Fintech
DEI in Action: Fintech Companies That Are Getting Involved
This June at Fintech Times, we’re focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). No longer just a trending topic, but an essential consideration for not only your business operations but your offerings, this topic seems more relevant now than ever.
The fintech sector is known for its innovative and agile reputation, yet it still faces a significant diversity problem that threatens to stunt its growth and halt the innovation movement.
Instead of just focusing on the work that still needs to be done, we here at The Fintech Times also wanted to recognize the great work already done by fintech companies that are shining a spotlight on DEI. Here are just some of the companies that are making an effort and showing diversity in action.
Huge value
Raf De Kimpe, CEO at Fintech Week London, She said:
“For Fintech Week London, diversity, equity and inclusion are among the pillars on which our events are built. I firmly believe that a diverse event, both on and off stage, adds enormous value. Since our first event in 2021, over 50 percent 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. 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 shed light on how fintech can be used for good. In fact, throughout the afternoon sessions of Fintech for Good, we worked with My clear text, a Speech-to-Text company who agreed to sponsor us by providing subtitles 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 of Fintech: Inspiring inclusion and achieving together” and the keynote speech by our charity partner Street child.”
A welcoming working 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 welcoming for specialists with children. As Lithuania has the fourth highest 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 best to work: they can work from home more often during the 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 company levels. In particular, 63% of employees at executive and director level are women. The pay gap varies slightly between different levels as we want to achieve the best balance possible. For example, women in specialist positions earn around 4% 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 have run for the past 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 improve decision making and ultimately improve a company’s profitability and sustainability. Starting with the “why” you want DEI and the “what” it means in your workplace are therefore critical to ensuring that DEI efforts support your business goals and are not just a box-ticking exercise.
“At MPOWER, this meant building a team that reflected the diversity of our international student customers, in terms of gender, age, nationality, religion and marital/family status, so we could better understand and address the unique needs and challenges of our customers. Another important “do” is “start early” or “don’t accrue diversity debt.” At MPOWER, this means we started recruiting outside of my and the co-founder’s networks from the very first employee”
Social impact
Eva Collector, founder of the real estate investment portal, Small change, She said:
“Many companies declare a strong commitment to DEI but neglect to take concrete and effective actions. To ensure DEI efforts go beyond formal commitments, fintechs should identify clear goals and measure progress against them. One of the most important initiatives we have undertaken at Small Change is the creation of a proprietary index (The Small Change Index) that measures a wide range of factors to determine the social impact of a project. These factors include the representation of minorities and 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% impact score. This has resulted in strong branding and DEI returns for Small Change. Although the criteria we use are specific to real estate development, fintechs in other sectors can and should develop their own rigorous criteria. Additionally, they should be prepared to report on their progress to various stakeholders, which will increase accountability. No one should expect overnight success, but clear and decisive steps will slowly but surely improve DEI in the fintech sector.”
Prioritize inclusion
Outhay Lovanstrategic director of Payment via VizyPay, a fintech serving small businesses in rural America, said:
“At VizyPay we act proactively to prioritize inclusion in the workplace. Our initiatives are included in all strategies, policies and programs that aim to promote our number one “why”: culture. In an unfamiliar area, when referring to DEI, people automatically think of the color of someone’s skin or their gender and check the box to indicate that they have DEI covered. This is 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 focused on the candidate experience. Resumes don’t guide us, the individual does. To create a powerful and inclusive fintech workplace, you must first know your employees. Many of our employees do not 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 home grown, we reframe the role: Our leaders are not leaders and should not be referred to as such. Our leaders are coaches, they 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 impacting our people.”
Different voices
Nicole Valentino, fintech director at Milken Institute, a think tank, said:
“DEI is an integral part of the mission, values and activities of our fintech program. Our focus on financial inclusion and access to capital guides our research and analysis, policy priorities and the content we amplify. Diverse voices and thought leaders are essential to both telling the stories of fintech’s evolution and designing the future of finance. In 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 peoples, LGBTQ and immigrants. The impact of ensuring representation in all these spaces enables representation at major fintech companies and government committees and initiatives. Our approach to DEI is ongoing and intentional.
“Diversity of teams, ideas and experiences brings solutions to our most complex and intractable problems. At the Milken Institute we focus on equity to build new systems that value ownership and profit sharing. And inclusion is the big reason for fintech, 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 finance provider for SaaS companies,
“With Levenue being a post-Series A expansion, we are in a unique position as for us the company culture is still very much informed and driven by our founding team’s purpose in creating the company in the first place. As co-founder and COO of Levenue, I am a rather rare example in the world of financial services, and even more so in fintech, where women represent only 4% of CEOs, only 18% of executive committee members and only 7.7% of fintech entrepreneurs. I am a woman, I am young and I also have a different ethnic background. So when I talk about DEI, it’s not just a theoretical and conceptual point, it’s my concrete lived experience that I bring to our business, serving my team and our customers and partners.
“Since Levenue’s inception, we’ve placed DEI at the center of our company’s policies, considering three key 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 ambition into everyday reality. Especially in our early stages, when we didn’t have an HR team, leadership engagement 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 with.”
