When a 260-year-old bank starts calling itself “the UK’s largest fintech”, you know the model has matured. This clear PR play reveals a lot about the current state of competition in the market and why the narrative built by comms teams remains essential to success.
The UK’s challenger banks – Revolut, Monzo, Starling and now Wise – have disrupted legacy finance since they were first founded 10-15 years ago. In the last few months, however, a series of updates has cemented their entry into the establishment, including Revolut’s long-awaited banking licence and Wise’s first current account.
On the other side of the digital coin, traditional banks like Lloyds have been pivoting faster to meet the challenge, adopting the language and positioning of their fintech rivals to signal their ability to innovate.
In recent months, Lloyds has been proactively talking about the benefits of blockchain and has appointed an AI board member in a classic PR play with the Sunday Times this week. Over the last few years, NatWest has positioned its Boxed sub-brand to help UK corporates understand and adapt embedded financial services for their customers.
As their offers converge, established players are using PR to establish their new market position, honing-in on a narrative and then consistently evidencing it through storytelling, data and financial results that support their products.
Hot on their heels are the latest wave of neo-banks. Hats off to the comms teams at Allica Bank, for establishing a consistent position on SME lending which has powered their unicorn status, and to Zopa, which has expanded its peer-to-peer lending model to launch a current account which gives value back to its customers.
What’s less talked about in consumer media, despite its higher value, is the B2B market, served by the likes of Equals Money, Comply Advantage, TrueLayer and Yapily. Unlike consumer-facing brands, these firms rely less on mass awareness and more on targeted PR: thought leadership, partnership announcements and regulatory engagement to establish credibility and trust.
PR as the differentiator
As the UK fintech market matures, we can see how differentiation comes not only though product, but the ability to communicate positioning consistently to the right audiences.
Fintech investment figures from Innovate Finance, show that annual UK funding levels have fallen from a record $37.3bn (£28–30bn) in 2021 to around $5–6bn (£4–5bn) annually in recent years. In this environment, investors are more cautious about who they back, looking for evidence of sustainable growth and delivery as much as innovative ideas.
The next phase of competition is already here.
What the challengers, legacy players, neo banks and scale-ups are all now jostling for is ownership of a new era of finance and the opportunities unlocked by embedded finance, digital assets, tokenisation and agentic AI payments. These technologies will reshape how financial services are delivered, often invisibly, embedded within broader platforms and experiences.
This opens up space for the next generation of UK fintech players to push through: post-2015 scale-ups such as BR-DGE, Kani and Volt. But it also creates a communications challenge. If everyone is championing similar technologies, how do you stand out from the crowd?
The answer is a combination of a distinct voice, strategic direction and responsive communications. This is where a ‘PR filter’ comes into play: ensuring that news, creatives and thought leadership are all aligned to brand storytelling, landing key messages that demonstrate how and why you do things differently.
With competition coming from all sides, the winners will be those that continue to tell consistent and credible stories that cement their market position, while evidencing their ability to deliver value to their B2B customers and investors.
If you’d like to discuss a differentiated communications strategy for your business, get in touch with Chris Baker, Senior PR Consultant: 07983 079640 | [email protected]