Podcasts – The New Means To Spread The Fintech Word

On a recent holiday trip, my host was listening to the “Breaking Banks” podcast series on her android phone which set the ball rolling for my next blog “Can podcast play an important role in spreading fintech awareness”.

Giving a thought to her positive review, I decided to go on an experimental journey with podcasts and understand what they are, the reasons behind their popularity, their role in creating fintech awareness before helping my readers understand its significance.

Podcast Image, Picture Courtesy: Google

So here I present my journey with podcasts and its outcome :-

• For those new to the podcasts scenario(Sigh including me !!!), Google describes Podcast as nothing but a digital audio series file that can be downloaded online and listened to.
  It can be subscribed to and new episodes can be automatically downloaded.
• Next step after googling what podcasts were was signing up for the “Breaking Bank” podcast series and downloading it with the help of a software reading RSS or ATOM feeds.
• Post signing up to my joy, I realized that subsequent podcast episodes

• Would be automatically downloaded unlike the traditional radios.
• Could be heard anytime anywhere. Which meant I did not have a set apart a specific time just to listen to it.
  I could combine it with my some other work or listen to it at my convenience.Yipee!!!!
• Updates were automated similar to a subscribed YouTube Channel.
• Could be heard on smart phone on both IOS and Android platform using podcatcher apps.
• Can be transferred to personal media player such as from my laptop to I-pod.

• Enjoying the benefits of subscribing to podcasts, it dawned on me that podcasts owed their ever increasing popularity only to these benefits.
• Having understood the above it was time to figure out whether podcast had a correlation with fintech, fintech awareness, and financial inclusion. Assuming that initial training on podcast usage (a must in the rural areas) has been given, they are an effective tool to create fintech awareness for the reasons below

1. Podcasts are the best medium to put across heavy topics in a simple manner. For a layman technology, finance,
   fintech topics may be difficult to understand. Topics pertaining to this domain would be easier to understand in
   listening form rather than in a written form.
2. Podcasts are free and are quite appealing to its listeners similar.
3. The hosts quite often relate to their listeners on their show thus enabling better rapport between them.
   Better rapport would mean more stickiness to the show and more audience.
4. Podcasts in regional language means a larger listener base. A large regional listener base is effective for creating
   fintech awareness in the rural areas. The hosts on their shows can help listeners understand about the various fintech
   and banking products such as digital wallets, UPI, bank accounts, their importance and usage in the regional
   language. This would help the listeners to move on to cashless means or be financially included.
5. My benefit no 4. With a majority of us having access to smartphones and data packs, podcasts can be heard on
   the smartphone anytime anywhere.
6. Podcasts can help in creating brand awareness for a particular fintech company at a minimum cost.

Coming to the outcome of my journey, I am in favor of podcasts and strongly feel that they play an important role in creating fintech awareness and aiding financial
inclusion. I believe that the below 6 popular fintech podcasts could help in achieving this and they are :-

• Breaking Banks :-
  It is a global fintech podcast and is currently sitting at the top. Brett King, the show host provides insights on how the banking industry is affected by factors such as trust loss,
  rapid consumer behavior shifts, massive technological development.
• Fintech Insider :-
  One of the leading global fintech podcasts, this show co-hosted by Chris Skinner, David Brear, Jason Bates, Simon Taylor covers the weekly happenings in the field of
  fintech and interviews of who is who of the
  fintech fraternity.
• Unchained :-
  Another leading global fintech podcast hosted by Laura Shin, focuses on how Blockchain and Fintech will help start-ups incumbents and everyday people to be more efficient and effective.
• The Digital Fifth :-
  Hosted by Sameer Singh Jaini, this podcast is India’s first fintech podcast and is available on Soundcloud as well as YouTube.
• Shunyaone :-
  Another Indian podcast show, that conducts a round table discussion on all tech matters(including fintech) in India.
  It is hosted by Shiladitya Mukhopadhyaya.
• Paisa Vaisa :-
  An Indian personal finance podcast hosted by C.A Anupam Gupta. This podcast is recommended to achieve financial inclusion.

Backing my thoughts on podcasts, the Teknospire team also believes that along with fintech products, podcasts should be pitched to achieve fintech awareness and financial inclusion.
So to all our readers out there stay tuned for our forthcoming podcast episodes. The show ‘s first episode would see our CEO, Vishal Gupta joining us with his views on fintech,
financial inclusion, Teknospire’s vision. With this am signing off till then take care and happy podcasting.

References:

Listen To Podcasts On Any Phone
The Advantages of Podcasts in Business
Seven Benefits of Podcasting
How to download and listen to podcasts on Android or IOS
Podcasting
Forbes
The best FinTech podcasts out there and 10 FinTech trends for 2017