Building a more cohesive community within the fintech industry

Renaissance Payments, Inc, helps smart companies embed financial services and create better experiences around money.

As a Black-owned fintech startup, we are intimately familiar with the inequality that exists within and outside the fintech industry. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring that we pave the way for other minorities. Our vision at Renaissance Payments is to create a better experience around money. This means ‌it is important to us that our products, policies, people, and partners are diverse and inclusive. We make the following commitments:

Partnerships

We will deliberately seek ‌partnerships with organizations supporting historically disadvantaged individuals and communities. Previously, we partnered with the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce — the oldest and largest Black chamber of commerce in the United States. DBCC advocates for the creation, growth, and general welfare of African-American businesses in the Dallas community. Together, we helped more than 80 small businesses get ~$4.5M funding from the Payment Protection Program (PPP) earlier this year free of charge.

Together with DBCC, Comerica Bank, and AT&T to do a Black Business Bootcamp where our CEO, Joseph Akintolayo, led sessions that taught first-time founders and emerging minority entrepreneurs how to use technology to power growth.

We work with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), like TruFund, to help revitalize communities and create jobs through small business loans.

We are also working with the AACUC (African American Credit Union Coalition) to provide research and insight on fintechs impact on BIPOC communities.

Our commitment is to work with more like-minded organizations in the coming year.

Bootcamps — Financial Literacy

In a bid to shorten this literacy gap, we are providing a Bootcamp dedicated to Black business owners on how fintech tools can be used to streamline their business.

Our commitment is to release a series of courses and podcasts for the benefit of these businesses in the coming year.

Our Clients

Our current work with different banks in South Dallas to support small businesses goes in line with the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages depository institutions to meet the credit needs of low and moderate-income neighborhoods.

We are building a minority SMB needs assessment tool. Our commitment to providing minority-owned businesses with the tools to scale and increase their customer base will continue to be the case.

Hiring

At the moment, our leadership team comprises 12 POC and minorities. However, only 16% of our personnel are women.

For all future hiring, we will ensure that:

• Our job descriptions are inclusive and welcome diversity
• Make concerted efforts to increase the number of applications by women
• Work with organizations in the Diversity & Inclusion space to improve our talent pipeline

Our People

We understand that while talent is universally distributed, opportunities are not. Renaissance Payments is a remote-first company to give people from different backgrounds the opportunity to shine, regardless of their physical locations. In addition, we provide the tools and the environment for each member of our team to grow, contribute, and meet their full potential. However, we recognize that there is room for growth. Therefore, we commit to:

• Review all internal compensation processes to ensure that there are equitable practices across the board
• Engage team members monthly to assess company efforts to increase inclusivity
• Provide access to mental health resources for our people to help navigate the trauma of recent events
• Continuously work on providing an environment where ALL voices are heard

We have made our commitment to eradicate inequality in financial services public so we may be held accountable.

Renaissance Payments will review its efforts and progress biannually and pursue new commitments as we scale.