Is Building Trust the Key to Fintech Growth?

Three Perspectives on Growth from the Fintech Growth Summit

Every startup in the world needs to focus on growing its customer base, but fintech firms face a particular set of challenges when it comes to growth. At least, that’s the perspective held by three key industry voices heard during the Mobile Growth Association’s Fintech Growth Summit panel discussion.

I had the pleasure of hosting three fintech executives with extensive experience and knowledge in growth. The participating panelists were:

• Kiki Burton, Growth Marketing at Plaid
• Matias Honorato, Growth Lead at Tally
• David Snider, Founder and CEO at Harness Wealth

Of course, before discussing any challenges, it’s important to have a baseline understand of what we mean by growth, particularly as it relates to fintech. While the panelists all come from different backgrounds, the consensus definition of growth was that it is a customer-centric approach that is hyper-focused on the customer journey and optimizes each step. To achieve this, growth needs to be a cross-functional effort at the center of everything an organization does — from operations to product development to customer service and everything in between. According to the panelists, the goal of growth is to identify and eliminate points of friction customers are experiencing.

And while that’s a good overarching definition of the function growth serves, some fintech might diverge in their approach based on the type of customer they serve; B2B, B2C, or financial institutions are generally the three categories that most fintechs fall into.

So, what exactly drives growth at fintechs? Our panelists agreed that growth is intimately connected to trust. A startup’s relationship with its customers is rooted in trust and safety, and earning customers trust is an important part of growth strategy. That said, growth — and therefore trust — comes from something within the product, not something forced onto the product. What’s more, trust can be given and taken away, and fintechs need to continually work to earn it and reinforce that aspect of the customer relationship. Recent events surrounding GameStop and stock trading app Robinhood are a great example of this.

In fact, the panelists agreed that earning customer trust is exceedingly challenging in a world where the environment in which a fintech operates is continuously changing. From current events to new competitors to shifting financial regulations and market conditions, fintechs need to be ready to adjust their approaches while staying focused on earning their customers’ trust. For some, it may even be strategic to limit growth and attend to existing customer needs before bounding ahead with larger customer acquisition efforts.

This is, in part, where the martech/adtech side of growth comes into play. And today’s marketing environment is as difficult as ever, particularly in light of a slew of new regulations and laws that dictate how customer data is collected and used, GDPR being the prime example. But luckily for fintechs, regulation and compliance are inherently part of their DNA, making firms uniquely positioned to address these changes. That leaves the door open to fundamentally changing and being creative about a firm’s approach to customer acquisition and relationship management. However, it’s important to note that it’s not about simply finding workarounds to regulations. Instead, it’s about finding ways to adhere to higher levels of transparency that not only regulators are demanding but customers are coming to expect.

In other words, it’s about finding ways to earn customers’ trust continually.