OpenPayd founder says fintech trust must be built from launch

OpenPayd founder Ozan Ozerk has argued that fintechs, digital asset platforms, embedded finance providers and AI-led financial services must establish trust from the start rather than rely on decades of operating history. In an opinion published on Finextra, he said the speed at which new financial products can reach customers, partners and regulators has changed how credibility is formed in the sector.

Ozerk said traditional financial institutions have often earned confidence over time by protecting deposits, paying claims, surviving crises or demonstrating professional judgment. That model, he argued, is less suited to businesses that may enter several markets within months, handle customer money before becoming widely known and depend on technologies that did not exist a decade ago.

The result, according to Ozerk, is a trust gap for new industries: they need confidence earlier than mature sectors, while having less history to show. He said longevity may reinforce trust later, but should not become a precondition for innovation.

Age is no longer the only signal

In digital finance, Ozerk said customers may use a service without knowing which bank, payment institution or infrastructure provider operates behind the interface. Fintech services are often delivered through application programming interfaces, embedded into another company’s customer experience or offered through mobile channels rather than branches.

That changes the evidence customers use to judge a provider, he wrote. Instead of relying mainly on the age of an institution or its physical presence, users assess whether the service functions, whether funds are protected, whether charges are clear and whether support is available when problems arise.

Commercial partners and regulators impose a parallel test, Ozerk said. A young fintech may need to satisfy banks, payment schemes, investors, users and supervisors at the same time, a different task from building a local financial institution over generations.

Governance, systems and redress

Ozerk said trust in new financial firms should be designed into governance, technology and operating procedures rather than added later through marketing. For a company handling money, he pointed to internal risk oversight, safeguarding arrangements, compliance controls and clear accountability as foundations that customers may not see directly but will experience if they fail.

He also argued that technology should be built to resist outages, protect sensitive information and maintain auditable records from the outset. Security, resilience and data protection, in his view, should not wait until a company reaches scale because early shortcuts can become embedded in operating practice.

Transparency was another theme. Ozerk said customers should be able to understand the fees they pay, the service they receive and which party is responsible for delivery. He added that trust is also tested during failures, including delayed payments, account reviews, fraud incidents or system outages, when firms must explain problems and resolve them.

Regulation and partners

Ozerk described regulation as a potential accelerator of trust for young financial companies. A licence does not prove a company is well run, he said, but it indicates that the firm has met defined standards on areas such as capital, safeguarding, governance, financial crime controls and customer protection.

He cautioned that compliance can become a box-ticking exercise if firms treat authorisation as a marketing signal rather than an ongoing obligation. In his view, regulation sets a minimum standard, while firms still need to ask whether products and decisions can be explained clearly to customers.

Ozerk also said fintechs can gain credibility from banks, payment networks, cloud providers, identity services and other infrastructure partners. In embedded finance, where the customer-facing brand may differ from the licensed or operational provider, trust is shared across several parties. He warned, however, that accountability remains with the firm whose product the customer uses when payments fail, accounts are restricted or support breaks down.

For both new entrants and established institutions, Ozerk said the central test is present-day reliability: accurate balances, timely payments, available systems, effective fraud controls and a clear response when errors occur. He argued that trust in finance will increasingly belong to firms that make responsible conduct visible and repeatable, rather than to those relying only on age or brand recognition.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.