Back in 2000, I started my career as an equity analyst covering building materials.

Think bricks, cement and asphalt. Hardly the stuff to make the Bloomberg News headlines.

As the fund managers gathered in the boardroom for my presentation, I’d glance at all their faces and wonder:

“How am I going to make boring concrete excite these people, who frankly are more interested in mushrooming biotech charts or the next fashion trends at Burberry?”

I struggled for some time before I realised that the secret wasn’t changing the topic, it was all about changing the frame.

Look, let’s face it. In finance, you don’t escape the snoozefests.

You just need to cover them better.

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From “boring” to “must-read”

Financial topics, like compliance, regulatory change and risk frameworks are ALWAYS perceived to be, and branded as, uninteresting.

The mere mention of them results in eye-rolls and muffled groans.

But this isn’t necessarily because they are dull, but because they’re always framed as “must-digest reports” rather than “essential stories”.

Here’s where the psychological framing effect kicks in:

the same information can feel entirely different depending on how it’s presented.

It’s not about making cement sexy. It’s about making the value clear:

“Why this ONE builder’s risk metric could boost your overall portfolio returns for this quarter”

rather than

“This building stocks slide shows its P/E and project backlog.”

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Why experts often mute their own stories

Let’s be honest. Most people in finance are guilty of making smart things sound complicated.

It’s not arrogance, it’s habit. When you’ve spent years mastering a topic, you forget what it’s like not to know it.

That’s part of the curse of knowledge, where you assume everyone knows the context, so you skip the story and jump straight into the data.

In doing so, you lose your audience because your audience doesn’t want your mastery – they want your meaning.

They want why it matters, not how it’s structured.

They don’t care about clause 7.2(b). They care about how it keeps their firm from being tomorrow's headline.

The skill is being able to take the complicated and make it sound essential, not simplified.

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One person’s boring is someone else’s gold

We have to remember that, to us, compliance topics look like chores.

But to a risk manager, they can be their treasure.

A detailed breakdown of regulation might feel like a bedtime read to solve your insomnia, but for a bank’s CFO it’s the playbook for staying ahead.

It’s all in how you frame it to your target audience.

So, instead of:

“New AML regulation explained”, try:

“The one compliance change your bank can’t afford to ignore in 2026.”

Instead of “Quarterly risk report summary”, try:

“What our new stress-tests reveal about your portfolio’s hidden upside.”

The content is still “boring” if you think of it as boring, but when you frame it as needed insight, it becomes compelling.

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Relevance keeps the yawns away

Nothing kills attention faster than: “Here’s something generic you might already know.” Relevance matters more than novelty alone.

For fintech marketers, that means:

Addressing the pain your reader actually lives: “Ever feel your neobank app turns you into a fee-collector by midnight?”

Use the persona voice: speak to the treasury head, the fintech founder, the compliance officer.

And anchor the story in a real outcome, not just “we comply” but “we freed up 37% of unallocated capital.”

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Final thought

If you keep treating compliance or “boring” finance topics like bullet-point handouts, you’re missing the chance to engage deeply.

But if you strategically frame your message, you can turn the most disciplined topic into a brand booster, a lead driver and even your company's differentiator.

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