A fintech dashboard consolidates essential financial information in one place, making it clear and easy to comprehend. Fintech dashboards use charts, graphs, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to show you what's happening with your business. It includes metrics such as: 

1. Net income
2. Return on assets
3. Income vs. expenses

Types of fintech dashboards

Now that we understand the core concept of a fintech dashboard, let's explore the different types:

Risk management dashboard: 

These dashboards help spot, assess, and minimize potential threats to your business. This type of dashboard might display metrics like:

1. Value at risk (VaR)
2. Risk-adjusted return on capital
3. Allocation vs. earnings by department

Loan portfolio dashboard

This dashboard gives you an overview of your loan portfolio's performance. The standard metrics include:

1. Performing vs. non-performing loan value
2. Total deposits
3. Interest income

Asset management dashboard

This dashboard monitors financial assets and provides insights into investment performance, featuring metrics like:

1. Assets under management
2. Net income
3. Return on assets

We will explain these metrics in later sections. 

These are just a few examples, and fintech dashboards can be highly customizable to cater to your specific business needs and KPIs. 

Why dashboards matter for fintech businesses

Fintech dashboards show you essential information in a clear and easy-to-understand way. It helps you make better choices, spot problems early, and follow the rules.

1. Make smarter decisions with data

Imagine having all your financial information in one place, up-to-date and easy to read. Fintech dashboards do this! It lets you:

• See trends: Find patterns in how people use your service, how loans are performing, or how investments are doing.
• Make smart changes:  Use data to improve your offerings and give customers what they want.

2. Catch problems before they happen

Fintech dashboards help you identify problems before they escalate.

• Fraud detection: Monitor suspicious transactions for anomalies and prevent financial losses.
• Lend safely: Analyze borrower data to predict if they cannot repay loans. It helps you manage your loan portfolio effectively.
• Prepare for market changes: Track how markets move and see how they might affect your investments.

 By spotting these risks early, you can take proactive measures to mitigate them, saving your business time, money, and reputation.

3. Compliance management:

Let's say you run a money transfer service. People send and receive funds all the time.  However, manually verifying Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations for every customer to prevent suspicious activity is challenging. 

This is where the fintech dashboard helps by pulling data like:

• Transaction details: Every money transfer triggers an update in the dashboard.
• Customer profiles: KYC information like IDs and proofs of address are stored securely.

The dashboard then analyzes this data against KYC regulations and can alert you about the missing documents. You can then contact the customer for verification before processing the transfer.

With the dashboard keeping watch, you can:

• Ensure compliance: Avoid fines for unknowingly processing unauthorized transactions.
• Fight fraud: Verify the legitimacy of high-risk transfers, protecting your business and customers.
• Save time: Ditch the manual document chase and focus on growing your money transfer service.

Fintech businesses can easily avoid fines and legal issues by following the rules. It builds trust with users and regulators alike.

In short, fintech dashboards are not just fancy displays; they are strategic assets that empower you to make smarter decisions, manage risks effectively, and achieve your business goals.
‍

Best practices in dashboard design and layout

Effective fintech dashboards are about more than just cramming as much data as possible onto a screen. They are carefully designed to be clear, concise, and user-friendly. Here are some best practices to follow when designing and laying out your fintech dashboard:

Focus on user needs:

• Identify your audience: Who will be using the dashboard? CEOs, marketing teams, or customer support agents? Tailor the dashboard layout and metrics to their specific needs.
• Keep it simple: Avoid information overload. Prioritize the most critical KPIs and visuals to ensure clarity and avoid overwhelming users.

Design for clarity and readability:

• Use clear and concise labels:  Don't use jargon or abbreviations your audience might not understand.
• Choose appropriate visualizations:  Line charts are great for showing trends, while pie charts excel at displaying proportions. Select visualizations that best represent the data you're trying to convey.
• Maintain consistency:  Use consistent colors, fonts, and layouts throughout the dashboard for a professional and user-friendly experience.

Optimize for actionability:

• Interactive elements: Consider incorporating features like drill-down capabilities or filters that allow users to explore the data in greater detail.
• Alerts and notifications: Set up alerts to notify users of critical events such as suspicious activity, regulatory breaches, or performance drops.

Prioritize data accuracy and security:

• Reliable data sources: Ensure your dashboard pulls data from reliable and secure sources to maintain data integrity.
• Data refresh schedule:  Determine a refresh schedule for your dashboard data to ensure users always view the most up-to-date information.
• Data security:  Implement robust data security measures to protect sensitive financial information displayed on the dashboard.

Additional tips:

• Use white space:  Don't clutter the dashboard; use white space strategically to improve readability and visual hierarchy.
• Mobile responsiveness:  Ensure your dashboard is accessible and displays well on different devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
• Seek feedback:  Get feedback from users on the dashboard's usability and effectiveness. Continuously iterate and refine your design based on user input.

Retail dashboard templates with samples and examples

Now that you understand the importance of well-designed dashboards let's explore some resources to get you started. Here, we'll showcase a sample dashboard template and highlight its key features:

RAROC:

Risk-adjusted Return on Capital (RAROC) helps businesses judge how well their money works. It's not just about how much profit they make (return) but also how much risk they take to get that profit. 

If you invest $100 and get back $120, that's a good return. But what if that investment could have easily lost you money? RAROC considers that risk.

Here's how it works: RAROC takes a company's profit and adjusts it based on the riskiness of their investments. If a company makes a lot of money but takes big risks, its RAROC might be lower than that of a company with steadier profits and lower risks.

This helps businesses compare different investment options. They can see which projects offer a good return for the amount of risk involved. It's like choosing between a low-risk savings account with guaranteed interest or a riskier stock investment that could bring higher rewards but also comes with the chance of losing money.

In short, RAROC helps businesses make smarter choices with their money by considering both profit and risk.

According to the given image, for every $1 of capital invested, the company is generating a profit of $1.03. Ideally, a RAROC greater than 1 indicates a positive return on investment after considering risk. However, the specific benchmark for a "good" RAROC depends on industry standards and risk tolerance.

Value at risk (VaR)

Value at risk tells you the potential amount of money you could lose in your investments over a certain period with a specific confidence level.

Here's a breakdown:

• Potential Loss: This is the maximum amount your investment value might decrease.
• Timeframe: This is the period you're considering, like a day, month, or year.
• Confidence Level: This is the likelihood that the loss won't be bigger than the VaR number. It's often shown as a percentage, like 95%.

For example, if the VaR on your dashboard is $1,000 at a 95% confidence level for one month, it means there's a 95% chance your investments won't lose more than $1,000 that month.

Similarly, this metric's VaR amount is 1.65M with 99% confidence. That means $1.65 million is the maximum potential loss the dashboard predicts. There's a 99% chance your actual loss will be at most $1.65 million.

VaR helps you understand the risk involved in your investments. It's a good tool for quickly understanding how much your portfolio could swing in value.

Remember, VaR is an estimate and not a guarantee.

Return on assets (ROA):

ROA, which stands for Return on Assets, helps you understand how well you use your resources to make money.

The higher your ROA, the better you are at converting the resources into profit.

Why is this important?

• Tracks performance: A rising ROA shows you're improving at using your resources to make money. This could be because you're attracting more customers, lowering costs, or finding new ways to make money.
• Attracts investors: Investors looking to put money into your fintech company often look at ROA. A high ROA can make your company a more attractive investment.

Calculation:

ROA = Net Income/Average Total Assets

DataBrain, an AI-powered BI tool, easily analyzes data and creates visualizations. 

You can check the full fintech dashboard in action here and see how each metric can help you understand your business clearly. 
‍

Conclusion

Fintech businesses thrive on innovation and agility. However, without clear visibility into their financial data, making informed decisions and staying ahead of the curve is challenging.

Fintech dashboards provide a real-time snapshot of your loan portfolio performance, customer engagement trends, and potential risks—all on a single screen.

Moreover, you can fine-tune performance, dodge risks, make smart decisions, and keep growing long-term using dashboards.