By: Destinee Day
I’ve been there. Standing at a fintech conference, looking at booth after booth that could have been copy-pasted from the same template. “We deliver personalization.” “We’re empowering digital banking.” “We accelerate innovation.” “We reimagine banking.”
The irony? Talk to the salespeople behind those booths, and they’ll swear they’re nothing like their neighbors. They’ll passionately explain how their solution is unique, transformative, different. But you’d never know it from their messaging.
The Trap I Fell Into (And You Probably Have Too)
Early in my fintech journey, I made the classic mistake. I thought using industry jargon would help me fit in, would make me sound credible and established. Instead, all it did was make me invisible in a sea of sameness.
I’d craft pitches full of buzzwords, thinking I was speaking the language of my audience. I’d stuff my website with industry keywords, convinced I was optimizing for search and credibility. What I was actually doing was confusing my ideal customers and creating unnecessary competition with companies that weren’t solving the same problems as me.
The wake-up call came when I stood at my own booth, watching other exhibitors deliver their pitches. I realized I was doing the exact same thing: using the same phrases, the same positioning, making the same promises. We were all blending into one indistinguishable mass of fintech sameness.
We’re All Lost in the Weeds (And Afraid to Be Clear)
Here’s what I see happening across fintech from my work with dozens of companies: almost everyone is so deep in the weeds of their own solutions that they’ve forgotten how to communicate with the outside world. They use the same buzzwords because they feel safe, familiar, industry-approved.
But there’s another layer to this problem. We’ve become so afraid of being “too salesy” on social media that we’ve swung too far in the opposite direction. We share thought leadership, industry insights, and hot takes, but we rarely say plainly what we actually do.
Let me be clear, the thought leadership IS important but so is plainly communicating what problem your company is here to solve.
This fear of being perceived as pushy has made us allergic to clarity. We’d rather sound sophisticated and vague than risk being seen as promotional. Clarity isn’t salesy. It’s helpful. When you clearly articulate what you do and who you serve, you’re not being pushy: you’re being useful. You’re helping the right people find you and helping the wrong people move on.
Safety is the enemy of clarity. And in fintech, unclear positioning isn’t just a marketing problem—it’s a business problem.
When you sound like everyone else:
• Potential customers can’t distinguish your value
• Investors struggle to understand your unique angle
• Partnership opportunities die before they start
• You create false competition with companies that could be collaborators
The Solution: Write Like a Human, Not a Press Release
The fix isn’t complicated, but it requires courage. You need to:
- Get Brutally Specific
Instead of “We modernize banking infrastructure,” try “We help community banks launch digital lending products in 30 days instead of 18 months.”
Instead of “AI-powered financial solutions,” try “We use machine learning to help credit unions approve small business loans 10x faster than traditional underwriting.”
- Focus on Outcomes, Not Features
Your customers do care about your “composable, embedded, API-first architecture” they just don’t use those words to describe what they want. You’re talking past each other.
They want to launch faster, reduce costs, improve customer experience, or increase revenue. Start there and translate your technical capabilities into those outcomes.
- Create Curiosity, Not Confusion
Good positioning makes people want to know more. It creates a clear picture of who you serve and what problems you solve, while leaving them curious about how you do it.
Bad positioning tries to explain everything at once and ends up explaining nothing.
- Don’t Be Afraid to Be Direct
We’ve all been conditioned to think that being clear about what we do is “too salesy.” But clarity isn’t salesy, it’s helpful. Your ideal customers want to know if you can solve their problem. Hiding behind vague language doesn’t make you more sophisticated; it makes you invisible.
Share what you do, who you serve, and what outcomes you deliver. Do it regularly, do it clearly, and do it without apology.
- Test Your Clarity
Here’s a simple test: Can someone who’s never worked in fintech explain your value proposition after hearing your elevator pitch. If they can’t, neither can your potential customers.
Time to Cut the Grass
We’re all in the weeds, and it’s time to cut the grass and pull ourselves out. The fintech industry is too important, too innovative, and too full of brilliant solutions to be held back by a sea of sameness.
Your solution deserves better than buzzword bingo. Your customers deserve clarity. And the industry deserves authentic differentiation.
Stop trying to sound like everyone else. Start trying to sound like yourself.