CR details how to prioritize fairness by building safety, privacy, transparency, user-centricity, financial well-being, and inclusivity into product design process
YONKERS, NY — A new guide by Consumer Reports highlights a number of steps fintechs can incorporate into the design of their products to foster a fair digital economy that benefits both consumers and ultimately their company’s bottom line. CR’s Fairness By Design Playbook is a practical resource that aims to help fintechs build consumer trust, reduce regulatory risk, and encourage innovation by prioritizing fairness beginning with the initial development of new products and throughout their life cycle.
“Fair design isn’t just good for consumers – it’s essential for building sustainable financial products that people actually want to use,” said Delicia Hand, senior director, digital marketplace, at Consumer Reports. “This playbook gives companies a roadmap to get there. CR is committed to evaluating products through this lens and partnering with companies to support their efforts to promote fairness with valuable market insights and feedback.”
CR works to promote a fair financial marketplace where a digital economy allows consumers to spend, save, borrow, and invest safely, while achieving positive financial outcomes fueled by market choices. To support this vision, CR developed a Fair Digital Finance Framework to influence financial design standards that create the conditions in which a fair digital economy can flourish.
The framework includes six principles that guide CR’s evaluation of fairness and accessibility of digital finance products:
- Safety: Digital finance products are secure and minimize risks
- Privacy: Users have control over their data and understand what is collected, how it is used, and with whom it is shared
- Transparency: Digital finance companies communicate with users in a complete and meaningful way
- User-Centricity: Digital finance services center user needs and experiences
- Support for Financial Well-Being: Digital finance services support users’ financial well-being
- Inclusivity: Digital finance products and services seek to minimize barriers to access and use.
CR’s Fairness by Design Playbook builds upon the Fair Digital Finance Framework by incorporating insights from three years of market testing and hundreds of hours of industry engagement to guide the design of products that meet critical consumer needs and leverage emerging technologies and trends to create a better customer experience.
The Playbook is organized around actionable steps to help companies put into practice the six principles of the Fair Digital Finance Framework. Each recommendation is grounded in consumer research, expert interviews, and real-word product analysis and is designed to help fintech companies raise standards, strengthen protections, and empower consumers.
To bring these ideas to life, the principles are illustrated with examples of companies that represent current best practices in digital payments, deposit accounts, and digital lending along with suggested steps for how they can be improved. The Playbook also includes potential evaluation metrics companies can use to measure the success of implementing a recommendation.
CR will assess companies’ adherence to the Fairness by Design Playbook through regularevaluations of major digital finance products, quarterly spot checks on specific high-risk areas such as privacy practices and fee structures, real-time monitoring of consumer complaints and issues, and regular engagement with companies on progress and improvements.
Over the past three years, CR has used the Fair Digital Finance Framework to evaluate peer-to-peer payment systems, buy now, pay later (BNPL) services, mobile banking apps, and digital wallets. See cr.org/digitalfinance for more information about CR’s Fair Digital Finance Framework.
Media Contact: Michael McCauley, michael.mccauley@consumer.org