UX focuses on men’s experience: We need financial products built for women

Over the past few years, we have seen the rise of products that are specifically targeted at underrepresented groups.

Daylight is a U.S. neobank that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer community and has an estimated $1 trillion spending power in the U.S.

It's no different when it comes to women-focused products. European and Silicon Valley VCs are increasingly interested in what specialized women's financial products have to offer.

Do women need their own financial products? Money should be approached gender-neutrally. These are questions I have been asked a lot, as the co- founder of a financial education platform focused on the financial empowerment of women and non-binary people.

This shift can only happen once women are no longer seen as a ‘niche’ audience but rather are recognized as agents of change.

Right now, fintechs are built for men

The current state of affairs is an industry built by men. It's definitely a result of a lack of diversity in the technology sector. When it comes to leadership, women make up just 30% of the staff. According to Atomico, just 1.1% of funding went to women-led businesses in 2021. Black and Latinx women run businesses that have worse figures.

The product is affected by the lack of diversity. Any good technology company knows how to use user research to improve their product. Your user experience data will be biased if your product is made for the lived male experience.

A recent study into women's experience of investing by investment management firm BNY Mellon found that almost nine in 10 asset managers say that their default customer is a man. Three-quarters of asset managers state that their investment products are primarily aimed at men, suggesting that they focus on the benefits and features that appeal more to men than women.

Women are not seen as a target audience with the current status quo. The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male perspective has come to be seen as universal.

Do women even need their own fintech products?

I should add that money is not gendered. It affects us all in the same way.

This is not the truth. Money is gendered because women and men have different experiences of the world.

The founder of the U.S. investment platform for women is Sallie Krawcheck. There are six money gaps that persist, including gender gaps in wage, debt, investing, funding, issues with unpaid labor, and the pink tax. We are on the back foot when it comes to finance because women face different financial challenges compared to men.

Starling's Make Money Equal campaign highlighted the disparity in the quality and breadth of financial information served in mainstream media. The majority of financial articles targeting men focused on investing, while the majority of financial articles targeting women focused on spending less. We are getting different information about finance.

When it comes to finance, the industry fails to acknowledge the differences between men and women. The financial services industry emphasizes short-term financial gains over longer-term stability, which leads to a discrepancy between what the financial services industry emphasizes and what women's financial priorities are.

The untapped market opportunity

If you don't take a proactive and informed approach to increase women's engagement in investing, you're missing out on a huge market opportunity. The BNY study found that if women invested at the same rate as men, there would be an extra $3.22 trillion of assets under management.

One of the UN's sustainable development goals is economic empowerment for women. Increasing women's engagement is a good thing. If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be an increase in capital into investing that has positive social and environmental impacts.

There have been attempts to engage with women by the fintech community. Efforts often rest on outdated assumptions. Women are targeted as a group rather than a group of people with different needs, goals and spending habits. Within what is labeled in user data as women, you need to also take into account the unique experiences of non-binary people and ethnic minorities. We are a diverse bunch.

In 2021, Revolut caught the attention of their female audience by offering to cover the cost of period care as part of their premium card membership. They received backlash for the trivializing nature of the campaign, which failed to understand the reality of women's experiences with money. I don't think this is much of a surprise since there are only two women on the senior leadership team.

Debt is one area where gendered marketing has excelled. The opportunity for gendered marketing has been seized by buy now, pay later companies like Klarna, which experienced huge market success with its pastel pink logo and partnerships with brands like H&M. When will the expansion of wealth, rather than diminishing it, catch on to the market opportunity?

Now is the time

With the rise in financial opportunity born from cryptocurrencies, now is the time for investors, founders and fintechs alike to prioritize the building of women-focused fintech and in the engagement of its female users. We risk making the gender money gap worse for generations to come. Women make up less than 15% of investors in the bitcoin community, according to statistics from Coin Dance, a company that tracks and provides statistics on users.

There is an answer to engaging women in investment. Women need to be built into the foundations of a business and prioritized by teams that are motivated to create financial products that reflect their unique needs and attitudes. It is about forming a connection with this highly diverse audience by understanding what motivates women to invest and what sort of communication they respond well to.

Once women are seen as agents of change, this shift can happen. There must be a significant structural and cultural shift from investment all the way through to user-facing copy for this to happen.

Actionable steps to bring more women into fintech

Fintech employees.

1. Make women part of your product, not just your marketing plan. Ensure women and marginalized genders make up an equal segment of your user data. Proactively seek out UX from female users and interview female customers and potential customers from a range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
2. Audit the language across your product and external-facing communications. Is it gendered?
3. Diversify your teams to widen your pool of potential customers. Your product is in part a reflection of your teams. Set OKRs to make your team more inclusive across your teams (not just marketing) as a priority.

The investors are Fintech.

1. Get clued up on the financial opportunity. By not prioritizing women-focused fintech, you’re missing out on an underserved market with a growing appetite for financial products and spending power.
2. Bring more women into your team of VCs. The gender composition of investment decision-makers significantly impacts the allocation of investment capital. Lead the way for change.

The users of Fintech.

1. Voice your opinion. As a consumer, you have a lot of power. If you notice gendered language, gender stereotypes or a significant lack of diversity in your product, give feedback to customer support. In the world of customer-centered products, this goes a long way.
2. Support fintechs who are leading the way. There are some great new pension, investment and money management platforms making inclusivity a priority. Try them out.

I would love the world to be colorblind, but our societies and institutions have biases that are unconscious or otherwise. We need more products built by women.