The Payment IQ Gap: What B2B Fintechs Must Fix to Grow Faster

Every fintech talks about growth.

But sometimes when it’s time to expand into new markets, launch new features, or scale sales operations - things slow down. Deals stall. Teams misalign. Customers lose confidence.

And often, the problem isn’t strategy, tech, or even talent.

It’s knowledge. Or more specifically - the lack of shared payment knowledge across the business.

How Knowledge Gaps Between Teams Slow FinTech Growth

Picture this. A fast-growing B2B fintech with brilliant engineers, creative marketers, and a sharp commercial team. But put them in a room to map out a new product launch or respond to a complex client RFP, and things start to stall.

Why? Because no one’s quite speaking the same payments language.

The salesperson doesn’t fully grasp what happens post-authorisation. The product manager can’t clearly explain the fee structure. The customer success lead misreads a settlement issue as a platform bug. And leadership assumes “someone” understands the impact of changing acquirers in a new market - only to find out later that “someone” didn’t.

These are not minor knowledge gaps. They can be costly ones.

The Real Cost of Low Payment IQ

Low baseline knowledge doesn’t just create confusion - it limits growth. It slows product development, weakens customer relationships, and creates risky blind spots that become harder to fix at scale.

It’s not that your teams need to become generic payment experts - their unique specialisms are critical. It’s that they need a shared foundation - the context that lets them operate efficiently, ask the right questions, and spot opportunities early.

When everyone from sales to ops understands how money moves, what compliance demands, and where the risk sits - your business becomes smarter and more resilient.

This isn’t just an HR problem. It’s a growth problem.

For many fintech leaders, it’s tempting to view knowledge gaps as HR issues. Something for onboarding. Or an occasional training session. But if you’re serious about scaling, this deserves more attention.

Because the businesses that grow fastest aren’t just the ones with the best tech stack - they’re the ones where teams are aligned around how payments actually work. That alignment turns knowledge into momentum.

When everyone shares the same baseline understanding:

• Sales teams close faster (because they speak the same language as the client)
• Product managers design smarter (because they see the full payment flow)
• Customer support resolves issues quicker (because they understand the root cause)
• Leadership makes bolder moves (because decisions are informed by reality, not assumptions)
  
  

This is what it looks like when Payment IQ is embedded into your organisation.

So Where Do You Start?

Start by acknowledging that learning and development L&D) isn’t a cost centre - it’s an enabler.

Training shouldn’t be limited to new joiners or technical teams. Foundational payment knowledge should sit with everyone responsible for growing your business. That includes product, commercial, marketing, finance, ops, and yes - leadership too.

At PaymentGenes Academy, we developed our Foundation Course because we kept seeing how these knowledge gaps were holding great businesses back. Not in obvious ways. But in the little frictions, delays, and misunderstandings that add up over time - until they block growth.

We believe shared understanding is one of the most underrated drivers of scale.

If you’re building a fintech business - whether in B2B payments, SaaS, infrastructure, or embedded finance - it’s time to take Payment IQ seriously. Not just to prevent mistakes, but to unlock speed, alignment, and stronger customer outcomes.

Learn more about our payments foundation course here.