Ah, financial inclusion—the sacred cow of fintech marketing. Every slide deck at every fintech conference reverently whispers its virtues. The promise is clear: Fintech innovations are here to save the day, pulling the unbanked and underbanked into the formal financial fold. It’s a noble mission. But let’s talk about the unsexy truth lurking beneath the feel-good buzzword: Are you actually empowering the unbanked, or are you milking them for every last fee?
It’s time for an honest reckoning. As fintechs and digital banks expand their reach into communities historically excluded from financial systems, there’s a crucial question to ask: Are we building bridges to long-term stability, or are we paving new roads to exploitation?
Fintech companies love to highlight their affordability. You’ll hear such phrases as “no hidden fees” or “transparent pricing” repeated in pitch decks and on landing pages. And compared to legacy banks with their hefty monthly charges, fintech platforms can look like a breath of fresh air.
But here’s the reality: For users living on a financial knife’s edge, even small fees can feel colossal. A $2 ATM withdrawal might go unnoticed by someone with a steady income. But for someone earning $200 a month, that single fee eats up 1% of their earnings. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck or relying on gig work, those fees are more than inconvenient—they’re punishing.
And it doesn’t stop at ATM withdrawals. Many fintech platforms repackage the worst aspects of traditional banking into new, shinier forms. Overdraft “protections” often sound helpful but are really just a tax on liquidity gaps. Account maintenance fees—rebranded as “necessary costs”—chip away at already fragile savings. Although fintechs pride themselves on being less predatory than big banks, “less bad” doesn’t mean good. If your fees fall hardest on those least able to afford them, then your solution is part of the problem.
The conversation around financial inclusion inevitably turns to credit access. For users unable to secure a loan from a traditional bank, payday lenders or microloan providers seem like a necessary lifeline. Many fintech platforms lean into this idea, forming partnerships with these lenders and branding it as a step toward stability.
But let’s be honest: A payday loan isn’t a step forward for most users. It’s a loop. A $300 loan with a $45 fee sounds manageable—until you break down the math and realize that annualized, you’re looking at an APR of more than 400%. Suddenly, that lifeline starts to feel more like an anchor.
If your business model relies on funneling users into high-interest debt, you need to ask yourself some hard questions. Are you truly offering pathways to credit-building, or are you just repackaging short-term loans as financial “solutions”? Partnerships with exploitative lenders don’t just harm users—they erode trust. If you claim to care about financial inclusion, your platform can’t be complicit in perpetuating these traps.
Another common refrain in fintech marketing is the promise of “financial literacy.” Apps boast of educating their users, offering guides, videos, and tools to make smarter decisions. Done right, this is powerful. Financial education should be about giving people the tools they need to understand their money—how to budget, how interest works, how to avoid debt.
But too often, fintech platforms use education as a smokescreen. Instead of teaching users to manage their finances independently, these “resources” are thinly veiled upsells to premium services or products that generate more revenue for the company. If your app’s content exists primarily to funnel users into higher-fee options, you’re not educating them—you’re exploiting their trust.
True financial literacy might mean fewer users take out high-interest loans or pay for costly features on your app. And that’s okay. Real empowerment is about helping people make decisions that serve them—not you.
If you want to know where a company’s priorities lie, look at what they measure. Success metrics—KPIs—tell the real story of what matters most in your boardroom. If you’re celebrating the number of accounts opened or tracking user acquisition growth above all else, you may be missing the bigger picture.
The question fintechs should be asking is not “How many people did we onboard?” but “How many people have we helped?” Success in financial inclusion isn’t about vanity metrics. It’s about outcomes that matter. Are your users saving more? Are they improving their credit scores? Are they paying down debt? If you’re not measuring these things, then you’re not measuring success—you’re measuring profit.
To build a truly inclusive platform, you need to shift the goalposts. Growth is good, but stability is better.
The good news? It’s not too late to do better. Fintech has the tools and the potential to create meaningful change, but only if the focus shifts from extraction to empowerment.
Start with transparency. Hidden fees, overdraft penalties, and “convenience charges” need to go. Costs should be clear, predictable, and fair—especially for low-income users. Build products that help people weather financial shocks instead of profiting from them, such as emergency lending tools that don’t carry predatory interest rates, savings features that reward consistency, and genuine credit-building options that provide a ladder out of debt rather than a slide deeper into it.
Financial education also needs a reset. Teach users how to avoid bad credit products, how to budget during periods of irregular income, and how to plan for emergencies. Give them the knowledge they need to become financially independent—even if it doesn’t lead to immediate profits for your company.
And finally, redefine success. Your growth should not come at the cost of your users’ well-being. Track metrics that reflect real, positive change: higher savings balances, lower debt levels, and stronger credit scores. When your users win, so do you.