Women in the UK are more likely to engage with fintech, but the people working in the sector do not represent its users, it was said on a podcast.
Speaking on the Diversity and Inclusivity Finance Forum (DIFF) podcast about women working in the technology sector, Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), cited research that found women surpassed men in the use of digital financial tools.
She said a lot of the work that went into fintech involved problem solving and imagining what a customer journey looked like, which required people who were “passionate”.
Harris said: “We need more women who are representing the women who are using the tech and who are designing things around we want to engage with it, and it’s a much bigger audience than the male audience, so we have to find ways to crack that balance.”
Harris gave this view in response to Cloe Atkinson, chief operating officer at Mortgage Brain, who said it was important to promote the roles available in the sector and how skills could be transferred if someone did not have a background in technology.
Atkinson said she tried to actively recruit women into the sector, but found it was “really, really difficult”, as some of that came down to a perception of how technical each role was.
Atkinson said there were other functions such as assessing the customer journey and testers that did not include writing code, which were still essential to the sector.
She said these roles needed to be promoted so women or someone from any minority group could feel they could do the job.
Less investment in women
Harris said in financial services, some of the stats were “quite scary”, adding that less than 2% of investment went towards female-founded fintech firms, “even though the evidence says that female-founded businesses tend to have more diverse teams and actually tend to perform better in terms of their outcomes and objectives”.
She said: “There’s a real underlying culture of not having women in those positions and lots of really interesting research around why that is and how many women want to go into technology or into businesses and just don’t because they don’t feel confident enough to.”
Harris said it was “disappointing” to see how much effort had been put into getting women into tech careers, but the sector had “not made as much progress as we should”.
She said there were still twice as many men in executive roles in fintech and three times as many in director roles in finance.
“That’s not really changed in the last six years… and if we’ve not changed it after all that effort… you think ‘well, we’re never going to get to parity or get to a point where we’ve got really good visibility of women in leadership roles… to bring that next level through’,” she added.
Harris said this would impact how things were modelled as technology functions were being built with “inherent bias”.
Atkinson said it was “common sense” that there needed to be a balance.
She gave an example of how technology she used did not recognise her voice unless she made it deeper, adding: “It plays out in how products are constructed; are they the right thing for women? Are we offering the right kind of financial products?”
Atkinson continued: “We know there must be bias going into data models to how AI is being constructed just by the fact that we’re not represented. I feel for myself, but I feel for my daughter as well, my nieces, I don’t feel like we’re making it better for them, for the next generation.”
Standing up for yourself
Speaking of her experience leading the fintech firm Mortgage Engine, Atkinson said she and a female colleague were described as “little ladies” doing their “little project” in a meeting with men who had worked in the technology sector for some years.
Atkinson said it was hard to call that behaviour out, particularly as it happened during a client meeting where she was trying to sell her proposition.
“[If] it was someone else, I would call it out on their behalf but when it’s yourself, I find that really difficult,” she added.
Harris said although the mortgage sector welcomed the use of technology, there was not a lot of collaboration across the sector. She said this was compounded by having to come across firms with all-male founders, as “not many of us [women] are hugely vocal”.
“You have to be quite brave and a bit bolshie to do that,” Harris added.
She said she had experienced an “authority challenge” and “authority gap” where she had been invited to meetings and been the only woman present.
“I’ve had someone actually ask me and go ‘who are you and why are you here?’, in a way they would never ever do with a man,” Harris said.
She said this made her feel she had to justify her reason for being there and she would be waiting for other people in the room to be shocked at the behaviour.
Host Anna Sagar asked if having allies in the room to back women up was important.
Harris said the biggest breakthroughs she had were where she had to ask someone to stand up for her and let them know it was hard to have to stand up for herself when she was the only person affected.
Listen to the episode [45:52] hosted by Anna Sagar, deputy editor of Mortgage Solutions and editor of Specialist Lending Solutions, with guests Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), and Cloe Atkinson, chief operating officer at Mortgage Brain.
You can also watch the video version of the podcast here:
Shekina is the deputy editor at Mortgage Solutions and commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions. She has nearly eight years of experience in the B2B publishing market, having previously covered the hospitality, retail, pet, accounting and jewellery sectors.
Shekina has worked for Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions for almost five years. Here, she covers the market’s breaking news stories, engages with professionals in the sector, and oversees any commercially agreed content in partnership with mortgage-related companies.
This includes presenting webinars and hosting roundtable discussions on developing themes in the mortgage sector.
She is an NCTJ-trained journalist and was nominated for the Headline Money Awards Mortgage Journalist of the Year in 2021.
In her spare time, Shekina likes to read, travel, listen to music and socialise with friends.
She currently reports on current events in the mortgage market and liaises with financial clients to produce sponsored content.
Follow her on Twitter at @ShekinaMS
