle, in regions like Central Asia. Countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are in a fascinating and powerful position. They are just beginning their Fintech journey, but possess a massive strategic advantage: They can learn from the West's decades of trial and error.

Harlan painted a vivid picture with an analogy: "At the airport, you have these moving walkways. Everyone's on the moving walkway from Norway, Sweden, and Germany, and they're going along at a certain speed. And these countries, like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, jump onto the moving walkway, so they're actually going at the same speed. But they don't have this culture behind them; they don't have this learning behind them."

These emerging markets can leapfrog entire stages of development. Their growth is further accelerated by another key Eastern advantage: access to what Harlan calls "cheap tech." He pointed to Oman, which, rather than building a domestic tech talent pool from scratch, simply imports it. "They don't need [to build] it because they just import Indian tech," he said. This pragmatic approach allows them to build sophisticated systems without the legacy infrastructure and costs that weigh down more established players.

Has UX Become a Solved Problem?

When the conversation turned to UX, Harlan’s observations were provocative. Among the global leaders he has interviewed, the intense, almost obsessive focus on novel UX seems to have softened. It’s not that it has become unimportant – rather, it has become a baseline expectation, a solved problem in many ways.

He compared it to a classic instrument: "I play guitar, and around 1950, there were two types of guitar: Fenders and Gibsons. Of course, there really hasn't been any change since then; they essentially do the same thing." The impression he gets from the industry is similar. A banking app has to work, it has to be functional, and it has to look good. But is the industry deeply engaged in reinventing the fundamentals? "Not really," he said.

The universal demand today is for one thing: simplicity. The closer something is to a one-button solution, the better.

This principle was best illustrated by the compelling example of Prosper Pay in Uzbekistan, a buy-now-pay-later service (originally Kazakhstani) built for a population where 75% have zero savings, and many run out of money before the end of the month. The solution is ingeniously simple. It partners directly with employers, allowing workers to get an advance on their wages through an incredibly straightforward interface. It's not a direct-to-consumer loan; it's an integrated part of their employment.

The genius of its UX is that it removes the complexity and anxiety from borrowing for a user base with very low financial literacy. It’s a masterclass in UX, not as an aesthetic novelty, but as a tool of radical appropriateness for its target user.

One Size Fits None: The Cultural Politics of Interface Design

While the desire for simplicity is global, its very definition is intensely local. The discussion made it clear that a copy-paste approach to digital products is not just ineffective, it’s often doomed to fail. Culture dictates function.

• The illusion of universal preference: An attendee noted the classic East-West divide. European users may want a clean, minimalist interface with two or three options. In contrast, "Japanese, for example, want 50 options. If you hide something, they really hate it." This fundamental difference in user psychology means that a design celebrated in one market could be seen as untrustworthy or frustrating in another.
• The danger of improving what works: Harlan shared a cautionary tale from the National Bank of Oman. When the bank rolled out a new, modern UX, they faced significant customer pushback. Why? Because users, he said, were "perfectly happy with the old design." It was familiar, it worked, and the change was a disruption, not an enhancement. The lesson: Never underestimate the power of user habit.
• Market-specific technology: The discussion around QR codes further highlighted this regional divergence. While, as he said, they "should be dead by now" in the West, they are thriving in markets from Nepal to India. This isn't accidental. It’s often driven by top-down institutional support. Harlan told the story of how the governor of the Nepalese central bank personally went to street markets to show vendors and shoppers how to use QR codes, a powerful act of state-led adoption.

Nowhere was this regionality more starkly proven than when the Chinese giant Alibaba tried to launch Alipay in Hong Kong. The product was a massive success on the mainland, but local executives gave a clear warning: "If you don't change the Alipay interfaces, you might as well not bother with the Hong Kong market." The core offering was sound, but the UX – the very look and feel – was culturally incompatible. Success only came after a significant redesign.

AI, Ecosystems, and the Elusive Personalized Experience

Looking to the future, the conversation moved beyond current interfaces to the core of the digital relationship between financial institutions and their customers. The consensus, both in the room and in Harlan’s research, is that the next great leap forward will be in creating truly personalized and granular experiences.

This remains the industry's white whale. Banks are still struggling to move beyond clumsy, rule-based marketing, a frustration Harlan captured with a universally familiar example: "I get a mortgage, and then two days later, I'm getting messages from the bank saying, 'Hey, would you like a mortgage?'"

This is where AI is poised to make its biggest impact – not as a flashy chatbot, but as the deep-seated engine for understanding a customer's context, predicting their needs, and communicating with them in a relevant way. The ultimate goal, Harlan said, is for the bank to "talk to me really, truly, from my interests," creating layered interfaces where a user can get a quick overview or seamlessly dig down into deep analysis.

However, Harlan delivered a sobering reality check from his global interviews. Despite all the industry talk, when it comes to this holy grail of deep personalization, "No one has got there yet. All the parts are there. They just need to be glued together."

From Super-Apps to Untapped Markets

Beyond the individual experience, major structural shifts are defining the future of digital platforms. A key divergence is the battle between super-apps and ecosystems. While the "one app to rule them all" model is dominant in the East, Harlan noted that "people seem to hate super-apps in the West," largely due to privacy and security concerns. The Western model is instead coalescing around open ecosystems, where banks act as a central hub integrating other services.

Simultaneously, technologies once on the fringe are entering the mainstream. Cryptocurrency, while still viewed as "a bit shady," is now arriving in the regulated world. As one attendee sharply observed, crypto’s journey is simply a high-speed replay of banking's own history, with "the same mistakes, frauds, and lack of regulation." The fundamental question is whether its future lies as a new asset class or in its underlying technology, like tokenization, which could reshape capital markets. Conversely, other hyped technologies, like voice interfaces, are receiving a cooler reception, deemed too prone to error for critical financial tasks.

Perhaps the largest future battleground identified is the massive and still largely underserved small and medium enterprise (SME) market. This segment has been slow to adopt Fintech, not for lack of technology, but because its needs are fundamentally different. As one participant noted, the head of a company often relies on assistants, not apps, to manage finances. Cracking the SME code will require a new mindset and solutions that go far beyond a simple mobile interface, but the potential is enormous.

The ultimate takeaway from this global tour was a powerful reminder that while technology enables transformation, enduring success is dictated by culture, context, and a relentless focus on the user's reality. Innovation isn't a single, monolithic standard to be exported, but a mosaic of regional solutions born from specific needs. As Harlan concluded, "The global Fintech weather is complex and varied, but one thing is clear: the forecast is sunny, with plenty of change on the horizon."

Watch the full converstation: