In partnership with

Hi, fintech fam! 💜

Thank you to everyone who attended the Fintech Is Femme Founders Summit!

I cannot wait to see all the insights, learnings, and selfies you share on LinkedIn! Use the hashtags #FintechIsFemme and #NYTechWeek, and tag me! (Are we connected yet? Add me on LinkedIn here.)

After the event, I caught the midnight flight to Amsterdam to attend one of my favorite events of the year: Money20/20 Europe! ✈

I’ll share insights from the content throughout the show in this newsletter. Stay tuned!

And be sure to catch me on the Money20/20 stage on June 6 for an epic discussion with Isabelle Freidheim of Athena Capital and Paul Taylor of Thought Machine.

We'll talk, as founders, about the importance of building and crafting a legacy that transcends financial gain, drives innovation, and leaves a lasting mark on the industry. See you there!

For today's newsletter, I’m sharing insights from speakers from Money 20/20 US last year.

These insights have carried over into this year and remain relevant to the 2024 show theme: Human X Machine.

Enjoy the read!

WHY UPGRADE?

There’s a big difference in how the mainstream media covers fintech and how I do. Every week, I will provide you with the latest fintech news (minus the BS), profiles of inspiring women in fintech, and insightful analysis to help you stay ahead of the competition.

Plus, premium members support female-led journalism and keep this work going. Because of your support, Fintech Is Femme is more than just a newsletter; it's a media empire and community for women to connect, learn, and support one another.

IMPACT

Money20/20: Leaders Showcase the Human Side of Fintech

If you ask Stephanie Ferris, the CEO and President of 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 at the Money20/20 USA event in Las Vegas in October 2023, 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 from the commentator box, 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 the rest of 2024 and beyond, it becomes increasingly evident that we should have followed their lead all along.

Navigating Choppy Waters

At Money20/20 US, the theme of "humanizing payments and the industry as a whole" resonated throughout.

Despite technological advancements like FedNow or open banking (now facing its own crisis), there remains a significant gap between innovation and how humans interact with their 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 customers' trust.

"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 2023.

"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, fintech companies are dismantling these barriers with technology.

By automating the process of aggregating and making sense of fragmented data, fintech platforms make financial services accessible to millions without incurring exorbitant operational costs.

As an Armenian immigrant, Naré Vardanyan, Founder and CEO of Ntropy, is acutely aware that a lack of customer data keeps many underserved communities out of the economic ecosystem.

In 2020, she established Ntropy to harness language models to decode financial data from various sources, making it comprehensible to humans and algorithms.

Despite recent advancements in open banking and financial regulations that have made data more accessible, the problem of understanding this data to create real value remains largely unsolved.

This data powers decisions from credit scores to loan agreements and enables various financial products that impact lives.

Ntropy saw an opportunity to provide a developer-first, scalable platform that helps businesses make sense of their transaction data, which customers can benefit from in the future.

This is a great example of AI technology fueling human innovation.

Year over year, Money20/20 continues to teach 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.

Women in fintech are rewriting the narrative of financial services as a business sector committed to inclusivity.

So, the next time you engage in a financial transaction, consider the product and the trust underpinning it.

Editors Note: This story was originally published in Forbes on November 7, 2023.

_{WTF ELSE?}

• After raising $100M, AI fintech LoanSnap is being sued, fined, evicted

• How High Interest Rates Turbocharged A Struggling Robo-Advisor

• Bitcoin's bubbly behaviors: does it resemble other financial bubbles of the past?

• ModernFi Announces Integration with Q2's Digital Banking Platform 

• Cathie Wood snags 100,000 shares of fintech stock after slump

• Banks slowly preparing for AI, open banking: Sopra Digital Banking Experience Report

_{SPONSORED BY}

Put your money to work in a high-yield cash account with up to $2M in FDIC† insurance through program banks.

Get started today, with as little as $10.

_{I WANT IT, I GOT IT}

• 📚 Today’s Read: This TechCrunch article highlights the women in AI who are making a difference.

• 👀 Today’s Watch: Who else is rewatching Sex And The City now that it’s on Netflix?

• 🍣 Today’s Eats: I had a layover in Oslo, Norway, and while I wasn’t able to leave the airport, I did have the most delicious smoked salmon sandwich of my life. I love it here.

_FINTUNES

🎵 Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire

On theme for today’s column! 🔥🔥🔥

That’s all for now! Stay safe, everyone. Hug your loved ones. See you Thursday!

Love,

Nicole

📰 Newsletter | 🔗 LinkedIn | 🤝 Partnerships | 🎤 Speaking |📱 @fintechisfemme | Get in front of 50,000 readers