If you ask Stephanie Ferris, CEO and President of FIS
FIS
Chaotic? Certainly. But amid the chaos, a new clarity emerges.
According to Ferris, true innovation happens when disruptive individuals come on the scene and revolutionize the basic business model from the inside out, requiring a fundamental shift in mindset. She highlighted the need to prioritize protecting a company’s most valuable asset: its people.
In conversation with Eva Reda, President of Consumer Banking at American Express
AXP
As I witnessed this conversation in real time, it became impossible to ignore the importance of two female leaders at the forefront of humanizing the fintech industry. They skillfully navigate the industry through turbulent waters, focusing on crucial aspects such as payments, marketing and strategic alliances.
Women leaders are actively reshaping the fintech landscape, restoring trust and credibility. As we look toward 2024, it becomes increasingly clear that we should have followed their lead all along.
Navigating rough waters
At Money20/20, the theme “humanizing payments and the industry as a whole” resonated everywhere. Despite technological advances like FedNow or open banking, there remains a significant gap between innovation and the way we, as humans, interact with our finances. To move to the next phase of fintech, we need to rewrite the industry narrative with a human-centered approach.
The financial services industry currently ranks among the least trusted sectors in business, second only to social media, as reported by Edelman Trust Barometer 2023. In contrast, the technology sector enjoys a high level of trust. Fintech, perched at the intersection of these areas, faces the formidable task of bridging this trust gap.
To do this, we must insert humanity into an often transactional world. We must emulate those who recognize that caring for people is the key to success.
Research indicates that women excel at most leadership skills, including taking initiative, resilience, personal development, achieving results, and demonstrating high integrity and honesty. according to at the Harvard Business Review. Women outperform men in 84% of skills measured, including inspiring and motivating others.
Panel after panel, women in the fintech industry illustrated this idea, emphasizing that leveraging your purpose to drive innovation is the key to earning the coveted customer trust.
“Understanding the purpose and staying true to it is key to building customer loyalty in today’s ever-changing macroeconomic landscape,” said Elise Brown, chief marketing officer at venture capital firm Anthemis, during a round table.
Gender parity in leadership is not just about fairness; it’s essential to accurately representing underserved markets and rebuilding fintech’s reputation as a trustworthy industry.
Establish Trust Through Payments
Trust and reliability are paramount in managing personal finances, especially in e-commerce, where modern financial technology interfaces with the general public. Humanizing payments is no longer a choice but a mandate.
As consumers and customers, we crave authenticity. We seek genuine human interaction, empathy, and reassurance that our needs and values matter. This is where fintech can truly rebuild its reputation as a trustworthy industry.
E-commerce is also evolving in terms of complexity and introducing new players, as Lia Cao, managing director and head of integrated financing and solutions at JP Morgan Payments, highlighted during a panel discussion at Money20/20.
The introduction of third-party sellers and advertisers has transformed the traditional buyer-seller exchange into a multi-party marketplace. Payment platforms like JP Morgan have stepped in to enable contactless payment, one example being their collaboration with Sephora in August.
“But the goal is to go beyond simple payments and delve into the world of integrated financial services,” Cao explained.
The quest for trust does not end with a humanization of payments. Promoting integrated financial services is key to bridging the gap between contactless payment capabilities and fintech that addresses larger issues such as persistent income inequality.
To bring this aspiration to life, fintech leaders must do more than understand their customers; they must look at 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 great, mainly because of data silos and the fragmentation of information about individuals. These data barriers make underwriting and onboarding expensive and time-consuming, making trust a difficult two-way street.
However, the financial world is undergoing a transformation powered by fintech companies. They are not just dismantling these barriers; they erase them with technology. By automating the process of aggregating and understanding fragmented data, they make financial services accessible to millions of people without incurring exorbitant operational costs.
Naré Vardanyan, founder and CEO of Ntropy, provides an important lesson in this regard. As an Armenian immigrant, she is acutely aware of how the lack of understanding of customer data keeps many underserved communities outside of the economic ecosystem. She created Ntropy to leverage language models to decode financial data from various sources, making it understandable to humans and algorithms.
Money20/20 taught us a crucial lesson: fintech must come together, prioritize humanization and close the trust gap in the financial services industry, with female leaders playing a central role in reshaping the industry. They are rewriting the authentic narrative of fintech as an industry committed to inclusivity.
So the next time you embark on a financial transaction, think not only about the product but also the trust behind it. The fintech journey is only just beginning and promises to reshape the very essence of financial services.