Demarketizing fintech About Us pages

Fintech companies love their marketing slogans. If you're not disruptive, global, or technologically agnostic then you can't be in fintech. When we come upon a new company intro video, an intern and I like to gamble over how long it takes for something of substance to be said (take the over, not the under -- trust me). The embodiment of the marketing love affair is in the About Us section of company websites. Companies describe themselves as doing the financial equivalent of curing cancer when they're just taking a splinter out. Even fintech companies preaching transparency are culprits, shoving so much marketing material into the page you can't tell what they actually do. Others choose to go the other way, and don't have any info regarding what they do (but maybe they have a better Facebook page?). We're here to de-marketize About Us pages, removing the wheat from the chaff and revealing what a company actually does.

SWIFT

SWIFT is one of those ambiguous companies littering the finance world.  They even got their own WTF to explain what they do.  The financial messaging platform may be an old school finance incumbent, but they're pretty new school when it comes to marketing.   New summary: "We provide our community with a platform for messaging, standards for communicating and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration; identification, analysis and regulatory compliance."

• Old: 212 words
• New: 28 words

Fiserv

People may be more familiar with Fiserv than they realize, but still won't understand the company any better after reading the About Us page. The bulk of the marketing jargon appears in the middle of the company profile, clouding the explanation of the service provider. New summary: "Fiserv is an organization with solutions for mobile and online banking, payments, risk management, data analytics and core account processing."

• Old: 128 words
• New: 20 words

PayPal

The eBay spinoff has an OK explanation of what they do, but there's still lots of fluff. PayPal juices their About Us page with stats on customers, regions, and currencies supported. The firm cements itself as a fintech player with phrases like "digital payments revolution" and "open, secure, and technologically agnostic payment platform". New summary: "PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL) gives people ways to manage and move their money in more than 202 countries."

• Old: 147 words
• New: 17 words

Authorize.Net

One of the biggest payment gateways doesn't hold back with marketing material. Authorize.Net gets into interfaces, pricing, and even how to become a reseller in their "what we do" section. New summary: "Authorize.Net provides the infrastructure and security of transaction data."

• Old: 257 words
• New: 9 words

Transferwise

I don't want to be a stickler, but a company story shouldn't be on the About Us page. The story behind why a company started should be on the "Why we started page." Remittance unicorn Transferwise turns its About Us page into an odyssey of fighting against banking propaganda instead of simply stating what it does. New summary: "Transferwise lets people send money abroad."

• Old: 208 words
• New: 6 words

Advizr

Advizer hits the trifecta, with telling a creation story, using the word disruptive three times in two paragraphs, and using the words multicultural and multidisciplinary in the same sentence. All I know from this page is that the company is really really really really disruptive, and it creates fintech products. Terrific. New summary: "Advizr creates fintech products."

• Old: 137 words
• New: 4 words

Indiegogo

An About Us page should be so simple, an alien should be able to understand it. Crowdfunding platforms where you pay for someone to go on vacation because, well, why not, don't really make any sense to humans, let alone aliens. It's only appropriate that Indiegogo's About Us page has no information on what it actually does, just ideas about empowerment and the right of entrepreneurship, whatever in the hell that means. New summary: "Indigogo is where people can raise money for arbitrary things they want to do instead of paying for themselves."

• Old: 137 words
• New: 18 words