In 2025, the definition of success is undergoing a transformation. Financial return remains essential, but emerging forces are compelling leaders to see success through broader lenses. Eric Hannelius, CEO of Pepper Pay, believes that those who adapt to this shifting landscape will accelerate growth, build trust, and remain resilient through turbulence.
What is Changing.
Several recent trends suggest that what “successful business” looks like will shift in these ways:
- Fintech revenue is growing fast. The Report shows fintech firms’ revenues increased about 21% year-on-year, while the traditional financial services sector grew by only around 6%. Public fintechs are reporting profits more frequently: about 69% now are in the black, up from under half in recent years.
- Demand from customers continues to push for instant, seamless, and trusted services. Real-time payments, embedded finance, and AI-powered user experiences are rising expectations.
- Technology such as generative AI, blockchain innovations, on-chain finance are emerging with stronger potential to reshape infrastructure, risk assessment, and operational models.
Success in this era will likely be judged by growth in users or profit margins, as well as by how well organisations handle trust, resilience, adaptability, inclusion, ethical behaviour, and how quickly they learn and adjust.
Trust & Transparency as Strategic Assets.
Customers, regulators, and partners increasingly expect openness. When fintechs show how they protect data, how fees and terms work, and how their algorithms or AI models treat users, that clarity becomes a competitive advantage. Missteps in privacy or a lack of clarity in pricing can erode trust rapidly.
Resilience in Operations & Strategy.
External shocks are happening with higher frequency, such as:
- economic uncertainty,
- regulation changes,
- supply-chain disruptions,
- technology failures.
Organisations that succeed will be those that build flexibility in their strategy. That means redundant capabilities, strategies that avoid over-dependence on single markets, technologies, or revenue streams.
Learning and Adaptability.
Speed of learning is becoming as important as speed of delivery. When fintechs trial innovations, gather feedback, measure outcomes, and pivot, they improve their odds of staying relevant. Pepper Pay observes many “product expansions” begin with recognizing what clients are already doing often hacks or off-script behavior, which reveals what they truly value. Aligning innovation with observed behaviour tailors growth to reality.
Inclusion and Purpose Embedded in Strategy.
Success will be evaluated by impact on stakeholders beyond shareholders. That includes how products serve underserved populations, how operations reduce environmental cost, how social and governance standards are upheld. Purpose isn’t an optional branding tool. It becomes part of what makes firms resilient to stakeholder scrutiny.
Metrics that Reflect the Whole Picture.
Financial KPIs remain necessary, yet they are insufficient on their own. Leaders will increasingly evaluate customer satisfaction, retention rates, net promoter scores, environmental footprint, social outcomes, governance strengths, and employee wellbeing. Organisations that succeed will report how many users or transactions they have and how customers feel, how communities are affected, how fair and secure their systems appear.
Potential Risks Ahead.
Redefining success has its own dangers. Some companies may adopt new metrics superficially announcing public commitments without backing them with operational change. That leads to stakeholder cynicism. Regulators, journalists, or civil society may hold companies to declared purpose, failure to follow through damages reputation and sometimes legal standing.
Another risk: data overload and metric confusion. With many possible non-financial metrics in play, firms may lose focus or measure the wrong things. Without clear alignment and discipline, pursuing too many “good metrics” might dilute effort or send mixed signals internally.
Finally, balancing long-term measures with short-term pressures will continue to challenge leaders. Firms that move too slowly risk losing competitiveness; those that move too fast on non-financial initiatives without solid foundations may expose themselves to backlash or operational failures.
What Actions Make a Difference.
Based on both industry trends and insights from Eric Hannelius, some practices are emerging as effective differentiation points:
- Conduct internal reviews of current success metrics. Ask: what are the non-financial metrics we already collect? Which ones are most relevant to our mission, brand, and risk environment?
- Embed continuous feedback systems with customers, employees, partners. These feedback loops help surface hidden friction, misalignment, or emerging threats.
- Ensure leadership teams and board members understand these broader dimensions: train for ESG, data ethics, privacy, social impact. That ensures decisions are informed by a broader awareness.
- Use technology as enabler to gather better data, model scenarios, test resilience, and forecast risk.
- Maintain authenticity. When organisations make claims about purpose, inclusion, or sustainability, authenticity shows in decisions, trade-offs, which products are prioritized, which projects get investment.
Eric Hannelius has leaned into the idea that success in fintech will increasingly depend on alignment between internal operations, external expectations, and values. He believes Pepper Pay’s future success will hinge on how well the organisation sustains trust among its users, how fairly it serves small merchants and underrepresented sectors, and how transparent its systems remain. According to him, “People will remember the fintechs that kept their word, protected privacy, treated fees fairly, and remained human in a landscape that’s increasingly automated.”
He also argues that in environments of rapid change, companies that stay grounded in what their customers already trust them for tend to grow more sustainably. Expansion for its own sake can lead to strain. Expansion aligned with observed customer needs is more likely to deepen strength and resilience.
What the Future Likely Looks Like.
In a few years, “success stories” are likely to look like organisations that combine high performance with ethical conduct, that show profitability and social impact, that generate value for shareholders, customers, employees, and communities. Fintechs will be judged not only by how many users they serve, but how well they serve them, how fair their pricing is, how secure and accessible their platforms are, and to what extent they contribute positively to social and economic inclusion.
Those firms will likely be more trusted by regulators, more resilient under economic stresses, and more appealing to talent.
The shape of success ahead is complex: financial returns remain necessary, but insufficient. Leaders who embrace broader measures are in position to lead. In fintech, where technology, regulation, and user expectations evolve rapidly, those who hold both speed and conscience, growth and responsibility, will set the standard.
Eric Hannelius’s message is that success isn’t a future goal to check boxes for. It’s the living fabric of an organisation’s choices, behaviour, reputation, and response. For those who understand that, the coming years offer opportunity to grow and to help define what success means for the era.
