Payments stakeholders have expressed a desire to see initiatives around gender equality, opportunities and employment extend beyond just a ‘box-ticking exercise’.
Tomorrow will mark this year’s celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD), an annual occasion which marks the achievements and progress of the global women’s rights and universal suffrage movement.
The week building up to IWD usually sees a lot of companies flex the extent of their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and gender parity initiatives, often as a celebration of the accomplishment of female leaders and employees.
The extent of this activity on social media could fuel some cynicism though that IWD is just another marketing technique, and a way for businesses to tick an equality box before getting back to the usual day-to-day tasks.
“When it’s reduced to a week-long, tick-box or marketing exercise, it loses its true impact,” says Aysun Ahi, Chief People Officer at OpenPayd, a banking-as-a-service platform based in London.
”Real change goes beyond hashtags and campaigns, it comes from policies, pay equity, and fostering cultures where women are given equal opportunities to succeed and thrive every day of the year.”
Fintech, especially if we focus on the UK, is at a significant juncture. The sector has been enjoying substantial growth, and though investment has not remained consistent year-over-year, this is hardly a rarity for any industry.
The payments and fintech space remains a core and growing part of many economies, and in the UK it stands to gain from the government’s focus on financial services as a key economic growth driver, the latter already accounting for around one-tenth of British GDP.
Women leaders have a key role to play in this growth and are already making significant inroads, stakeholders believe. Parallel events on the other side of the Atlantic, where Donald Trump’s crosshairs have fallen on DEI, may also present an opportunity for UK fintech to demonstrate how these initiatives can work effectively.
Where women leaders have shone the brightest arguably is within Europe. You have to look no further than Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), as a figurehead and example of female leadership as the head of one of the largest central banks in the world.
“If fintech is about shaping the future of financial services, then that future must be built by diverse voices at every level,” Ahi continues. “Women in fintech aren’t just part of the industry, they’re driving it forward, breaking barriers, and redefining leadership.
“And while progress in the industry is evident, and more companies are actively prioritising inclusion, challenges remain. We must ensure that conversations don’t stop at awareness; they must translate into tangible action and progress.”
From words to actions
So what should companies do to ensure IWD, and other equality initiatives, do not just go beyond box ticking? The theme of this year’s IWD, ‘Accelerate Action’, seems to neatly summarise the attitude many have.
Sibstar is a debit card and app led by CEO Jayne Sibley and founded with financial support from Deborah Meaden and Sara Davies, investors from the popular BBC business programme Dragon’s Den, alongside fintech investor Louise Hill.
“Improving gender equality is not just a matter of fairness – it’s a proven driver of economic growth,” says Sibley. “Female-led businesses contribute £105bn to the UK economy, yet they receive a fraction of the investment. That has to change.
“VCs and investment firms should actively seek to diversify their teams by hiring and promoting more women into decision-making roles and promoting female-led angel investor networks, like Angel Academe or All Raise.
“We need to put pressure on institutional investors to commit a percentage of their funds to female-led VCs. If we want a future of true gender equality, we need to build it now, not five generations from now.”
Sibley cites investment as key, noting that ‘less than 3% of all venture capital funding’ went to female-founded businesses last year. Attention is needed beyond the macroeconomic level too though, OpenPayd’s Ahi says, and the way companies operate on a day-to-day basis needs to be examined.
“Organisations must make diversity and inclusion a year-round commitment, not just an annual conversation. This means fostering a culture where daily actions, through hiring, mentorship, and leadership, uplift women,” Ahi continues.
“It requires zero tolerance for toxicity, fair opportunities, flexible policies, and leaders who model inclusivity. It’s time for gender equality to move beyond a “women’s issue” and become a fundamental part of organisational strategy.
“Leadership must set the tone, creating environments where success is defined by talent, vision, and impact, not gender. IWD is a catalyst, but real change happens with action.”
Employment, hiring and cultivation of skills are, as expected, key objectives for advancing women’s position in the fintech workplace. Female employees themselves need to take a lead in how their careers unfold though, says Ugne Buraciene, CEO of payabl., and this should include setting the tone of who they are as a leader.
“I have always found that one of the biggest challenges for women in leadership is the unwritten expectation that we should fit a specific mold – strong, but not ‘too’ strong; confident, but not ‘too’ confident.
“I’ve learned to navigate that by being unapologetically myself. Over the past decade the fintech industry has seen some progress as more female founders and leaders emerge, yet women receive a fraction of the funding that men do.
“Investing in women-led businesses and providing networking systems for women in the industry will be key to accelerating the action this year’s International Women’s Day is all about.”
As stated above, this year’s IWD comes at a very crucial but also incredibly polarising time in global business, politics and regulation. In markets like the UK, the government sees fintech as a critical growth driver, providing an opportunity for female leaders to come to the forefront.
The same can be said for the US, where Trump’s administration is vocally pro-crypto in particular – but what has also become clear is that the President has become a spokesperson of sorts for DEI cynics and opponents.
If fintech and payments firms, along with companies across various other sectors, want their DEI programmes and objectives to be taken seriously they need to ensure these programmes go beyond box-ticking and have a noticeable impact on their employees, wider business, and the sectors and economies they are part of.
“This International Women’s Day, it’s time to push past the rhetoric and look at how we can drive tangible change,” says Pratiksha Pathak, Head of Payments at RedCompass Labs, a payment services and financial crime prevention firm.
“Businesses can make a real impact by introducing sponsorship programs where senior leaders champion women’s career growth and implementing return-to-work programs for those re-entering the workforce.
“Firms also need to first look at their recruitment strategy to see how they can eliminate bias – diverse interview panels could be a good place to start. Action truly does start now, and it’s time we move from intention to impact.”
