This week, many of us across the industry have been celebrating UK Fintech Week, and with good reason – the sector is thriving.

According to research from HSBC Innovation Banking, the UK is the top unicorn breeding ground in Europe, with over 185 start-ups valued over £1 billion.

British fintech Allica Bank was recently named Europe’s fastest growing start-up by Sifted, while Revolut surpassed $1 billion in profit.

Different fintechs have different needs when it comes to their communication strategies. Although specific requirements are unique to each organisation, it’s possible to broadly group the type of support each fintech may need at each stage in their growth journey.

Start-up

For newly established organisations, the priority is usually customer acquisition and starting to build brand awareness. Growing trust is critical at this stage and building the brand can quickly support this. Fintechs offering a B2C solution will be hyper-focused on customer acquisition, so PR activity needs to ensure that the media outreach is targeted at the publications that potential customers trust and are engaging with.

Of course, organisations at this stage of growth often have to juggle limited resources with huge overlap between marketing, sales, business development and PR. These businesses need to prioritise communication strategies that serve objectives across all of these areas and be laser-focused on effective and engaging messaging to ensure cut-through with potential customers and secure the greatest ROI.

Scale-up

As fintechs start to ramp up their growth trajectory their needs evolve in tandem. Although increased brand awareness and supporting customer acquisition remains a major focus, we advise clients that they should start to think about thought leadership activity. What do they want to be known for? What change are they driving? How are they disrupting their sector? This is also where lobbying or public affairs activity can come in.

The PR tactics used for campaigns for these organisations need to adapt as a result. Any activity needs to move beyond day to day press releases into wider thought leadership. This will ensure they reach new audiences and different parts of the media as well as new stakeholders. Tactics can include whitepapers and industry roundtables. It is also critical that founders are visible to trade media discussing growth plans, showcasing the strength of the leadership team as well as the impact of the solutions on offer.

IPO and beyond

Ahead of IPO (or any fundraising), the focus of external communications needs to shift to investor relations and move beyond brand awareness. Building on the foundations of corporate activity at the scale-up stage, organisations need to regularly announce results, communicate with existing investors and highlight the opportunities for expansion.

While the focus can be elsewhere, we would always recommend to continue to engage media and key audiences through this period, even whilst fundraising is ongoing to ensure momentum isn’t lost. This also continues to ensure growth and demonstrates the weight of the brand and the team publically.

At Seven Consultancy, many of our clients play a key role in the fintech sector. For example, Mastercard’s Start Path programme is vital in supporting innovative fintechs to flourish as they accelerate their growth journeys.

Similarly, the challenge prizes run by Challenge Works support some of the world’s most forward thinking innovators to develop solutions to some of the world’s biggest issues, from supporting people living with dementia, to identifying new approaches to purify water on the moon.

We also work with some of the UK’s most innovative fintechs at different stages of their growth journey, including:

• Currensea – a debit travel card that eliminates foreign exchange fees when spending abroad and last year successfully launched the world’s first hotel loyalty debit card in partnership with Hilton.
• Consumer and business credit information provider CRIF
• payabl. – we recently began working with this leading financial technology provider as it looks to expand its UK footprint and offer fast secure payment processing to merchants across Europe.

The UK is home to some of the world’s most innovative fintechs, but they need support communicating their solutions to a wider audience and building trust in their team and the brand. At Seven Consultancy we specialise in supporting fintechs throughout all growth stages, from launch to exit.