[00:00:00] Monica Millares: It's not just about listening to customer voices, but it's also about listening and elevating our voices. Employees as fintechers. So she argues that for us to build purpose driven fintechs, we need to build a working culture where we're all empowered to be successful. And basically what could happen is that, uh, business that it's successful in empowering everyone to creating this culture, they will draw in the best talent in the market, like minded talent in the market.

And then that will create a culture that. It's about people who are trying to bring the best of themselves, which if you think about it, if you remember, that's what Simon said at the beginning, purpose is not just about adding value, but it's purpose is about being the best version of ourselves as individuals and as companies.

So I love that kind of like now we're connecting the dots between [00:01:00] different, different, very, very different people across the industry.

Hello, and welcome back to Purpose Driven Fintech. I am your host, Moni Millares, and this is a very special episode because it is the first solo episode of the show. So let me expand over the past nine months, I've been speaking with some of the brightest minds in the industry. That's founders, CEOs, product directors, experts, and I've gotten their views about how we can build purpose driven fintechs. I've understood their customers in much more detail, and we've got in depth in these conversations.

It's been. Over 30 episodes by now so I think it's time to step back and double down on purpose and say What have we found so far? In this episode, I'm going to cover four specific topics What is purpose? What do we mean with purpose? Number two What do we mean with purpose driven fintechs?

Number three, we're [00:02:00] here to help people, and our domain is helping people have less stress with money. Therefore, we need to talk about financial well being. So we go into defining what is financial well being and segment number four it is about the findings, the summary, like, what do we do with all this information?

It is an episode full of insights from speaking with all the experts. If you like the pod, then remember to share, like, comment, and reach out to me with ideas, questions.

I'm always here to help. Let's go for it! okay, so let's get started. What do we mean with purpose for this segment of the podcast? I am not bringing my views instead, if you remember our very first episode, we have Simon Clarkson, the founder of purpose crafts. So basically what I'm doing in this segment is bringing the key insights that we got from that conversation.[00:03:00]

Reduced in a few minutes. So let's start with purpose. Many times we're referred to purpose to what's our individual purpose. In this case, we're talking about the industry. We're talking about a FinTechs companies as such. So the conversation is going to be around what do we mean with company purpose?

So according to Simon, company purpose refers to the value that a company brings to the world. However, if we think about a company, the construct of a company, it's a company has a mission. They are here because of a reason, but they don't do it on their own.

This company. is formed by individuals. So at the end of the day, our personal purpose as individuals, when it is aligned to the company purpose, that is when we get the most value for everyone. therefore, so Simon then continues saying company purpose is the unique opportunity.[00:04:00]

Not just to add value, but for a company to bring the most value that it can, and for that value to be important and lacking elsewhere. Lacking elsewhere, it's a key word, because usually we talk about innovation, we talk about differentiation, and that is the key. Concept behind innovation and differentiators.

It brings value that it's important and it doesn't exist. It lacks elsewhere and Simon continues. There's usually an insight behind this purpose and a determination to bring that value or to solve a problem so when it comes to the company as such, Simon argues that purpose is the foundation for company growth and boosting company value as well as increasing employee productivity.

But it's not [00:05:00] just about defining purpose because there's another word that's used a lot in the industry that is impact. So impact and purpose are definitely related. According to Simon, purpose defines the unique value that the company brings to the world. And purpose drives the strategic direction.

However, impact is just a measurement of the effects of that value and that direction as such. He also argues that impact is what makes a purpose worthwhile, and it also makes it strategic why strategic? We know every product has a life cycle, and then as a life cycle, it's like you build, you introduce to the market, it gets mature, and then it declines, you close it, and then basically that's the life cycle as such. However, when that company is rooted.

On purpose and impact, [00:06:00] it doesn't matter if the product as such goes through a specific product life cycle, that company as such continues to grow and continues to be relevant because it's not about the life cycle. It's about that direction that keeps it going. So that is the summary from an expert of what do we mean with purpose.

So the key question is, we already work in fintech that fintech is By its nature, it is very purpose driven, as in we're here to add value to customers lives to help them relieve from the stress of money however, how do we ensure that our purpose is strategic and it's driving the most value for our customers?

So Simon leaves us with 11 questions that we can ask ourselves to basically future proof our company

number one, and we don't start with saying, Hey, what's my purpose? What's the company purpose? We don't do [00:07:00] that. So it's different type of questions, but they are all related. So number one. What value do we bring to the world?

Number two, can we really say that that value matters beyond the industry that we operate in? In the case of fintech, I think it does because money touches absolutely every Single industry , we cannot live without money, unfortunately. so it is the value that we bring to the world. It matters a lot.

Number three, how do we translate this value or purpose? into value for all of our stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, society, and shareholders. I love that since the very beginning of defining what's purpose, we are putting five stakeholders, customers, employees, Our suppliers, shareholders and the community as such society.

And that's the thing [00:08:00] that you'll see that we'll touch on later. It's not just our customers, but it's like community and society . So question number four is how do our products and services contribute to the well being of our customers and communities? Question number five. How do we differentiate ourselves in the market by embedding our purpose into our unique value proposition?

And that is key. I think as we Build not only the company proposition and mission, but as we build any new product or service or experience or feature within our offering within our apps, we should be able to step back and say, Hey, is this really aligned with the value that we want to offer to our customers for us as a company?

Is it really aligned into our, with our purpose? And if not, Then we need to do some extra work. Question number six. Is the purpose guiding us to be the best form [00:09:00] of ourselves? Or is it a purpose that anyone could have? This is such a good question. Because we can do, we can do FinTech. We can do product.

We can do, like, whichever type of thing that we can. But the key question is, is this the best that we can do? And that means that we, given that the best doesn't have a ceiling, the best doesn't mean the best title or the best money or the best performance. It is the best that I can give, that you can give, that each of us as a collective can give.

So by being, but by striving to be the best, the best version of ourselves, we keep raising the bar, which that's why I love that question. Number seven, is it a strong enough purpose? Good one, right? Then, okay, once we say, yes, it's a strong enough purpose, we're being the best version of ourselves, it's helping contribute to the well being of our customers, it brings value.

Value to stakeholders, it is [00:10:00] unique, you know, like here it is. Okay. So then now let's step back and say, Hey, how are we going to ensure that we stay true to that purpose? We bring it to life and that we track it and measure it, as we go in the journey. So question number eight is, are our longterm strategic objectives aligned with this purpose?

And do we guide our decision making process based on our purpose? This is a tricky question. In one of my very first interviews in my very first job in fintech. This is like many, many years ago. I was, it was not asked. It was part of the conversation that it was along the lines of, Hey, there will be moments when.

When you work in a big bank, they always say we put the customer first, but at the end of the day, the culture back then was like, Hey, not necessarily customer first, because we need to hit the PNL numbers . So in my, one of my very first interviews, conversations [00:11:00] was there will be times when we will have very difficult decisions when it comes to profitability, PNL pricing, charging more and.

our reason of being right and sometimes there will be conflict conflicted and, that is true. So that's why it is very important that our decision making is guided by purpose, or at least that there is an element of reflecting on our purpose as we. make decisions question number nine, how is our purpose reflected in the corporate culture, internal and external communications and employee engagement?

So basically what this is saying is we need to breathe. We need to live. We need to be our purpose. It's not just lip service. It needs to be embedded in our culture and how we communicate and like who we are. And basically This transpires into our identity as such our identity [00:12:00] as colleagues, as members of the company, as members of the fintech community and identity is one of the most important human traits because we are very true to our identity.

So if we, while at the same time, I am not saying put your identity on work. No, no, no, no, no. It's more like be a purpose driven. professional as such, e. g. someone who strives to have value in a differentiated manner. so question number 10, how do we assess our progress towards achieving those strategic objectives and our purpose?

That's a beautiful question because we all have OKRs, right? So then it's like these OKRs, usually we have the strategic objectives of the year, and then specific APIs that we need to meet. We have our OKRs, but are we all as a [00:13:00] collective saying, hey, how are we making progress towards the well being of the nation?

In this case, well being of the world. Financial well being of the world and question number 11. How can we involve all stakeholders, including our employees, customers, suppliers, partners in the process of defining, refining and implementing our purpose? This is also a key question because like many times purpose is driven, you know, like top down, but then it's how do we ensure that every single person who is part of the ecosystem understands the purpose?

Believes the purpose and like one of my colleagues could say feels it is not enough to understand it. How do we ensure that we all feel that purpose and that is going to be a massive difference. So that is part one of the conversation. Let's go to part two.

One of my favorite [00:14:00] questions to ask in the pod. And it's actually the first question that I ask now. That is how do we fintechs? And without a doubt, like absolutely everyone starts with Mm. That's a really good question. That's a very important question. That's a fantastic question.

So every single one of my guests acknowledges that this is an important question. So what I want to do in this segment is basically go through you. four to five guests, comments and insights when it comes to answering the question of how do we build purpose driven fintechs. And I am going to start with Norris.

He's the CEO of Moniz. And then basically what he does is he takes us back to the beginning of fintech. So Moniz was one of the very, very first neo banks in the UK. So this is taking us like about 10 years ago. [00:15:00] When fintech as such was getting started. And then basically what he reminds us is that when all the fintechs and new banks were just getting started, they came to life because all of the founders, like all these fintechs, they wanted to solve a problem and all of them, they were purpose driven fintechs.

And the problem that we were trying to solve 10 years ago was Quote, unquote, banking is broken. People have a lot of stress with money and we can do better. So that is a reminder that since the very beginning of FinTech, at least the very beginning of FinTech in the UK. The industry has been purpose driven.

That's why this podcast is so relevant because then as the industry grows, it is important to go back to our roots and remember the why we exist. And then it's at least from my perspective, that's why I left the big [00:16:00] bank and I joined the startup. And then that's why I continued, right? Because it was these inerrant, passion belief in the pain point.

And there was a belief that we could move the needle and that we could do something about it. So since the beginning of fintech It has been a very purpose driven industry as such. So that was Norris. So then let me continue with, Gregory from Luck. I loved his answer because he says, Purpose driven businesses of any kind depend on three things.

The market being ready, the motivation of the founders, and the regulatory environment. You will see that regulation comes up again. But I think here the beauty is. We are not talking about, , a problem statement as such, we're talking about like three elements that are [00:17:00] needed for us to really have impact.

The first one being the founders. And then he does make reference to, Hey, there's so many founders in the industry that are extremely passionate about what they do, that they are obsessed with the customer solving the problem. However, there's a few that they are just doing basically lip service to the idea of having impact.

So we most. Ensure that, especially as VCs, right, as we, as an ecosystem, as we move forward, we need to ensure that the founders, that the people that we invest, the people that we are giving them all this money to go and run with this idea. That actually the motivation to make a difference, to have impact, to be purpose driven is really there.

And it's [00:18:00] not just people trying to make a business to become wealthy. That is a key thing because if the founders at the top, if the heart of this fintech of this organization is not purpose driven, the organization is not going to be . So that's number one, motivation of the founders. Then Gregory talks about the market being ready and what he means is the market or rather than the market, let's simplify that to the Consumers need to be ready to actually accept the product that you are putting into the market and even say, Hey, I'm going to pay for this.

I'm going to pay slightly more for this product. Why? Because it matters to me. For example, yes, if you have a product that is helping people be more conscious on their carbon emissions and you are helping them plant trees. Then it is, uh, [00:19:00] Hey, I can come up with a brilliant proposition, right? But does it matter to customers and are they willing to go that extra mile and pay for it?

Because if it doesn't, if customers don't care, even if they have a need, if customers don't care and it's not important to them, it will not fly. So that's element number two. And then elements number three. We talk about, , regulation. So one of the themes that comes very often in the podcast is regulation

so. We need to keep in mind that financial services is a regulated industry, and at the same time, we are all trying to solve a problem, right, that it's like helping people have better financial well being, less stress with money, oversimplified. So we need to work closer with regulators, and I think it's happening now, , in order [00:20:00] to make regulation, consistent, understandable, reliable, and that it gives us space to innovate as such.

So those are Gregory words that I absolutely love. And then we'll hear more about Gregory later when it comes to financial well being. So then I want to then jump and talk. About Sarah's Sarah King, founder of she comes back to the topic of regulation. And she argues that of course, regulation is here to help keep people safe, to protect customers and to ensure that we're doing the right thing.

However, she builds on what Gregory is saying by. Adding, we need to support founders. We need to support teams and we need to empower them to really understand [00:21:00] the regulatory environment, because sometimes that can be a barrier for. innovation so not everyone who starts a FinTech comes with financial services background.

So this is really important to make the industry more inclusive. And why do we want to make it inclusive? So that then we have diversity of thought, diversity of ideas, such that we can come up with better ways of serving our customers. So basically. In some places we talk about accessibility of financial services.

I would summarize this conversation as accessibility of, regulatory practices, where we define the word accessibility as easy to understand. Such that then we can basically innovate within the sandbox of understanding what, you know, like, what are the rules of the game as such. Okay, so I love Amanda's answer.

Amanda from [00:22:00] Xi'an. And what I loved about her answer is that not only she talks about us addressing the needs of customers and understanding actually what customers want, but she goes a little bit deeper and she talks about like, Hey, not only we need to do customer research, but we need to be able to discern

which customer voices we're going to listen to and elevate. I love that phrase because it's not the traditional speak with your customers, know your customers, do user research. It's like, Hey, go and speak with everyone, but to be very attuned to which, which voices are the ones that we really need to listen to.

And then elevate because then these becomes our North star because we're actually listening to people's problems. And that's. That's part of what she talks about, really listening to what are the pain points that customers have. [00:23:00] And then basically once that we listen carefully, they were able to translate that into a clear purpose, clear product, clear solution, bring it to market

it's beyond just building the feature, building the product. But she adds, it's not just about listening to customer voices, but it's also about. Listening and elevating our voices as colleagues, as employees, as fintechers, . So she argues that for us to build purpose driven fintechs, we need to build a working culture where we're all empowered to be successful.

And basically, what that could happen is that, uh, business that is successful in empowering everyone to creating this culture, basically, They will draw in the best talent in the market, like minded talent in the market. And then basically that will create a culture that is about people who are trying to bring the best of [00:24:00] themselves, which if you think about it, if you remember , that's what Simon said at the beginning purpose is not just about adding value, but it's purpose is about being the best version of ourselves as individuals and as companies.

So I thought that kind of like now we're connecting the dots between different, different, very, very different people across the industry.

I want to then continue the conversation , with the pod that I had with David Wachira in the U. S. where he serves, underserved immigrants. , so he expands. Not only on serving customers, but he talks about solving a community based problem or a society based problem. So this is us going beyond, hey, we're going to help people, , have better savings, or we're going to help people, pay back their loans better or manage debt better.

This is more on like, what is the [00:25:00] community or what is the society problem that we have in this case, if we generalize it as fintech we're looking at money, money can be the source. It's not that it's the source of stress, but it's source of arguments. So it's many breakups happen because of money.

There is a lot of violence. because of lack of money. There is a lot of mental health problems because of money. So when we are solving the problem of financial well being and when we're solving the problem of helping people that have stress with money, what we're doing is we're helping. Our communities and society live better lives because then we're helping people have less mental health issues.

We're helping people have less violence in communities, less arguments in families. And then the opposite of that, it's like we have a more cohesive and united and [00:26:00] harmony based society as such. So he also says that by us focusing on community based problems, that means that there is going to be, if it's a community based problem,

it's a fundamental issue of something that's not being actually solved in the market. Therefore, if just like, if we think about business basically, because there will be many people suffering of this pain point, the business Will basically grow and benefit for this. So what he's saying is look beyond the problem statement around a financial service and instead look at a community or society problem such that then we can find the problem statement beyond our industry referencing Simon's words.

And lastly, [00:27:00] Tony Craddock, he came to the podcast and he reminded us that nowadays, today, both our customers, our investors, our distributors, like everyone is expecting more. So basically the challenge that we're having is. There's many other companies that have a similar product than yours that is good enough.

But then we need to look for what is that thing, what is that impact that we're going to make in the world around us that's going to help people, our customers, everyone that we deal with connect with that purpose, with that impact, so that then they can evangelize. The, company and the purpose that we're doing because then people will start choosing us as, the financial service of choice, because they can connect to that impact that we're doing , and then we finalize this conversation with Tony. It is challenging to build businesses [00:28:00] from scratch, right? It's challenging to go from zero to one.

Founders, CEOs, founding teams, C suites, employees, like it doesn't matter what's our role, we can come very excited to join this company that it's purpose driven, but actually there's going to be a point that we will face challenges and we will face many, many challenges and then purpose. Purpose is going to be not just a differentiator that attracted us to work in this company, but purpose is going to be the reason why we stay.

Purpose is going to be the reason why we go the extra mile. Purpose is going to be the reason why we connect and reconnect to that reason of, I want to be the best self that I can be so that I can give the most value. So I think there is, uh, to summarize this section, there is a common understanding across all the guests in the pod that the question of purpose [00:29:00] and how we can drive purpose driven fintechs is extremely important.

And worry not, I know we covered a lot. So that's why in the fourth segment of this podcast, I'll summarize very nicely. What is it that we need to take away as the key themes and actions? So now let's go to part three on well being Okay, so we are in the industry of financial well being, basically, the big community problem that we're trying to solve within staying in our lane of the industry is financial well being. So there's two people that I want to refer to in this podcast. The first one is Gregory from Lockbox that I referred to at the beginning, and the second one is Danny Haig. Dani actually, I interviewed her at the beginning of [00:30:00] my podcasting journey, like two or three years ago, before I was doing, uh, purpose driven fintech as such, and then we talked about well being, financial well being.

She's a psychologist and that's her area of expertise so, the premise here is, if we are in the industry of financial well being, we cannot really solve for financial well being if we don't understand it. And we hear this term of financial well being, we hear the term financial inclusion, it's terms that we're used to hearing all the time, but we need to start by defining them.

So I'm going to read Greg's definition. So I asked him, what is financial well being? And then he says, I could start off by saying financial well being is having a happy and healthy relationship with money. And what does that mean? So happiness comes and goes, [00:31:00] right? It's not static. Like Happiness is a feeling so what do we mean with having a happy and healthy relationship with money? What he says is, we should think about financial well being as the intersection between Financial health, that is a moment in time, and it's about numbers, it's about metrics, it's about how much savings you have, how much debt we have, what's the APR, how much do I've got in my pension, can I get a mortgage, is it at the right rate, so that is financial health.

And it's a moment in time, and it's just like a balance sheet, it's just there, it's a set of metrics. But then we also have financial wellness that is much more about the internal systems and how we feel as individuals. So this is like, Hey, am I happy? Am I sad? Am I stressed? What's driving my behavior? So [00:32:00] when we think about financial wellbeing, we cannot decouple these.

We need to take into account the hard numbers and then our internal state in relation to how do we feel regarding our financial well being, how do we feel around our situation with money I think that's a, that's a brilliant way to put it. So if I then go back to Danny. , Danny gives us a framework. I love frameworks. We all love frameworks. So Danny is a psychologist and basically she's an expert in the topic, and then she gives us a framework where we ask ourselves questions that allow us to map our state and our feelings in terms of our confidence and our resources. And then we map it over time. So it's now and in the future. So for example, the first question [00:33:00] that we need to ask ourselves is, do you feel like you have control over your day to day finances? Month to non month finances and you know, you are in control of what's coming in, what's going out and you feel safe and secure on managing your money on a day to day basis. So that's the first part of the conversation.

And then this is where the time. Element comes in place. We say, do you feel safe now in the present? And I can say, yes, I feel confident that now I'm managing my money well, but then the other aspect that comes in place to find out when it comes to financial wellbeing is time.

So it's like, do you feel safe and confident about your day to day finances? In the future, do you feel safe that you can, that you're capable of absorbing a financial shock? Do you have a spare credit card? Do [00:34:00] you have insurance? Do you have cash in the bank? How safe do you feel? For the future and the future.

It can be something like exactly like unexpected things happen and you feel safe that you can cover them, or it can be in the long term future that it's like retirement. Do you feel like you're on top of your retirement plan? Many of us are not. So it's adding building on Gregory's definition where we have the metrics and we have the feeling.

But then here it's very concrete, confident about. Your ability to manage your money on a day to day basis and that you feel safe on that day to day basis. And then we have the axis in the present and in the future. And then,

the other element of financial well being is, do you have freedom of choice with your money? can you enjoy your life? You know, can you create these goals and then achieve these goals [00:35:00] with money and basically, again, we put the timeframe, present and future. So one is, can I cover my day to day expenses in the present or in the future?

How confident do I feel? And the other one is, do I have the freedom to make the choices that I want in life? And money is an enabler to do that. In the present and in the future my case. For example, do I have the freedom to go for a meal? Go out to a restaurant? Yes. Do I have the freedom to go and buy something new?

You know, like clothes. You're like, yes. Do I have the freedom to go and travel the world and leave my job and be in a sabbatical for a year or two? No, it's still no. Is that something that I can that I would love to do? Yes, eventually. But You know, like I'm still not in that financial position to do it.

So it is a different overlay. I think it's, it's going deeper [00:36:00] into what Gregory is saying, such that we add the element of time, present and future, and we add the element of day to day. Needs and wants. That's my desires so those are the key insights that we have when it comes to financial well being.

So now let's wrap it up and do our summary for today.