Hardware Matters: What a FinTech Developer Should Do When Creating a Physical Product

Are you a fintech developer willing to consider branching out?

Then we recommend thinking about bridging the gap between the digital and the physical. 

It’s a small niche at the moment, but it’s a pretty strong one!

Banking devices, payment terminals, and even modern credit cards are all examples of fintech products that breach the gap between the physical and the digital. And we rely on these items every single day! 

Fitting into this space makes perfect sense for a fintech developer with their own custom software.

After all, if you want to make your solution truly applicable and convenient for your clients, sometimes you have to come up with the goods yourself! 

And if the idea sounds like a good one to you, here’s what you should know about creating a physical product before you get started. 

Hire Builders with Physical Experience

If you’re going to take a software and form it into a hardware - whether partially or completely - you’re going to need a team made up of people with this kind of transitory experience. 

You need experienced builders who know what it takes to put the digital into the 3D, and not every coder, designer, or artist will have this skill. 

Value Materials for Their Digital Capabilities

Taking a software and turning it into a hardware means you need to invest in materials that have strong digital capabilities.

In the same way you wouldn’t skimp on the CPU or its cooling when building a PC, you shouldn’t invest in materials that have limited uses in electrical environments. 

For example, your hardware’s motherboard pins. Taking the more basic, standard pins and investing in a service for plating gold pins can be a smart move for your product development. 

After all, gold is a pretty good conductor. With better connectivity inside the case, there’ll be fewer issues once the item has been plugged in, set up, and is ready to form part of the customer’s fintech system. 

Make a Bigger Budget Than You Believe You Need

Fintech development is expensive, and we don’t need to convince you of that.

Even when you’re working with software, a lot can go wrong, a lot of QA is required, and there’s little to no recur on this investment within the first couple of years. 

All of these elements mean you often require a bigger budget than you first believe you need. 

It’s usually best practice to take the funding goal you’ve come up with and add another 25% to it.

Doing so will give you a lot more backup cash to use if something gets delayed, if a part is unavailable, or if you need to hire a new team member in record time. 

With a strong software behind them, fintech developers can have an equally strong future in hardware development.

Focus on creating a team with the right experience, invest in materials that have effective digital capabilities, and come up with funding that’ll see you through the worst.