Fintech Unveils Its Human Side

If you ask Stephanie Ferris, the CEO and President of FIS
FIS
, about her recent tenure at the helm of a fintech company, she likens it to the classic Billy Joel tune, “We didn’t start the fire.”

Chaotic? Certainly. But amidst the chaos, a newfound clarity emerges.

According to Ferris, true innovation occurs when disruptive individuals enter the scene and revolutionize the core business model from the inside out, requiring a fundamental shift in mindset. She stressed the need to prioritize the protection of a company’s most valuable asset – its people.

During a keynote exchange with Eva Reda, President of Consumer Banking at American Express
AXP
at the Money20/20 USA event in Las Vegas, Ferris emphasized how the fintech sector has weathered its fair share of challenges spurred by a global pandemic. These challenges encompassed the crypto winter, a banking crisis, soaring inflation, and the rise in interest rates, all of which have collectively eroded consumer trust – an issue of paramount concern for the industry.

As I witnessed this conversation in real-time, the significance of two female leaders at the forefront of humanizing the fintech sector became impossible to ignore. They are deftly navigating the industry through turbulent waters, focusing on pivotal aspects such as payments, marketing, and strategic alliances.

Female leaders are actively reshaping the fintech landscape, rebuilding trust and credibility. As we look ahead to 2024, it becomes increasingly evident that we should have followed their lead all along.

Navigating Choppy Waters

At Money20/20, the theme of “humanizing payments and the industry as a whole” resonated throughout. Despite technological advancements like FedNow or open banking, there remains a significant gap between innovation and how we, as humans, interact with our finances. To move forward into the next phase of fintech, we must rewrite the industry’s narrative with a human-centric approach.

The financial services sector currently ranks among the least trusted in the business world, second only to social media, as indicated by the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer. In stark contrast, the technology sector relishes a high level of trust. Fintech, perched at the intersection of these realms, faces the formidable task of bridging this trust gap.

To do so means infusing humanity into an often transactional world. We must emulate those who recognize that caring for people is the linchpin of success.

Research indicates women excel in most leadership skills, including taking initiative, resilience, self-development, driving results, and demonstrating high integrity and honesty, according to Harvard Business Review. Women outperform men in 84% of the competencies measured, including inspiring and motivating others.

Panel after panel, women in fintech exemplified this idea, stressing that harnessing your purpose to drive innovation is the key to earning the coveted trust of customers.

“Understanding purpose and staying true to it is vital to building customer loyalty in today’s ever-shifting macroeconomic landscape,” said Elise Brown, Chief Marketing Officer of venture capital firm Anthemis, during a panel discussion.

Gender parity in leadership isn’t just about fairness; it’s indispensable for accurately representing underserved markets and rebuilding fintech’s reputation as a trustworthy industry.

Establishing Trust Via Payments

Trust and reliability are paramount when handling people’s finances, particularly in e-commerce, where modern fintech interfaces with the masses. Humanizing payments is no longer a choice but a mandate.

As consumers and clients, we yearn for authenticity. We crave genuine human interactions, empathy, and the assurance that our needs and values hold significance. This is where fintech can genuinely rebuild its reputation as a trustworthy industry.

E-commerce, too, is evolving in complexity and introducing new players into the mix, as Lia Cao, Managing Director and Head of Embedded Finance and Solutions at J.P. Morgan Payments, emphasized during a panel discussion at Money20/20.

Introducing third-party sellers and advertisers has transformed the traditional buyer-seller exchange into a multi-party marketplace. Payment platforms like J.P. Morgan have stepped in to enable tap-to-pay, an example being their collaboration with Sephora in August.

“But the goal is to move beyond mere payments and delve into the world of embedded financial services,” explained Cao.

The quest for trust doesn’t conclude with humanizing payments. Promoting embedded financial services is essential to bridging the gap between having tap-to-pay capabilities and fintech addressing more significant issues such as persistent income inequality.

To bring this aspiration to life, fintech leaders must do more than comprehend their clients; they must delve into the preferences, values, and challenges of end consumers. This understanding should permeate every facet of their operations.

Reshaping The Industry With Data

Serving the underserved can be formidable, primarily due to siloed data and fragmented information about individuals. These data hurdles render underwriting and onboarding costly and cumbersome, making trust a challenging two-way street.

However, the financial world is undergoing a transformation propelled by fintech companies. They aren’t merely dismantling these barriers; they are obliterating them with technology. By automating the process of aggregating and making sense of fragmented data, they make financial services accessible to millions without incurring exorbitant operational costs.

Naré Vardanyan, Founder and CEO of Ntropy, imparts a significant lesson in this regard. As an Armenian immigrant, she is acutely aware of how a lack of understanding of customer data keeps many underserved communities out of the economic ecosystem. She established Ntropy to harness language models to decode financial data from various sources, making it comprehensible to humans and algorithms.

Money20/20 taught us a crucial lesson: fintech must unite, prioritize humanization, and bridge the trust gap in the financial services industry, with women leaders playing a pivotal role in reshaping the sector. They are rewriting the authentic narrative of fintech as an industry committed to inclusivity.

So, the next time you engage in a financial transaction, consider not only the product but also the trust that underpins it. The fintech journey has only just begun, promising to reshape the very essence of financial services.