How Fintech brands are transforming communication in Banking And Finance

Understanding The “Fintech Way”

FinTech is not a new term, although Fintech Marketing has not existed forever. Rooted in millennials, it refers to what many call the Financial Revolution or 2.0 Finances. Merging technological advancements with traditional financial services such as banking.

FinTechs may now be very well established, but ten years ago they had a severe roadblock to success. They had to break through deeply rooted communicational paradigms in society, and its different generations while at the same time, earning the heart of millennials and younger generations.

A brutal force that also helped them to be established as the new financial solutions platforms is convenience! Replacing an hour-long visit to the bank with three taps on your smartphone from the comfort of your couch is priceless. That’s what makes the convenience paradigm unbeatable. Even if the user needs to sacrifice “a little bit of security”. But the key element to transforming the most inconvenient industry into the most convenient one had to be done by finding a new way to communicate.

How FinTechs Rooted In Society

Being built on innovation, designed to fit the lifestyle needs of consumers, and having cracked inconvenience riddles paved a long way for FinTechs. They brought a level of user experience that would have been unfathomable only a few years ago. And as to reshaping communications to earning the heart of their younger audience (mainly Gen-Zs and Millenials)… If we’re still talking about FinTech, it means they did it successfully.

How FinTechs Did It?

A great part of winning this battle has been driven by the many young companies that have emerged in recent years with no legacy, existing reputation, or credibility. They compensated for what they lacked by offering completely new financial products and “Agility Above All Else”. 

But most importantly, using a human voice and being naturally less conservative was the groundbreaker. Banks were perceived as these faceless, cold, empty institutions that only cared about their bottom line. And thanks to FinTech-style comms, that has started to change.

How FinTechs Reshaped Financial Marketing

These are notorious examples of how FinTech Marketing broke the old-fashions comms mould to win over millions of younger customers. Many of them, despite hating financial institutions, seem to be in love with new FinTechs. 

Current: A bold, trendy, colorful, and hip branding campaign across New York City stating they are ‘not a bank’ set a new tone for them. Then they entered some very interesting partnerships. 

Current rewards app

From branded and unbranded collaborations with popular YouTubers such as Mr. Beast as well as controversial YouTubers like Logan Paul. Which may not even be the best people to represent a financial institution, then… Why?

It’s simple. Because they can talk to younger generations in a way that they understand them. They are heard. And even worshipped. That’s what makes this brilliant.

Public’s Drops:  This investment platform aims at democratizing investing. Content and community-centred actions have been at their strategy’s core. They push a clear investing-for-everyone goal, although their best angle is presenting themselves as relatable to their audience (including first-time investors, which traditional banks made feel like outsiders).

One of their marketing efforts is called ‘Drops’. They are mini-marketing campaigns deeply rooted in mainstream culture via which the Public releases different items. From physical products to digital experiences or reports, each of which is meant to highly engage the audience, making them and the idea of investing as easy as pop culture. Once again, an image traditional banks struggled to stay away from!

• Check out Public Drops here: https://public.com/drops

CashApp: A peer-to-peer cash transfer app that over time has grown into a FinTech heavyweight. Even though their products and services lineup grew very complex, they strategically maintained the simplicity with which they communicate and engage their core audience. Also, showcasing real over perfect celebrities, as everyday users of these apps, significantly helped with adoption.

We have also seen FinTech players use this colloquial approach and use very atypical celebrities in South Asia and LatAm, something unthinkable for typical banking institutions in the 80s and 90s, which only linked with celebrity A-listers.

Where Is The Industry Heading Towards?

These communicational examples are not the black sheep of the herd. They are properly applying what can be considered to be the new “FinTech Marketing Manual For Success”. It also serves as a validator of the fact that traditional banking institutions are also losing rigidness and formality in their logos, typefaces, and colors, and launching tech-based products. This means that this is the path, this is the way.

Engaging customers as if they were a peer riding the bus together. Companies treating people like people is the new paradigm. Not like assets. But luckily for modern FinTechs, they can move much faster than banks when making decisions and launching new trendy campaigns.

Check out how we helped Foreign Currency Direct rebrand and launch into the market as Lumon Pay

Making users feel part of something larger than themselves instead of just a customer, followed along with a relatable language that makes them feel they matter, can be the make or break of any FinTech company. That’s why these cool marketing techniques, still have to carefully abide by the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) regulations. And avoid pushing users to unwanted or unadvised levels of risk, products or financial behaviours. It’s a thin line, that if followed properly, can yield staggering results for any FinTech.

There is one thing for sure, the new way of the FinTechs, is the new way of doing things for the entire BFSI industry, all over the Planet.

If you make sure how your company can fit into this scheme to maximize engagement and brand awareness with the customers of tomorrow, Polar London is the right place to start!