Why the best tech careers for women are in fintech

Fintech is a bigger space than “Finance and Technology”. It provides a wide range of opportunities for professionals with specialties outside these two categories, as well as leaders with different backgrounds.

However, fintech seems to have a few fundamental problems that become barriers to expanding the workforce into a more diverse one, and more importantly, welcoming women into the field.

To fix a problem, you must first find and understand its root causes. The problem with fintech, as already stated by Deloitte, is that companies operating within the space have had a gender diversity issue for quite some time now.

I have both observed this and been shaped by this througout my career in fintech and the root causes of this can be broken down, in part, into three broad topics.

First, too few women work in fintech companies; second, these companies don’t have female founders or leaders, and third, women are under-represented in the fintech user base.

I learned the breadth and scope of the fintech space and the opportunities it had to offer only once I began working in the industry, just under a decade ago.

I was introduced to multiple men (and only a few women) working in functions that I did not know existed at the time. These people included specialists in particular outsourced systems and significantly more operational teams (like chargeback specialists for those in payments).

More importantly, the ability to move from legal and compliance into data protection and security and then into global roles only became apparent as a career path once I was already embedded in the fintech space.

So the realisation of fintech’s opportunities came late enough for me – but what about the many women who don’t realise the multitude of options and routes for career progression that fintech has to offer?

This was further exacerbated by the reality that the women who did join fintechs were professionals with specific experience or skills, especially STEM-based backgrounds.

While this applies to specific roles, it is optional for many other roles in this sector. There are so many avenues within fintech that women do not automatically associate with them.

For example, fintech includes insurance, investment, banking, retail and e-commerce, credit, crypto, and payments as well as any previously non-digitised product which is now entering the tech arena, such as construction.

When further broken down, you can also work in particular roles, such as management, AML, HR, risk, regulatory compliance, security, governance, legal, data protection, sales, and marketing.

I advise women to consider the sectors in the fintech space intentionally and dispel any preconceived notion of what amounts to working in fintech. There is a lot to be achieved.

Know your products

There are some areas that you do need to keep on top of. Fintech products differ from traditional financial products. Furthermore, they have developed so quickly that they are different from two years ago.

You also need to take the time to learn the business operations as well as the products currently in the market and what is being introduced within the next two years. Then consider what users need. The users are men and women from different countries, communities and cultures.

The fintech industry is also responsible for enabling users and businesses to access financial products and solutions, which is also known as “financial inclusion” (a term used to break down entry barriers to financial products in underprivileged communities).

The responsibility is primarily due to the nature of the products, which rely less on brick-and-mortar and more on online financial products. Still, given the current economic downturns, there will be an accelerated need for financial products in underserved communities, which is why it is critical to push fintech solutions’ development now more than ever.

Here, women can clearly contribute to designing products that address biases embedded in financial products. The challenge is that women must be seen and heard (as well as promoted or funded!) when such products are being designed.

Remote, office, or hybrid?

The possibility of remote working following the pandemic has also given rise to new opportunities for women to accept positions and roles that would otherwise not have been an option.

When considering multinational and cross-border opportunities that operate outside of the traditional office locations, I would take it further to point out that remote working can even facilitate better products because there is less subconscious location bias.

Teams can collaborate across time zones. The colleagues that you learn from in an office are now international. Before the pandemic, I was already working on global projects, but going into the office every day meant that I leant quite heavily on my office colleagues to verify the interpretation of legislation, data flows, tasks, and even products. Global calls were also much less frequent.

This changed dramatically when I went fully remote. An intentional sense-checking process was established with local teams all over the world, and speaking to them became part and parcel of my daily activities.

Along with it, I developed the skills to connect teams working on similar or completely different projects and products for the benefit of the organisation and the teams themselves (some of whom remained friends long after the projects had ended).

Ultimately, working from home has allowed organisations to flourish and expand their staff by eliminating certain biases. This made the working experience more enjoyable and companies more diverse.

Overall, fintechs can only benefit from having more women in the workforce and looking at the larger picture, the industry itself has much to gain by showing more support, funding, and active encouragement for women in fintech.