Commerce Conversations

Women and the Fight for FinTech with Vrinda Gupta (Sequin)

Episode Summary

Women control over $10T in assets (according to McKinsey) in the United States and we only expect that number to grow as wealth is transferred from the Bay Boomers in the years to come. So why then, despite being a major market opportunity, do women feel so deeply underserved by financial institutions? Vrinda Gupta is the founder of Sequin (YC S21) a Fintech company focused on rebuilding women’s financial profiles via community education and squashing the pink tax through a reward debit card. Vrinda and Claire (Commerce Ventures) discuss the different systemic challenges that women face in finance and the opportunities to overcome them.

Episode Notes

After seeing her mother show hesitancy in the financial realm, Vrinda grew up deeply understanding that financial literacy and independence were critical to her success.
Vrinda was on the Visa Chase Sapphire Reserve product team after her undergraduate study, but when she applied for the card she got rejected.
Women’s discrimination in the financial sector is a complex and compounded issue: consider the wage gap making women have to utilize more credit, how women are saved for less for second education and thus have to take on more debt, and historically women are not educated to the same level as their male counterparts.
Vrinda shares the opinion that capturing women as a customer segment in financial services will be something that only a new challenger can address. Because legacy institutions were built fundamentally during a time with exclusionary principles, startups can build with co-creation for new tools in a way major players simply cannot.
Communal ways to interact with finance like saving circles are a fundamental way incumbents haven’t been able to leverage.
“For Women” products are saturating the market but a real solution for women addresses specific issues with a tailored product, not just marketing.

About the Guest:

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