Designing Fair Finance: The Playbook for Trust, Inclusion and AI Governance

0:07 - Hi, I'm Melissa Desjardins, a Director with Rotivity, and I'm really excited for today's conversation with our guests.

0:14 - Please welcome Amanda Estevern, a payment industry leader and Board member at Napoli, as well as Evan Feeney from Consumer Reports.

0:22 - Really excited for the discussion today.

0:24 - I'd love for each of you to give a brief introduction for us.

0:26 - Amanda, Thank you so much, Melissa.

0:28 - First off, really excited to be here.

0:30 - I'm Amanda Estevan, 20 plus years experience in financial services and half of that was at a fintech.

0:36 - But recently I joined an organisation called NAFLI, National Alliance for Financial Literacy and Inclusion.

0:42 - That's the acronym.

0:43 - And I'm really excited to be here at Money 2020 and so excited for the discussion.

0:48 - Awesome, great Evan.

0:50 - And I'm Evan Feeney.

0:50 - I'm the Associate Director of Corporate Engagement at Consumer Reports.

0:54 - I've spent the last decade doing tech accountability work and now in the fintech space, I'm helping Consumer Reports bring their recommendations and evaluations to fintech companies to help them better implement pro consumer design choices.

1:08 - Awesome.

1:09 - Well, I know that one of the things we wanted to talk about today is the Fair Design Playbook.

1:13 - So I don't know who wants to start us off, but maybe Amanda, can you tell us some of the key themes from the Fair Design Playbook and what it means?

1:21 - What is it?

1:22 - Yeah, no, the Fair Design Playbook is exciting, right?

1:25 - It's, you know, we're at an interesting time and a lot of the key principles are all around supporting consumer advocacy within the digital finance space.

1:33 - And it's really based off 6 key principles, right, Supporting financial well-being, privacy, transparency, user centricity.

1:42 - A lot of inclusivity is the last one.

1:45 - I mean, Evan, you can, you know, add to that too.

1:47 - But yes, you know, I'm excited to be here because the partnership with the Consumer Reports and Natalie has given us a chance to, you know, really put together some exposure around the playbook.

1:57 - But Evan, if you'd like to add to that, please let me know.

1:59 - Yeah.

2:00 - It's rooted in our fair digital finance framework which is those six principles, which is for the last five years has been our framework for how we evaluate and test fintech products like how well are they supporting consumers across those six principles.

2:15 - Each of them has sub principles, but that is a very in a way reactive model.

2:22 - The principles of the framework are strong, but we're often coming in after a product has been deployed, consumers are frustrated or harms occurring.

2:29 - So we wanted to design something that reflected those principles, but gave companies a road map on how do they get ahead of this, get ahead of our evaluations.

2:38 - How do you build a product that consumers are going to like that they're going to trust that they're going to go spread by word of mouth to their friends and family and say, I like this, this is supporting me, it's bettering me, and I can trust that the company is doing right by me.

2:51 - Got it.

2:52 - So the Fair Design Playbook is really a framework that organisations can use as they're launching fintech products and services.

2:58 - Exactly.

2:59 - Melissa, thank you so much.

3:00 - A lot of our target audience are the product designers, the product builders, the folks.

3:05 - You know, of course, it's a collective effort, right?

3:07 - We want to include folks that are in the fraud space compliance, but it's really making sure that these product designers are really considering these consumer different scenarios and making sure that the principles all are part of their overall design.

3:20 - Got it.

3:21 - And I know a lot of the principles really focus on the idea of a fair and inclusive financial ecosystem.

3:28 - Tell me more about that.

3:30 - Yeah.

3:30 - So the way I often think about fairness is, especially in like the financial ecosystem is fairness is about the relationship between a consumer and the company or the product.

3:41 - Is the consumer getting access to all the information they need to make the best possible financial decision for themselves.

3:46 - So the best decision around what data they're giving up for the transaction.

3:50 - Because rather the consumers are OK with giving up a certain amount of data for a product, but people get really upset when they don't have limits or controls to provide a more granular experience around that.

4:04 - And like, that's what a lot of the playbook is rooted in, is providing that road map level guidance to get companies that ask the questions they need to ask in advance of deploying a product to make sure that it's meeting consumers where they're at and achieving that level of fairness where folks feel that they are entering into a fair transaction with a company.

4:22 - Yeah.

4:22 - And you know, if you think about this is pretty interesting because the topic of trust continues to come up, right?

4:28 - And we know that there's currency in trust.

4:31 - And so if we continue to build products with this concept of fairness that enables that, that's the gateway.

4:38 - And so that's why it's important for us to, you know, attend this a few industry events and have these progressive conversations and really make sure that these designers are considering this.

4:48 - It's it's actually a growth opportunity, right?

4:51 - It's so important.

4:51 - Yeah, yeah.

4:52 - What went into designing this?

4:54 - Like how did you go about putting this together?

4:56 - Yeah.

4:56 - So I mean, it started with hundreds of hours of industry engagement across our previous digital marketplace evaluations where like we took what we'd learned from engaging with dozens and dozens of companies and being like, OK, we're, we're kind of leaving meat on the bone, so to speak, in terms of driving change at the road map level.

5:16 - Instead of it being reactive of, hey, this policy or practice scored poorly.

5:20 - Can you go back and change it by learning from that experience and going, hey, what if we came to you with something that said, if you do this, you're going to score well and consumers are going to like it and they're going to return to your product again and again.

5:32 - Like that is a competitive advantage that what we've experienced here.

5:36 - Money 2020 folks are eager to learn more about.

5:39 - They're excited to dive in on the playbook to either validate what they say they're already doing or to increase areas of, you know, relative weakness in their product.

5:49 - Or they're like, we could have a stronger advantage against our competitors if we improved how we're understanding consumers from the ground up.

5:57 - Interesting.

5:58 - Yeah.

5:58 - And overall strategy in the consumer experience, Right.

6:00 - Really tapping into, you know, I like to call this concept called to be called the empathy side of banking.

6:07 - It's like really considering everyone's different scenarios and making sure to enable that those practices in that.

6:12 - Yeah.

6:13 - That's terrific.

6:14 - How can companies and organisations access the playbook?

6:17 - Where do they find it?

6:18 - How do they.

6:19 - Yeah, there's, you know, some really exciting ways to engage with us.

6:22 - In fact, you know, we've been attending a variety of different industry events talking about the playbook.

6:27 - But next year we're hosting an actual tech lab.

6:30 - We're calling it the lab.

6:32 - It's a similar to a concept of a tech Sprint where we're going to be inviting different folks from the within the industry to participate in really maybe building a product around these concepts.

6:44 - And so we're hosting workshops, we have AQR code.

6:47 - We will definitely share with you guys, but you know, we want you guys to reach out to Evan and I, the team and really not only read the play, but but figure out how to get involved.

6:56 - Is there ways we can help evaluate some of the metrics and aid in some of the efforts?

7:01 - Yeah, and I and like, it's not a it's not a one size fit all engagement.

7:05 - Like because of how expansive the playbook is.

7:07 - It's you know, it's got both the research backing why this is a good business decision.

7:13 - It's got specific recommendations backed up by a consumer lens for every single one to really break down.

7:19 - This is what a consumer is getting out of this.

7:21 - It's not just a random call from a advocacy organisation is backed by consumer research and what we're hearing from consumers that they need in their life to feel safe or that they can trust a product.

7:33 - It has stand out cases of just things that we've seen in the marketplace that are that are good at these things.

7:39 - Not necessarily a validation of the entire product, but maybe specific pieces or policies where we're saying, hey, folks should emulate this and we also have metrics.

7:49 - So maybe you just want to talk to us about, hey, we want to just better track the consumer outcomes of our product.

7:55 - What we keep saying that like, you know, from a company perspective, companies that keep saying in marketing that they are very consumer centric, that they're filling that they're filling these trust gaps.

8:04 - It's like, OK, do you have the data points that prove that because over time customers are going to question, am I getting is, is this relationship actually leading to to that outcome or are you just selling me on that idea?

8:17 - Yeah.

8:18 - And we continue to to talk about how data is king, right?

8:21 - It's backed by data, right.

8:22 - And to me that is I think you know, more than the reason to kind of get involved with this, you know, report.

8:29 - That's great.

8:29 - Yeah.

8:30 - So looking ahead into the future, if organisations and companies are leveraging the playbook, what do you see over the next few years?

8:38 - What does the future look like with this is the basis?

8:41 - Yeah, well, I mean, I think, you know, initially, like what we're looking for is like we're hoping for folks who want to do an evaluation against the playbook where we come in, we collaborate, we do basically a gap analysis and look at where your strengths and weaknesses are relative to the playbook.

8:57 - And then we work behind the scenes for like 6 or 9 months and validate where, you know, you say you're strong, like put up the data that says, Yep, like they're telling the truth about like their product and the consumer outcomes and places where it's not holding up.

9:11 - We work with them to like to level up, get into the next the next stage.

9:15 - And then we tell that story and we validate the work that the company has put in with the, you know, trusted CR brand that consumers have known for like 90 years.

9:25 - It's like, OK, Consumer Reports says that this is a brand that you can rely on.

9:29 - And so like that's the type of collaboration and partnership we're hoping to begin to enter into with with companies.

9:34 - Yeah.

9:35 - And you know, Natalie is really supportive of this because this is all in line with financial inclusion, right?

9:42 - This is providing access in a Safeway.

9:45 - And we know that a lot of regulations around consumers in the banking industry has lightened and it's a little, you know, it's interesting times, especially within our administration.

9:55 - So we're supporting, you know, self regulating essentially within the banking industry.

10:00 - And so that's why I were supportive of this project.

10:03 - I'm really curious to dig in on the topic of AI.

10:06 - Can you talk to me about the playbook in the context of the AI conversation?

10:11 - What considerations have you incorporated into the playbook with respect to AI?

10:15 - Yeah, I think for the Playbook with respect to AI, like it again come back again comes back to the question of trust, especially in like the digital finance market, there's a lot of rush to implement AI into products with minimal testing, minimal engagement with consumers on what value are they getting out of it?

10:32 - Can they trust that it is delivering accurate financial recommendations, that it is accurately summarising their true financial health?

10:42 - And if a company using the playbook cannot prove to consumers that their use of AI is doing that, probably shouldn't be using AI for that function or feature because people need to trust that their money is safe, that the data is accurate every single time because this is people's financial lives.

11:00 - And if companies use the playbook, the questions in there will guide folks through asking themselves, am I capturing the right amount of information to make that decision?

11:10 - Yeah.

11:11 - Yeah.

11:11 - You know, AI is something that we should consider, right?

11:14 - There's a lot of, like, governance around AI that's needed, right?

11:17 - Especially on explainability and making sure we understand where the core data is coming from because we don't want to have an issue of garbage in, garbage out, right with data.

11:28 - And so, you know, that's why I kind of like what you know.

11:31 - I appreciate what Evan mentioned about trust, right?

11:34 - We need to make sure that following these key principles will aid in that overall governance.

11:39 - Yeah, absolutely.

11:40 - Thank you so much for sharing those thoughts.

11:42 - Great having you.

11:43 - Thanks for having us.