The new rules of finance branding, explained by Koto’s Tom Moloney — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Tom Moloney, Executive Strategy Director at Koto, argues that fintechs and established banks often end up chasing each other’s strengths as they grow. Fintechs have to prove they are safe and built to last, while banks have to feel faster and simpler. Their playbooks, he adds, now “often tell you the category, not the company,” which is why he wants finance brands to “stop treating creativity as the layer added at the end.” In our conversation, he draws on the global creative company’s work and examples from across the industry to explain what separates the strongest brands in the category, how a growing range of products can hold together, how brands can stay visible as more of their services happen in the background, and why easier access to investing leaves more firms fighting for the same customers.

TBI What makes finance an exciting category for brands, and a demanding one for brand builders?

TM Finance is at the centre of life’s biggest decisions. Paying rent, buying a home, starting a business, leaving a job or planning for the future. It carries security, freedom, ambition and anxiety. Few categories get closer to people’s lives.

It’s also a space where brands must grapple with the full irrationality and unpredictability of human behaviour; think about the entrenched, almost irrational loyalty to ‘your bank’ , people who are spenders, savers, rich, poor, young, old. And that’s just the consumer angle; the B2B world of finance is equally rich in complexity.

All of these constraints and considerations make finance a space that needs creativity.

The emotional weight is also what makes the category demanding for brands. These companies handle people’s livelihoods. They need to stand out without looking reckless, and build emotion without playing down risk.

Crypto is a useful test of that balance. The category can feel technical, volatile and closed to outsiders. In the campaign we created for Coinbase, character, humour and motion gave people a warmer way in. The idea had a simple job – lower the first barrier without making the subject feel trivial.

Most finance brands still rely on the same vague promises, familiar language and expected identities. That leaves plenty of room for brands with a sharper, more creative point of view, especially when they carry it through the whole experience.

TBI What is the biggest brand challenge for finance companies today?

TM Growth. As it is in many categories. But it’s especially pronounced in this space where geopolitics and macroeconomic events can drastically change a company’s momentum . You can’t control the context, so brands need to be ready to evolve and adapt to keep growing.

The most typical strategy we see is brands trying to play a larger role in people’s financial lives. They are diversifying sideways to offer new revenue-generating products and services and earn a greater share of our wallets.

The truth is, most brands lead in one or two areas and remain exposed elsewhere. A fintech with a brilliant app may need to show it can be trusted for decades. A traditional bank may already have that trust, but need to become more useful in people’s daily lives. The task is to understand what customers already value, then decide what the brand needs to prove next.

Brand strategy should find that barrier, then get the product, service and story working together to remove it. Trying to fix every weakness at once usually creates more noise, not a stronger brand.

The question guiding every decision should be straightforward. What’s stopping customers from trusting us with more of their money?

TBI What separates the strongest finance brands from the rest?

TM I always come back to a simple formula. Strong brands manage to be true, compelling and distinctive, all at the same time.

True in the sense that what they say and do is based on fact. They make a promise they can deliver on. They are clear on who they are for and the role that they play in their customers’ lives. Compelling in the sense that they are of interest and value to the people they aspire to call customers. They draw people in. Distinctive in the sense that they are differentiated or unique in some way from others. They can be recognised or remembered. A clear sense of identity exists.

In the finance space specifically, you might say there are four key levers – trust, innovation, clear value and cultural relevance. Each is important and can drive growth. But few brands (if any?) combine them all equally well.

Established banks have history and scale, but can feel slow or distant. Challengers often feel simpler and more in tune with modern life, yet customers may still hesitate before trusting them with a mortgage, pension or life savings.

Monzo’s ‘Get Busy Living’ is a good example of a challenger brand maturing and taking on this challenge. It represents a departure from some of their much zanier campaign work of old. The benefit is immediate and compelling. Less time managing money, more time enjoying life. It’s something many could theoretically claim, but the proven track record of the product and the atypical level of craft in the way the promise is delivered all means this smacks of a well-managed brand executing against a plan.

Consistency is the real test. Customers notice when advertising promises freedom, but the product creates friction or support lets them down. The strongest brands make what they say and what customers experience feel like the same thing.

TBI Why do growing finance brands often start to look and sound alike?

TM Whilst it’s worth noting this isn’t a phenomenon unique to finance, it’s a very real one in this space.

A simplistic view would be that growth makes opposites chase each other’s strengths. Challengers need to prove they are safe, broad and built to last. Incumbents need to feel faster, simpler and more relevant. Different starting points, same destination.

Robinhood faced this exact tension. It has moved from opening up trading to building a modern wealth platform spanning active trading, retirement, managed portfolios and private markets. Vlad Tenev calls the risk of customers outgrowing it ‘graduation risk.’

Their recent identity refresh reflects that shift. Sharper type, technical graphics and polished photography bring more authority and restraint, while electric green keeps some of Robinhood’s edge. But the closer it moves towards wealth-management codes, the harder it must work to remain unmistakable.

A growing finance brand has to change. The real job is deciding what can evolve, what must be protected and what the brand can still own that nobody else can. In the UK, Monzo and Lloyds show how the sameness can creep in. Monzo is expanding from current accounts into savings, investments, mortgages and pensions. Lloyds is using its trust and scale to build a more modern digital bank. Their stories now rhyme too. ‘Get Busy Living’ and ‘Bank on Lloyds’ both focus on what money helps people achieve.

Lloyds has refreshed its identity, embraced creators and social content, and turned products such as its into cultural campaigns. Its CMO, Suresh Balaji, calls the ambition “timeless rather than traditional,” while making the harder point – “if the experience doesn’t follow through... that’s where the trust breaks.”

As their products and stories overlap, distinctive assets matter more. Monzo’s Hot Coral and Lloyds’ black horse may do more to separate them than another promise about making money easier.

TBI What does offering ‘everything in one place’ mean for a finance brand?

TM It means turning a wider offer into one clear reason to choose it. ‘Everything in one place’ tells customers how much a company offers, but not why they should care or trust it with more of their money.

People are perfectly comfortable using one provider for their salary, another for savings and another for investments. Being excellent at payments does not instantly earn permission to manage someone’s borrowing, pension or life savings. Trust does not automatically move from one product to the next – although both Revolut and Robinhood talk about the effectiveness of this as a growth strategy.

A growing portfolio of products under one brand needs a clear idea to hold it together. Our client has expanded from a no-fee credit card into accounts, loans, investments, insurance, business banking and mobile services. Its idea, ‘effortless banking, designed to delight,’ gives every product the same job – take work and worry out of managing money.

What I love about our recent Nubank and Rakbank work is the prominent role behaviour plays in the strategy. Effortless and Delight with Nubank give you clear targets to hit for every aspect of the brand, whilst Digital with a Human Touch does the same for Rakbank.

A focus on brand behaviour can make the expansion feel coherent, but every new service, experience or partnership still has to earn its place. The test is simple. Does it strengthen the promise and solve a real problem, or is it just another tile in the app?

Finance is becoming easier to use and harder to see.

TBI How can finance brands stay visible as more of their services happen in the background?

TM By making the moments customers notice work harder.

Finance is becoming easier to use and harder to see. Digital wallets, retailer checkouts and AI assistants increasingly sit between the provider and the customer. The transaction gets smoother, but the financial brand risks becoming invisible underneath it.

That makes every visible interaction more valuable. Onboarding, benefits, cards, rewards, physical experiences and even the less glamorous support conversations all help customers recognise the brand and decide whether to trust it.

Things like verbal identity and tone of voice become a differentiator. And seemingly small, inconsequential decisions about how things look or sound become opportunities for brand expression. Look at the way Revolut are trying to turn the card into a collectable. Its span gold, Chrome and Prismatic designs, alongside Pride, World Cup, Silverstone and Manchester City cards. Each release turns a largely commoditised payment card into something closer to a sneaker drop. A product they hope customers actively choose, carry and show off.

Execution is everything here. And Cash App are great at it. They’re really dialled-in to their audience and seem to find culturally relevant and engaging ways to deliver their services whilst building their brand. turn tap-to-pay functionality into objects their customers want to wear and use. ‘The Barbershop’ turns financial advice into a natural conversation, with Doechii joining in. Both work because the brand understands the audience and the context, not simply because it hired a famous face or spent a tonne on production.

Places can do the same. Nubank’s Ultravioleta Lounge brings the digital bank into the airport, giving customers somewhere to rest, work and activate their Global Account. Nubank becomes useful beyond the screen. As transactions disappear, these moments have to carry more of the brand. The job is to make them distinctive and useful enough to be remembered.

TBI How far should a brand go in making rewards and credit exciting?

TM This question probes another challenging aspect of building brands in the financial space – ethics and compliance. Rewards give something back. Credit gives people breathing room. Both can make spending feel better, but both can be pushed too far.

Credit carries more risk because flexibility can quickly become debt. Klarna’s ‘Smoooth’ platform, brought to life by stars including Snoop Dogg, A$AP Rocky and Paris Hilton, makes ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ feel desirable. It presents a world where almost everything seems within reach. Powerful creative territory, but it raises a sharp ethical question. If the purchase feels instant, is tomorrow’s cost just as easy to understand? Especially when you consider stats like this one from the US firm Nonfiction: 52% of Americans have cried at some point in their life because they didn’t have enough money.

Lasting brands know the difference between removing friction and removing thought. Rewards should make genuine value feel rewarding. Credit should make choice and commitment clear. Neither should use delight to disguise the deal.

With Fluz, we gave everyday cashback the swagger of a premium benefit. ‘Life on Max’ creates a playful world where ordinary people get the VIP treatment, making a complex rewards model easier to understand and more exciting to use. But the excitement comes from making real value visible, not adding empty points, streaks or pressure. Rewards should make people feel smarter about spending they would have done anyway, not tempt them to spend for the dopamine hit.

Brand becomes the tool to fight against commoditisation.

TBI What challenges does easier access to investing create for investment and wealth brands?

TM The biggest, most obvious challenge is the increase in competition and the number of brands fighting for the same customers with similar products. Brand becomes the tool to fight against commoditisation and a race to the bottom.

As access has widened, there’s also an interesting challenge around understanding; comprehension of what can be quite a complex thing, and the nuances around the risks and implications.

I see a similar pattern playing out to the one we discussed in the banking space. In one corner you have more traditional ‘legacy’ firms. At one point, these firms made investing feel closed off through formal language, complex products and an air of exclusivity. Now they are rapidly modernising. Then in the other corner, a cohort of newer platforms that cut through with great experiences and low rates, all now looking to grow up. We saw this first-hand with our Freetrade work (acquired by IG in 2025).

The comprehension issue is perhaps more interesting. How do you make expertise accessible without making it feel lightweight? Knowing your customer feels like the critical skill here again. Understanding the mindset and attitudes of the people you’re talking to helps frame communications effectively. One example I like is . She explains scarcity, price swings and how to buy Bitcoin through her own humour and style. Her fame draws people in, but her voice still carries the lesson.

Creators and online communities increasingly shape financial decisions alongside analysts and advisers – especially so for younger audiences. , 42% of adults aged 18–29 rely on social media for financial guidance. These ‘finfluencers’ bring useful new voices into the conversation, but hype and social proof can quickly turn a passing trend into an investment mistake.

As a result, the winning investment brands of the next few years will master two jobs. Continuing to lower the barrier to access, whilst raising the quality of the decision made. Opening an account is the easy part. Helping people build confidence, judgement and trust is where the real value lies.

TBI What should finance brands do differently in their creative work?

TM Stop treating creativity as the layer added at the end. Put brand thinking at the centre of everything. Start with a real point of view, then use it to guide everything the brand does.

Traditional banks still mostly lean on heritage, restraint and familiar signals of trust. Fintechs have built their own playbook around bright identities, casual language, creator partnerships, cultural collaborations and social-first activations. Both approaches once felt fresh. Now they often tell you the category, not the company.

Finance does not need another cosmetic refresh or celebrity tie-in with little connection to the product. It needs ideas strong enough to shape how the product works, how product marketing feels, which partnerships make sense and where the brand chooses to show up.

As products and interfaces become harder to tell apart, distinctiveness has to come from the whole experience. Every touchpoint should reinforce the same idea and give people a reason to recognise, choose and stay with the brand. That is how creativity stops being just another layer and becomes an advantage competitors cannot easily copy.