Fintech PR is the process of building awareness, credibility and authority for a financial technology company through media coverage, industry influence and other forms of third-party recognition.
But that definition misses the important bit.
Good fintech PR isn't about getting your company mentioned in as many places as possible. It's about getting the right people to pay attention for the right reasons.
For a fintech founder, that might mean getting a new product covered by a financial publication, positioning the CEO as an expert on a regulatory issue, turning a major partnership into a credible news story, or becoming the person journalists call when something is happening in your market.
That's very different from simply "doing PR".
What does fintech PR actually involve?
Fintech PR — or fintech public relations — covers a broad range of activities designed to build reputation and visibility.
The most effective programmes tend to combine several of them.
Earned media
This is the part most people think of when they hear "PR".
Earned media means getting coverage because a journalist or publication considers your story, expertise or perspective worth publishing.
For fintech companies, this could include:
- Company news
- Funding announcements
- New partnerships
- Product launches
- Expansion into new markets
- Regulatory developments
- Research and original data
- Industry commentary
- Founder interviews
- Expert opinions on breaking news
The important word is earned.
You're not paying for the editorial coverage. An independent journalist or publication has decided that what you have to say is worth including.
That third-party validation matters.
The Reuters Institute's 2026 Digital News Report found that trusted news brands remain among the most trusted sources of news in the UK, with the Financial Times again among the country's most trusted news brands.
And the 2025 report found that when people want to check whether information is false or misleading, trusted news sources are among the places they are most likely to turn.
For a fintech company, that makes appearing in credible media about more than awareness.
It's a form of third-party proof.
Why is PR particularly important for fintech companies?
Fintech is a credibility-heavy sector.
You're often asking customers to trust you with money, financial infrastructure, sensitive data or critical business processes.
And if you're selling B2B, your buyer may be putting your technology into the middle of their own regulated operation.
That makes reputation disproportionately important.
The regulatory environment adds another layer of complexity. Deloitte's Digital Regulatory Outlook highlights the continuing pace of regulatory change affecting digital businesses across the UK and EU, including areas such as competition, consumer protection, data, cloud and AI.
For a fintech founder, this creates an opportunity as well as a challenge.
The companies that can explain complicated developments clearly — and have something genuinely useful to say about them — can become valuable sources for journalists and influential voices within their markets.
A potential customer might see your LinkedIn post. They might read your website. They might watch your product demo.
But when they see your founder quoted in a respected financial publication, that's different.
Someone outside the company has effectively said:
This person has something worth listening to.
What makes fintech PR different from ordinary PR?
The fundamentals of PR are the same across industries.
The difference is the subject matter and the media environment.
A fintech PR campaign needs to understand financial markets, regulation, technology, business models and the particular concerns of the people buying financial technology.
A story that sounds exciting to a technology company may be completely irrelevant to a financial journalist.
And a relatively dry regulatory development might be extremely interesting to the right fintech reporter.
For example:
"Company launches new platform"
isn't necessarily a story.
But:
"New platform allows regulated businesses to automate a process that currently takes three days."
might be.
The job of fintech PR is partly to find the story inside the business.
What do fintech journalists actually want?
One of the biggest misconceptions about PR is that journalists are simply waiting for companies to send them press releases.
They're not.
Journalists are looking for things that help them tell a story their readers will care about.
That could be:
- A genuinely significant development
- A strong opinion on an important issue
- Original research
- Data revealing a market trend
- Access to an interesting founder or executive
- An explanation of a complicated development
- A perspective that challenges conventional thinking
- Evidence of something happening in the market before it becomes obvious
This is why a good fintech PR programme isn't just a press-release distribution service.
It should involve developing the ideas and angles that journalists actually have a reason to use.
You don't need a huge announcement to get fintech PR
Another common misconception is that PR only works when you have something enormous to announce.
- You don't need to have raised £50 million.
- You don't need to have acquired a competitor.
- And you don't need to launch a revolutionary new product every quarter.
Those things can certainly create opportunities. But they aren't the only opportunities.
- A founder with a strong view on a regulatory change can be newsworthy.
- A fintech with interesting customer data can be newsworthy.
- An executive who can explain where payments, compliance or financial infrastructure is heading can be useful to journalists.
- Even a seemingly small company milestone can become interesting when it is connected to a larger market story.
The question isn't:
"What have we got to announce?"
It's:
"What is happening in our market that we have something interesting to say about?"
That's a much better starting point for fintech PR.
What are fintech PR services?
Fintech PR services can include a number of different activities depending on the company's objectives.
A specialist fintech PR agency might provide:
- Media relations — Building relationships with journalists and identifying opportunities for commentary, interviews and features.
- Press office — Responding quickly when journalists need expert sources or comments on breaking stories.
- Thought leadership — Developing strong ideas and opinions around the issues that matter to your market and turning them into opportunities for executive visibility.
- Founder positioning — Establishing the CEO or founder as a credible voice in their sector rather than making every piece of coverage about the company.
- News generation — Finding stories within partnerships, product developments, research, customer milestones and other company activity.
- Awards and speaking opportunities — Identifying relevant industry awards and conferences where senior executives can build credibility and visibility.
The right mix depends on the business.
A seed-stage fintech trying to establish itself in a crowded market will have different priorities from an established payments infrastructure company expanding into the US.
Fintech PR vs. LinkedIn
LinkedIn has become an important part of how founders communicate.
But publishing on your own channel and earning coverage in someone else's are fundamentally different things.
On LinkedIn, you control the distribution and the message.
With earned media, an independent journalist or publication decides that your expertise is worth sharing with its audience.
That distinction matters.
A founder can publish three times a week and still have relatively little recognition outside their existing network.
Meanwhile, one strong piece of coverage in a publication their buyers already read can put them in front of an entirely new audience.
That doesn't mean founders should stop posting on LinkedIn.
It means LinkedIn shouldn't necessarily be the entire visibility strategy.
The Reuters Institute's research is useful context here. Despite the growth of social media, trusted news brands continue to play an important role when audiences want to establish whether information is reliable.
The point isn't that social media doesn't matter.
It's that owned visibility and third-party credibility do different jobs.
What should a fintech PR strategy look like?
A strong fintech PR strategy usually starts with the business rather than the media list.
Before approaching journalists, you need to understand:
What does this company actually want to be known for?
Then: Who needs to know about it?
Then: What does this audience already care about?
And finally: What can the founder or company contribute to those conversations?
From there, you can build a programme around several recurring themes.
For example, a payments company might have a positioning around the future of cross-border payments.
A regtech might own the conversation around regulatory automation.
A cybersecurity company serving financial institutions might have a distinctive view on fraud and financial crime.
The objective isn't to comment on everything. It's to become recognisable for something.
How do you measure fintech PR?
PR can be frustrating to measure if the only metric you're looking at is the number of articles published.
A better approach is to look at whether visibility is moving in the direction that matters commercially.
That might include:
- Quality and relevance of media coverage
- Tier and audience of publications
- Founder mentions and quotes
- Share of voice
- Speaking opportunities
- Inbound opportunities
- Relevant website traffic
- Branded search
- Sales conversations influenced by media coverage
- The quality of people who begin recognising the company
The ultimate question isn't:
"How many pieces of coverage did we get?"
It's:
"Are we becoming better known by the people who matter?"
Do you need a fintech PR agency?
Not every fintech needs an agency.
If you have an experienced internal communications team with strong media relationships, you may already have what you need.
But specialist fintech PR can be particularly useful when:
- The founder is doing all the marketing themselves
- The company has interesting news but struggles to turn it into stories
- The business is entering a new market
- The founder wants to become more visible
- The company needs stronger third-party credibility
- The marketing team is stretched
- The business operates in a complex or highly regulated market
- You want to build a reputation rather than simply generate short-term publicity
A good agency should bring more than a media contact list.
It should bring judgement.
Which stories are worth pursuing? Which journalists are relevant? What should the founder be known for? When should you push a company announcement — and when should you leave it alone?
Those decisions are where much of the value lies.
The best fintech PR is not about being everywhere
There's a temptation in PR to measure success by volume.
More coverage. More publications. More mentions.
But a fintech founder doesn't necessarily need to be everywhere.
They need to be visible in the places that matter.
If your prospective customers read The Financial Times, Bloomberg or a specialist financial technology publication, being quoted there can be far more valuable than accumulating dozens of low-relevance mentions.
Likewise, being repeatedly associated with a particular subject can be more valuable than being quoted once on ten unrelated topics.
The goal isn't maximum publicity. It's maximum relevance.
So, what is fintech PR really for?
At its best, fintech PR does three things.
It gets you noticed.
It gives other people a reason to trust you.
And it builds a reputation that doesn't disappear when your latest LinkedIn post falls down the feed.
That matters in a sector where trust is already hard-won and where regulation, technology and financial markets are constantly changing.
For fintech founders, the principle is broader than influencers.
Credibility compounds.
When a respected journalist quotes you, when an industry conference puts you on stage, or when an independent publication treats you as an expert, some of that credibility accrues to you and your company.
The companies that win aren't necessarily the ones shouting the loudest.
They're the ones that become known for something important.
That's what good fintech PR is designed to do.