Andy Martinus: Why financial services are missing out on branding

In a business built on trust, the irony is that most firms now look identical online. Search ten financial websites and you’ll see the same story: blue logos, glass towers and a panoramic cityscape.

Financial services used to be built on handshakes and personal relationships. That handshake has gone digital, and it’s now your brand and website that make the first impression.

Clients expect multiple ways to interact with firms and, increasingly, their first contact isn’t a meeting at all – it’s a Google result, a LinkedIn profile or your website’s people page.

This matters because impressions are now formed long before you’re in the room. If a prospect arrives at your site and it looks like every other firm, what would make them pick you over another? Relationship businesses still win, but relationships now begin online.

If your brand could be swapped with a competitor’s and nobody would notice, you’re leaving money on the table

Two assets do the heavy lifting: your brand and your website. Treated properly, they create awareness, build trust and make it feel easy to do business. But if your brand could be swapped with a competitor’s and nobody would notice, you’re leaving money on the table.

Brand: the asset too many firms ignore

Finance loves to talk about assets. Yet the two that do most of the heavy lifting – brand and website – are often undervalued. The result is an industry that blends together.

Remove the logos from many financial sites and you’d struggle to tell one from another. Yes, leaning on familiar category cues feels safe, but it erodes memorability.

Distinctive doesn’t have to mean loud. It means being recognisable. If you claim to be innovative, why present like a museum? The strongest brands are anchored in a clear, driving idea, an organising thought that expresses who the firm is.

This is why authenticity matters. Every firm believes it’s innovative or relationship-driven, but few can express what truly sets them apart.

Too many sites are built around the firm’s organisational chart rather than the user’s intent

So, the first step is to get that idea right, by understanding who you are. That informs everything: design, language, imagery, how you present the team, even how you lay out a strategy page.

It creates a through-line that makes sense of the experience and, crucially, makes you easy to remember at the moment of need. A strong brand begins by defining what you believe in, how you operate, and why clients choose you.

Take our work with private-credit firm Corinthia. By grounding its brand in a single idea – kinetic intelligence – and carrying that through design, language and digital experience, the firm moved from looking conventional to feeling confident, modern and memorable.

Consistency is what brings that to life. Prospects no longer follow a straight path from brochure to meeting. They move between your site, a partner’s LinkedIn post, an event stand or a PDF.

Each of those touchpoints should express the same idea in its own way. When they connect, people recognise you faster and trust you more. When they don’t, you fade into the background.

Digital experience: your best relationship manager

Think of your website as a shopfront. Most financial firms don’t transact online, but the site still has three jobs: signal who you are, evidence your expertise and make it effortless to start a conversation. Too many sites are built around the firm’s organisational chart rather than the user’s intent.

David Shelton: The business of the brand

Design journeys around the tasks people actually come to do. Typically, they want to understand your offer, confirm credibility, find relevant people and contact you.

It means navigation should be easy, copy should answer the right questions and contact routes should reach the right team first time, whether that’s by region, sector or product.

Clarity is important. Complex propositions can be explained plainly without losing nuance, and show that you aren’t covering up lack of expertise with jargon. When a sophisticated buyer lands on your site, they should grasp what you do and why it helps them in a handful of lines, not after three clicks and a glossary.

Crucially, connect every touchpoint back to the brand. Motion, microcopy, case-study storytelling, the way people pages work: when brand and UX are developed together, the experience feels intentional rather than templated.

Where to start?

Speak to clients and partners. Ask why they chose you and what they value now. Look for the threads that never make it onto the website but come up in every conversation: agility, pace, quality of judgement, a particular way of partnering. Distil those into the driving idea.

Relationships still matter. They just start earlier, often online, and they scale through brand and digital experience

Then test it against the digital experience: if the idea is about breaking down barriers, does the site actually remove them? If it’s about pace, does the experience feel quick? The hardest work in complex categories is simplifying without dumbing down. The best sites respect the reader’s time and curiosity.

Relationships still matter. They just start earlier, often online, and they scale through brand and digital experience. Treat those as core assets and they become your most reliable relationship managers — working 24/7, meeting prospects where they really begin and making it feel simple to do business with you.

As technology and AI continue to reshape how investors and clients discover firms, the front door to your business will only move further online. Search results, partner bios, automated due-diligence tools: all filter first impressions before a human ever gets involved.

That’s why brand and digital experience aren’t ‘marketing exercises’, they’re risk-management strategies in disguise. The firms that win in the next decade won’t be those with the loudest marketing, but those with the clearest story.

Andy Martinus is digital director at HB