Fintech
DEI in action: the fintech companies that are taking action
This June in The Fintech Times we will focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). No longer just a trending topic, but an essential consideration not only for your business operations, but also for your offering, this topic seems more relevant than ever.
The fintech sector is known for its reputation for innovation and flexibility, but it still faces a significant diversity problem that threatens to stunt its growth and impede innovation.
Rather than just focus on the work that still needs to be done, we at The Fintech Times also wanted to recognize the great work already being done by fintech companies that are shining a light on DEI. Here are just a few of the companies that are stepping up to the plate and showing diversity in action.
Huge value
Raf De Kimpe, CEO at London Fintech Week, She said:
“For Fintech Week London, diversity, equity and inclusion is one of the pillars on which our events are built. I firmly believe that a diverse event, both on and off stage, has a huge value added. Since our first event in 2021, over 50% of speakers have identified as women at our flagship conference. However, it doesn’t stop there. We work hard to ensure our stage represents society, focusing on the inclusion of people of colour and diverse voices everywhere. We are delighted to see the diversity on stage reflected in our audience.
“As a business-to-business event in the fintech and financial services sector, I believe it is important to highlight how fintech can be used for good. In fact, throughout the afternoon Fintech for Good sessions, we worked with My clear text, a text-to-speech company who agreed to sponsor us by providing closed captioning for these sessions, once again making our event more inclusive for people who are hard of hearing or neurodiverse. These subtitles were also provided during the panel “Women in Fintech: Inspiring Inclusion and Achieving Together” and our charity partner’s keynote speech Street child.”
A welcoming work environment
Lina Burdenkova, Director of Organizational Development at the all-in-one financial platform for businesses, ConnectPay, She said:
“ConnectPay has a strong focus on making the workplace friendly for specialists with children. As Lithuania has the fourth largest number of young professionals (aged 24-34) with higher education in the EU, many demanding and highly responsible jobs are performed by parents with young children. ConnectPay supports employees with families by allowing them to decide how to work best: they can work from home more often during their children’s holidays or bring them to the office. In addition, parents have flexible working hours, which means they can easily align their parenting responsibilities with their work at ConnectPay.
“We recognise that the need for flexibility can arise for a variety of reasons, so we encourage all ConnectPay employees to utilise flexible hours and take extra days off to prioritise their mental wellbeing.
We also aim to bring greater gender equality to Lithuanian fintech and consistently maintain a balanced gender ratio at all levels of the company. In particular, 63 percent of employees at the executive and director levels are women. The pay gap varies very slightly between different levels, as we are keen to achieve the best possible balance. For example, women in specialist positions earn about 4 percent more than their male colleagues.”
Why and what?
Emanuele Smadja, co-founder and CEO of MPOWER Financing, International student loan providers said:
“The company I co-founded and ran for the last decade, MPOWER Financing, is one of the most diversified companies on the planet and won 6 DEI awards last year alone. But DEI is not an end in itself, it is a means to better decision making and ultimately better profitability and sustainability of a company. Starting with “why” you want DEI and “what” it means in your workplace is therefore critical to ensuring that i Your DEI efforts support business objectives and are not just a box-ticking exercise.
“At MPOWER, this meant building a team that reflected the diversity of our international student clients, in terms of gender, age, nationality, religion, and marital/family status, so that we could better understand and address our clients’ unique needs and challenges. Another important ‘Do’ is ‘Do start early’ or ‘Don’t accumulate Diversity Debt’. At MPOWER, this meant that we started recruiting outside of my network and the co-founder’s network from the very first employee”
Social impact
Eve the Gatherer, founder of the real estate investment portal, Small change, She said:
“Many companies declare a strong commitment to DEI but neglect to take concrete, effective steps. To ensure DEI efforts go beyond lip service, fintechs should identify clear goals and measure progress against them. of the most important initiatives we have undertaken at Small Change is the establishment of a proprietary index (The Small Change Index) that measures a wide range of factors to determine the social impact of a project women in project leadership, the extent to which communities surrounding a project are underserved, and environmental standards.
“We only list projects that achieve a 60 percent impact score. This has led to strong branding and DEI returns for Small Change. While the criteria we use are specific to real estate development, fintechs in other sectors can and should develop rigorous criteria of their own. Additionally, they should be willing to report on their progress to various stakeholders, which will improve accountability. No one should expect immediate success, but clear and decisive steps will slowly but surely improve DEI in the fintech sector.”
Prioritize inclusion
My friend Lovanstrategic director of VizyPay, a fintech serving small businesses in rural America, said:
“At VizyPay, we are proactive in prioritizing inclusion in the workplace. Our initiatives are embedded in all strategies, policies and programs that aim to advance our number one “why”: culture. In an unfamiliar area, when you mention DEI, people automatically think of someone’s skin color or gender and check the box to indicate that they have DEI covered. That’s not DEI. In VizyPay’s eyes, it’s about understanding the differences in each of us and applying inclusion strategies.
“It all starts with our talent acquisition process, which is centered around the candidate experience. Resumes don’t drive us, the individual does. To create a powerful and inclusive fintech workplace, you must first know your employees. Many of our employees don’t have college degrees or specialized backgrounds in a specific role, so VizyPay’s talent development programs include areas for skills training. Likewise, because many of our leaders are homegrown, we reframe the role: Our leaders are not bosses and shouldn’t be referred to as such. Our leaders are coaches, who understand their employees and bring out the best in them. We operate with open lines of communication, promoting our transparency and bringing awareness to trending issues that impact our people.”
Different voices
Nicholas Valentine, fintech director at Milken Institute, a think tank, said:
“DEI is embedded in the mission, values and activities of our fintech program. Our focus on financial inclusion and access to capital guides our research and analysis, the policy priorities and the content we amplify. Diverse voices and thought leaders are essential both to telling the stories of fintech’s evolution and to designing the future of finance. Across our global platforms, private policy roundtables and publications, we highlight founders and experts who bring unique and strategic perspectives from diverse groups including people of color, indigenous people, LGBTQ and immigrants. The impact of ensuring representation in all of these spaces enables representation at leading fintech companies and government committees and initiatives. Our approach to DEI is continuous and intentional.
“Diversity of teams, ideas and experiences brings solutions to our most complex and difficult problems. At the Milken Institute, we focus on equity that leads to the creation of new systems that value ownership and profit sharing. And inclusion is the big why of financial technology, as it is a fundamental element that puts the end user at the center and reminds the industry that we are building products and services for all people and that all people have a role in making them work better.”
Everyday reality
Zahra Alubudico-founder and COO of Balance, alternative financing provider for SaaS businesses,
“Given that Levenue is a post Series A scale-up, we are in a unique position because for us the company culture is still very much informed and set by our founding team’s purpose for creating the company in the first place. As a co-founder and COO of Levenue, are a rather rare example in the world of financial services, and even more so in financial technology, where women represent only 4 percent of CEOs, only 18 percent of executive committee members and a paltry 7.7 percent of entrepreneurs in financial technology. I’m female, I’m young, and I have a diverse ethnic background. So when I talk about DEI, it’s not just a theoretical and conceptual point, it’s my actual lived experience that I bring to our business, in service of mine. team and our customers and partners.
“Since Levenue’s inception, we have placed DEI at the center of our company’s policies, taking into consideration three main things: what DEI means to us; how our leadership can set the tone for DEI efforts; and how we will adapt and evolve to translate ambitions into everyday reality. Especially in the early stages, when we didn’t have an HR team, leadership commitment was critical in making hiring and advancement decisions and holding each other accountable. It continues to be a priority as our company grows and our DEI policies evolve to reflect and support our goal of being a truly inclusive and great company to work for and work with.”
