Harnessing Consumer Attention in a Time of Financial Uncertainty

Health-focused ecosystems that connect financial functions like payments are of particular value to consumers in an uncertain economy, Lynx Head of Business Development and Partnerships Tali Goldstein writes in the new PYMNTS eBook, “What’s Your Plan? Payments Strategies for a Strong 2022 Finish.”

As the economy continues to shift over the course of 2022, consumers are feeling the pressure to navigate not only rising inflation, but daily financial uncertainty. During times of consumer financial strain, employers, health plans, benefit administrators and financial institutions cannot overlook the value they can offer by providing resources that make it easier for consumers to save, afford and pay for necessities like healthcare, food, home loans and more. These organizations have the opportunity to leverage individuals’ heightened attention on their finances in order to increase engagement with other products and services. To help organizations harness this opportunity, we’re focused on building the technology ecosystem that connects health-focused financial accounts with corresponding services.

With 2022 coming to a close, we’re maintaining a razor-sharp focus on two key priorities. First, we always want to ensure that our platform is not only secure and compliant, but also nimble enough to support our diverse clients in building creative solutions. Second, we are determined to build a network of partners across key stakeholders in health and wellness that can work together to support people wholistically. Unfortunately, due to the siloed nature of benefit offerings and health-focused financial accounts today, consumers aren’t aware of the many resources and services available to them through their employers and health plans, such as healthy food programs, healthy behavior rewards or over-the-counter benefits. Our core competency as an embedded FinTech for healthcare company puts us in a unique position to be the underpinning of health-focused ecosystems that connect financial functions like payments, rewards, and investments, with non-financial functions like eCommerce and access to health services.

We imagine a world in which a person can log into their health plan, employer or digital health experience and manage their health savings account investments, pay their physician, place a healthy food delivery, redeem their healthy behavior reward, shop online for over-the-counter products and more — all within a centralized experience that is made possible by both modern FinTech and strong relationships across a diverse set of organizations. Our purpose, which is to support companies in their pursuit of innovation and help their end users improve their health and well-being by making the best use of the money they have, is at the forefront of everything we do, and only becomes more important during turbulent economics periods like the one we’re in today.