Inside the playbook: How top finance and fintech brands navigate uncertain markets

In today’s rapidly shifting financial landscape, financial services companies and their communications partners are developing strategic approaches to navigate turbulence while building trust. We spoke with members of Tearsheet’s monthly PR/Comms Working Group — including both in-house executives and agency leaders who represent major financial firms — about the shared strategies emerging in these uncertain times.

Balancing responsiveness with strategic restraint

When market conditions shift rapidly, communications professionals face a critical decision: when to engage and when to hold back. This tension between responsiveness and restraint emerged as a key theme among our PR/Comms working group members.

Laura Cullen, communications leader at Happy Money, articulates this balance: “We’ve embraced an agile editorial mindset, while remaining anchored in our brand narrative of helping people achieve their goals through responsible lending.”

This approach means getting clear about where a brand’s voice adds distinct value. “We evolve our storytelling in real-time, incorporating fresh insights grounded in the latest data,” Cullen explains, “but we don’t chase every news cycle.”

Scott Mills, president of William Mills Agency, observes similar patterns among the financial institutions his agency represents. While not advocating for changing fundamental strategy, Mills emphasizes the importance of “nuances in how they communicate with customers and prospects” during periods of economic uncertainty.

Both perspectives highlight the value of strategic restraint. As Cullen puts it, “Restraint can be just as strategic as reach.”

Anchoring in mission during turbulence

Another consistent theme among our contributors was the importance of maintaining mission focus even as tactical approaches evolve.

“Throughout all the changes of the last few years, the one thing that has not changed at Current is having our mission to improve financial outcomes as our focus,” notes Erin Bruehl, vice president of communications at Current. Having navigated nearly six years of unprecedented disruptions since joining in 2019 — from pandemic challenges to fintech market fluctuations — Bruehl emphasizes that mission alignment provides stability.

“The products we build, the messages we convey, and the decisions we make all have this as our north star,” she explains. “When you stay true to your WHY as a company, it will see you through anything.”

Happy Money’s Cullen also alluded to a mission-driven approach when she mentioned that their communications strategy always returns to their core purpose of “helping people achieve their goals through responsible lending,” regardless of market conditions.

Building trust through crisis response

Most notably, our contributors emphasized that uncertain times create valuable opportunities to demonstrate credibility and build deeper trust.

“Moments of uncertainty are also opportunities to lead with credibility and transparency,” Cullen notes. Her team at Happy Money treats “every touchpoint as a trust-building moment, ensuring we have the right facts and information, especially critical in the age of AI.”

Mills reinforces this view from an agency perspective: “Banks, credit unions, lenders and fintechs are all striving to be a trusted resource, and there is nothing like a crisis for demonstrating that your institution is empathic and worthy of earning or maintaining your business.”

This trust-building imperative manifests differently across organizations. For Happy Money, it means ensuring their thought leaders offer unique commentary that resonates with both lending partners and consumers. For Current, it involves maintaining consistent focus on improving financial outcomes even when market conditions change drastically.

Adapting to rapid change

The ability to pivot quickly emerged as a universal requirement among our contributors. Bruehl captures this necessity directly: “When you work in communications or marketing, you quickly learn how important it is to be flexible. You can spend weeks, even months, planning a campaign or a promotion only to have an event outside of your control either put your plans on hold or change them entirely.”

This adaptability extends to research and analytics as well. Mills cautions that “consumer and small business research done on financial attitudes before ‘Liberation Day’ (April 2nd), will need an asterisk” as financial perspectives continue to evolve rapidly.

The communications professionals in our working group emphasized that while they can’t control external events, they can control their response approach. 

As Bruehl explains: “As comms leaders, we control our relationships, we control our messaging. As companies, we can control the products we build, how we fulfill the promises we make to our members, and how we stay true to our company’s goals and mission.”

Investing in infrastructure resilience

For payment platforms that consumers depend on daily, technical preparation becomes especially critical during uncertain economic times. Denise Leonhard, GM of Zelle, emphasizes this foundational requirement.

“We know how much anxiety people feel during uncertain economic times – whether it’s market fluctuations, job changes, or just trying to stay on top of everyday expenses,” Leonhard explains. “One way we do that is by making it easy for people to send and receive money quickly and securely, right from the banking apps they already use.”

This reliability, Leonhard notes, “doesn’t happen by accident – it’s something we invest in heavily.” Her team at Zelle has put “real resources behind making sure the Zelle network is resilient, so it works the way it should, when it counts,” including anticipating high-volume periods, building in redundancy, and proactively addressing potential disruptions.

“It’s also important not to stop at ‘good enough’ when it comes to engineering efforts – you need to go above and beyond,” Leonhard emphasizes. This commitment to excellence has produced tangible results: “Due to our ongoing work to improve our technology stack – including a multi-year re-architecture of our core platform – we were able to significantly increase Zelle network uptime.”

The focus on infrastructure proves especially vital when consumers face economic pressure: “In times like these – whether you are a consumer, small business, or community bank – you want to know money is going to get where it needs to go. And we take that responsibility seriously.”

This article features insights from members of Tearsheet’s monthly PR/Comms Working Group serving the best professionals in financial services and fintech. Contributions came from both in-house communications leaders and agency executives who represent major players in the financial services sector.

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