FinTech’s Achilles Heel: Reaching the Underserved – 2019 SXSW Recap

FinTech’s Achilles Heel: Reaching the Underserved

Over the past decade, the FinTech revolution has been heralded for it’s democratization of financial services. FinTech companies have been pushing the financial space forward by using technology to reshape services that were once exclusive to banks and financial institutions. FinTech has always been about increasing accessibility, but despite major strides in these sectors there still remains a large community that goes overlooked — the low-income and minority communities. So what is really holding fintech back from fully tapping into the underserved market? In this session, we will explore the biggest barriers for entry and how a lot of the assumptions we make about low-income behavior are often wrong, while giving you the learnings that changes how we build our product.

Listen To The Full Session

Here’s a link to a recording of the full panel discussion at SXSW.

Quote Highlights

• “Our mission is to help provide affordability in the US housing market.” – Danny Gardner
• “Technology can drive down the cost of delivering a product, thereby making traditional products once unavailable to underserved populations, available.” – Matthew Cooper
• “Minorities are disproportionately impacted by regulation.” – Matthew Cooper
• “A 30-year fixed rate mortgage is not a product that works for a gig economy worker.” – Matthew Cooper
• “Is FinTech doing enough to help the underserved? The short answer is no. There is activity – looking at the statistics shows there is – but it is not enough.” – Raul Vazquez
• “This is the only thing I want to do in my career.” – Raul Vazquez