The importance of focusing on the solutions.

- An article about Copenhagen FinTech’s whitepaper.

Last week I wrote about how unconscious bias is keeping women from getting into FinTech and the importance of creating awareness around it. My main focus was, however, to take a step further and start talking about the solutions and how to overcome inclusion and diversity issues that we find along the way. As I stated: “Talking about the problem and creating awareness about it is the first step - and a very important one - for change, however we need to start focusing on the solutions”. Thus, focusing on solutions is the right way to go if we want to close not only the gender gap but diversity and inclusion gaps in the financial industry overall.

I am gladly not alone when it comes to establishing solutions instead of focusing on the problems, and this week I am able to share with you a great work done by the Copenhagen Fintech. The whitepaper written by Naima Yasin and Christina Leonhart - called Taking an Ecosystem Approach - is centered on discussing objective and practical efforts and actions that should be implemented by organizations in order to shape a more inclusive environment. Even though the paper discusses particularly the Danish FinTech ecosystem, I believe that each and every advice can be applied in any other environment.

“Looking around,

we have realized that our FinTech ecosystem is not particularly diverse, neither in the workforce nor in the customer focus. This is no surprise given the fact that finance and technology are two fields that have historically been dominated by a homogeneous group of people. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t keep us from changing the status quo and opening up for new debates on a more diverse FinTech environment. We have experienced great interest and feedback from our Balance For Better event series and feel that creating awareness for a more diverse focus is not only “the right thing to do” but actually also makes sense on a financial level, which many companies seem to currently not be aware of yet.”
- The authors, Naima Yasin and Christina Leonhart, share their thoughts about the importance of writing such a paper.

Taking an Ecosystem Approach is the product of a series of panel discussions which were held during the Better for Balance events. With the mission to build an inclusive and sustainable FinTech ecosystem, the Copenhagen FinTech hosted the “Balance for Better” events focusing on three main topics: female founders, female investors and women in the STEM fields. Conversations held among players and shakers of the FinTech world during the event resulted in identified problems in the sector - ranging from lack of female founders in the FinTech ecosystem to lack of female talent in STEM educations. The most interesting part of the paper though is that for each one of the main identified problems in all three topics - female founders, investors and women in the STEM fields - Copenhagen FinTech defined solutions and specific actions that can help organizations into building a more inclusive environment.

In one of the main themes - female investors - for example, one of the identified problems raised the discussion was “lack of investment opportunities” meaning that there is a lack of investment options for women and that current services “do not represent the values of women as a customer segment”. According to the paper one of the main reasons behind this issue is the fact that the narrative and design of products and services do not appeal to women and in fact, many institutions end up not being aware that they are communicating to different customers segments - which leaves aside many potential customers. For this identified problem, Copenhagen FinTech established “Customized investment alternatives” as a solution. According to one of the panelists - Marlene Nørgaard Carolus, CEO at MyBanker - FinTechs should start taking into consideration what sorts of investments women prefer in comparison to men in order to be able to create a more appropriate an appealing communication to women. Not only that but there is a need to emphasize on designing appropriate investment options which are aligned with the preferences and demands of female investors.

Regarding the objectives lying behind this white paper, the authors explain that:

“With our mission statements, we aim to set an example for the danish fintech ecosystem. Inclusion shouldn’t be an “additional” or “nice to have” for a company, but rather something to concern yourself with from day one. We know that we still have a long way to go, but we’re excited to take the journey together with the whole fintech community and hopefully make everyone see the transformative potentials of inclusion.”

The Balance for Better event series brought together big names in the FinTech sector - being some of them: Ann-Christina Lykke – Director at Moneypenney, Sofie Blakstad – Founder of HiveOnline, Eva Fog – Founder of DigiPippi and Sara Kolka – Head of External Relations at Microsoft, among others. By gathering influential players and engaging participants in different panel discussions, Copenhagen FinTech were able to identify problems regarding gender and diversity gap in the sector. In addition, they took one step further and developed a whole paper where the solutions are the main focus. The white paper centers its efforts in elevating calls to action and aim to inspire FinTech players and guide them into next possible step. With this paper they hope to encourage Copenhagen FinTech’s partners and members into generating debates around the potential of diversity and to inspire them in taking practical actions that can make a difference in the Danish FinTech community. However, if you ask me, these practical actions can actually make a big difference not only in the Danish ecosystem but in the FinTech community around the world.

You can find the white paper here.
Special thanks to Christina Leonhart and Naima Yasin for sharing more insights about the paper - and for writing this great piece of work.