This is the first article in a series Fintech Weekly is publishing throughout March on women in fintech. If you have a story to tell, email me at [email protected].
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Something Most Women in This Industry Already Know
During a job interview, I was asked whether I had children.
The question was asked naturally, almost casually, as if it were a reasonable thing to want to know before deciding whether to hire someone.
The question stayed with me — not because it was shocking, but because it was so ordinary. That is the part worth sitting with.
It was not an isolated incident. It was the texture of an industry that has not fully decided what to do with women who are serious about their careers. And if you are a woman working in finance or fintech, you probably have your own version of that story.
The question that should not have been asked. The room where you were the only one. The promotion that went to someone who simply asked for it louder.
The data confirms what those moments already told us.
What the Numbers Say About 2025
Global fintech funding grew 27% in 2025, according to Crunchbase data, reaching $51.8 billion — the strongest year since 2022. The industry recovered. Investment came back. The sector reclaimed its position as the top destination for European venture capital in terms of deal value.
Female-led fintech companies in the UK raised $76 million across 57 deals. That is 37% less than the $120 million they raised in 2024, a year when total funding was lower. Their share of total UK fintech funding came in at 2.1%.
Women hold 6% of CEO positions across the global fintech industry, according to FMIntelligence research.
These numbers do not describe a sector on the verge of solving its gender problem. They describe a sector in which a strong recovery year produced worse outcomes for female founders than the weaker year before it.
The System Is Not Broken. It Has a Logic.
The instinct when reading data like this is to reach for the word "broken." The system is broken. The pipeline is broken. The funding model is broken.
It is worth resisting that framing, not because the situation is acceptable, but because calling something broken implies it was supposed to work differently. The structures that produce these numbers were not designed with female participation in mind. They are working as they were built. Understanding that is more useful than lamenting it.
Ana Luisa Monteiro, CFO and Partner at Cumbuca and a former leader at XP Inc., has spent her career inside those structures — and working to change them from within. Her perspective on why the numbers look the way they do starts not with funding data but with something more immediate: the moment a woman decides whether to put her hand up.
She has observed consistently that highly qualified women self-select out of opportunities because they feel they need to be completely ready before stepping forward. The willingness to apply before feeling fully prepared, to negotiate a salary before feeling certain it will be granted, to ask for a promotion before being certain it is deserved — these are not personality traits. They are learned responses to environments where the consequences of overreach have historically been higher for women than for men.
She puts it plainly: women often operate with a mentality of waiting to earn a promotion, while others apply even without matching all the stated requirements.
The Double Standard That Doesn't Show Up in Pay Gap Data
The pay gap is measurable. The perception gap is harder to quantify but equally consequential.
Monteiro describes a pattern that many women in financial services will recognize immediately. When a man is direct in a meeting, he is read as decisive. When a woman is equally direct, she risks being read as difficult. The behavior is identical. The professional consequence is not.
This is not a complaint about individual bias. It is a structural observation about how performance gets evaluated in organizations that were built around a particular kind of leadership — one that was, for most of its history, exclusively male. The criteria used to assess who is ready for promotion, who communicates effectively, who has what it takes — these were not designed to be neutral. They reflect the people who designed them.
The fintech industry, which positioned itself from its earliest days as a departure from traditional finance, has largely inherited those same criteria. The disruption stopped at the org chart.
What Structural Change Actually Looks Like
Monteiro's most concrete example of what real change requires comes from the work she led at XP Inc. through MLHR3, a women's leadership initiative built around measurable outcomes rather than symbolic gestures.
One of its most significant interventions addressed maternity leave and variable compensation. Women on maternity leave effectively see their annual earnings reduced. Maternity leave can also impact promotions.
The policy change that came out of MLHR3 ensured that women on maternity leave continued to receive variable compensation. The result was a structural correction to a mechanism that was quietly widening the pay gap without anyone having to intend it.
This example matters because it illustrates the difference between inclusion as a stated value and inclusion as an operational commitment. The former produces statements. The latter produces policy changes that show up in someone's bank account.
At Cumbuca, where Monteiro is now CFO, the approach treats diversity as a performance variable rather than a parallel agenda. The company tracks indicators including equity distribution and monitors female participation across roles. The underlying argument is direct: people with different backgrounds produce different thinking, and different thinking produces better outcomes. Diversity is not separate from the business case. It is part of it.
Why This Series Exists
Fintech Weekly is covering women in fintech throughout March because the story deserves more than one day.
International Women's Day produces a reliable annual cycle of reports, panels, and pledges. Some of them are useful. Most are forgotten by the following week. The structural issues that produce the numbers above do not resolve in a news cycle. They resolve through the kind of sustained, operational work that Monteiro describes: policy changes, tracked metrics, and the quiet, unglamorous work of making an organization function differently than it was designed to.
The women doing that work are not waiting to be completely ready. They stopped doing that a long time ago.
Editor's note: We are committed to accuracy. If you spot an error, a missing detail, or have additional information about any of the topics covered in this article, please email us at [email protected]. We will review and update promptly.
