The gap between the exclusive group of fintech companies that can command media attention and the growing mass who strive for it, has never been wider.
The fintech landscape and fintech PR are experiencing a fundamental shift in how companies secure media attention. What was once a playing field that provided opportunity for all has transformed into a divided ecosystem where certain companies consistently capture headlines while others struggle to get even passing mentions in industry publications and platforms.
Understanding the new media environment
The media environment for fintech has changed dramatically. Publications that once had teams of reporters dedicated to covering financial technology now operate with skeleton crews. Journalists who remain are overwhelmed, receiving hundreds of pitches daily. Meanwhile, we’ve seen a proliferation of new media fintech podcasts, video channels and substacks or newsletters, some are genuine earned media plays, but increasingly they are pay-to-play.
This new reality creates a natural selection process. When a journalist has 15 minutes to decide what story to pursue, they gravitate toward the familiar – companies they’ve covered before, founders or PR contacts they know, or flashy brands they know will generate traffic to their site.
The haves and have-nots
The fintech companies that consistently appear in media fall into several categories:
The Established Players: Companies with significant funding rounds, large publicly listed, established customer bases, and brand recognition start with an enormous advantage. Their announcements receive automatic consideration simply due to their existing market position.
The Story-Driven Innovators: Fintechs solving unique problems with compelling narratives or data break through because they offer journalists something genuinely interesting to write about, not just another incremental feature improvement or a technological buzzword of the time.
The Relationship Masters: Good fintech PR firms and in-house pros have invested in building genuine relationships with key journalists, not just transactional pitching. These relationships weren’t built overnight, but through consistent, valuable interactions that serve the journalist’s needs first often meeting them halfway between what a company wants to communicate vs what the journalist is actually interested in or needs.
Meanwhile, companies falling into media obscurity typically share common traits:
The Feature Announcers: Companies that mistake product updates for newsworthy stories quickly find themselves ignored. What’s revolutionary internally is often incremental externally.
The Jargon Speakers: Fintechs that communicate in technical language and industry buzzwords struggle to translate their message into stories that resonate with broader audiences.
The Narrow Communicators: Feature Announcers and Jargon Speakers usually share this trait too. Fintechs that are too inwardly looking and fail to react to what is happening in the industry are not all that useful to the media, especially in today’s environment.
Bridging the chasm
The growing divide isn’t insurmountable, but crossing it requires expanded thinking:
Invest in thought leadership beyond product: The most successful fintech companies understand that media coverage isn’t just about their product—it’s about the insights their leaders can provide on industry trends, regulatory changes, and market dynamics. They also understand that thought leadership needs to be varied and serve different purposes, some should be geared to the end customer, some can be pure SEO plays, and some must be geared to earned media. A fintech PR program is limited if the latter is underpowered.
Develop a point of view: Journalists aren’t looking for neutral observers; they want sources with distinct perspectives on interesting and trending themes. Developing and articulating a clear point of view—even one that might be controversial—creates media opportunities. Don’t be afraid to say the one thing that others are too scared to.
Think Beyond Traditional Outlets: As mainstream financial publications narrow their coverage, specialized newsletters and substacks, podcasts, and fintech content creators and commentators offer alternative pathways to visibility. These outlets often provide deeper, more nuanced coverage than traditional publications could offer.
The reality check
It’s important to acknowledge a hard truth: not every fintech company justifies big profile coverage and the gap may be too insurmountable for some.
The explosion of fintech means that many companies on the surface are solving similar problems with similar approaches. Standing out requires an honest assessment of what truly makes your company newsworthy. Too many fintech companies are left frustrated with their external PR output because they are playing by the old rules of the game.
If a company cannot adapt, due to limited resources or buy-in from the executive team or because it simply doesn’t have the credibility or relevance to tell an interesting media story, then investing a significant portion of a PR budget in getting media coverage is likely a recipe for poor ROI.
Final thoughts
The media landscape for fintech (and many other sectors) has permanently changed. The companies that thrive will be those that adapt their communications strategies accordingly— focusing less on press release-first drivers and more on building authentic relationships, developing genuine thought leadership, and creating stories that serve journalists’ needs rather than just their own. A good fintech PR firm can help here but don’t assume it will be the silver bullet that unlocks doors to media coverage instantly.
Fintech PR needs to think beyond media relations as THE program and as one of several potential vehicles to achieving an aim. This requires a closer tie between paid, earned, social, and owned and having those elements work together. Doing so also provides other ways to show the value of PR campaigns to the business through additional metrics beyond coverage pick up.
The chasm is real, but with strategic thinking and authentic communication, it doesn’t have to be your company’s fate to disappear into media obscurity.
Samuel Barber, Senior Vice President, New York
