What established Financial Services brands can learn from FinTech and vice versa

At FeQ we’ve been working in the Financial Services sector with both startups and more established brands lately. We think that there is learning and best practice that should be shared both ways, but that the quickest path to success for all is rooted in deep collaboration between the two. Here are some observations:

1. A product and brand born from the same customer journey drives simplicity of focus

In the FinTech world, a brand usually exists to either solve a customer pain point or fill a specific gap in the market. Such clarity of mission leads to a product experience and brand identity that share the same center of gravity. A great example of this is Credit Karma - paying it forward for the millennial generation with a sexy brand that delivers a new price point for financial services – FREE! In contrast to this, the more established Financial Services brands spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to understand the customer journey as it relates to their products and services and where their brand can plausibly play a role. With the newer FinTech brands there is an effortlessness that stems from the fact that their reason for being is clear and every decision whether it be product design or marketing is informed by a consumer need.

2. More established brands are now leading the way on sustainable practice

Brands that are painting the future are the ones that have a sustainable business model where the brand value aligns with people’s values and helps to make the world a better place. Two of my favorite examples most recently are Patagonia and Unilever. In Financial Services, leading with purpose as a core component of your brand platform brings greater meaning to your entire offering. Here is where collaboration between the FinTech world and more established institutions can work in the consumer’s favor. There are great fledgling companies like In/PACT out there that are working to connect purchase to purpose by enabling self-directed charitable giving with every financial transaction.  In/PACT, a startup company, has teamed up with FIS, a 12 Billion dollar US financial services company, to help small and medium sized banks in the US allow their customers the opportunity to meaningfully give back via setting up a giving account that sits alongside their checking and savings accounts – now that’s a partnership for the future!

3. Integrating Product Design and Marketing works to align the brand’s core messaging

Good product design is inspired by the user experience and ultimately delivers value. Good marketing brings the value of the product to life by creating meaning for people. These two functions now need to align more tightly than ever as the distance between brand impression and purchase is a nanosecond in our platform based world. In order to delight people in this landscape, the more established Financial Services brands are learning about people-centric design and deploying that concept across their companies. For young FinTech start-ups, conversations around customer pain points, product design, user experience, brand messaging and how to go-to-market is happening all at once in the same room. This is often driven by necessity as it saves the start-up and their partners a lot of time and resource, yet it has become a hyper-integrated model that works to align the brand’s core messaging and win at the speed in Social Commerce. 

More to come on Social Commerce by FeQ. Stay tuned!