Gen’s MoneyLion Move Redefines Protection to Include Financial Wellness

Digital scams and economic uncertainty are both rising, and that’s forcing a rethink of what protection means.

“Protection in this day and age has evolved quite a bit. It’s gone from protecting devices through antivirus to protecting your privacy, your data, and protecting you from scams,” Tim Hong, Global Head of Financial Wellness Technology at Gen, told PYMNTS during a discussion hosted by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.

The April 2025 addition of the fintech MoneyLion to Gen’s existing portfolio of security stalwarts like Norton, LifeLock and Avast, Hong explained, “enhances that promise” of protection by extending Gen’s capabilities from security into consumers’ financial lives.

Still, fintech and cybersecurity might seem like strange bedfellows, and Webster pressed Hong on how Gen defines success across the different customer bases represented by its business lines.

“The KPIs are incredibly important,” he said. “For MoneyLion, we might look at how we’re helping folks improve their credit. In the protection space, we might measure how often we’re alerting people to unusual transactions.”

In other words, the idea of protection is expanding from preventing harm to empowering growth.

The combination, Hong said, “starts with the customer.”

And consumers don’t experience life in silos. Their financial security is directly linked to their digital security, especially as scams become more sophisticated.

Read more: MoneyLion Acquired by Gen Digital to Create Financial Security Ecosystem

The Logic Behind the Deal

MoneyLion, founded in 2013, built its brand on the promise of democratizing access to financial tools like credit-building, savings, and personalized advice through a single mobile app. Gen, meanwhile, has spent decades building consumer trust around digital safety.

Hong described the two-way benefit of the acquisition as such: Gen lends its decades-long reputation for security; MoneyLion brings immediacy and measurable financial outcomes.

“There’s no more trust-building experience than when a product delivers on its value,” he said. “It’s one thing to have a claim on a marketing website or a brand that’s been around for decades. But it’s even more powerful when you can show someone, ‘We’ve built your credit by 30 points’ … As a fintech, what’s the most important thing that you’re trying to build over time? It’s trust.”

A simple example illustrates the ambition. LifeLock’s home title monitoring flags suspicious ownership changes. Hong sees a broader opportunity: “How do we help people monitor the value of their home? How do we help them finance a home improvement project or refinance their mortgage?” Each touchpoint deepens engagement and uses Gen’s “first-party data” to personalize value in real time.

Rethinking Financial Wellness

Financial wellness has become one of the most overused — and underdefined — phrases in the industry. Webster pushed Hong to clarify what it means inside Gen’s new ecosystem. His answer was grounded in personalization.

“Every person and every segment has a different definition of financial health,” he said.

Secure financial wellness, in this context, represents a strategy to embed protection into every stage of a consumer’s financial life.

The integration of MoneyLion also creates synergies allowing Gen to cross-pollinate innovations across its brands. One example: Norton’s scam analyzer, which lets users upload screenshots of suspicious text messages for verification.

“How do we build that into making sure MoneyLion users aren’t sending money to a scam artist?” Hong explained. “Identity protection and scam prevention are things we’re really excited to bring to that set. They may not have as much to protect, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have protection… It’s about helping people feel safe enough to move forward, to not just protect what they have, but build what they want next.”

“When customers viewed identity theft and scam protection, it was really about protecting money,” Hong added. “At the end of the day, that’s what these attacks go after.”

How Data Informs the Move from Protection to Empowerment

For MoneyLion’s younger users, financial health is more about building resilience—improving credit, saving for emergencies, and managing everyday expenses.

“The tools we apply are very different,” Hong explained. “Some of the data we use is the same, bank transactions, credit data, but the profile is very different. We take an approach that’s personalized to make financial wellness specific to each individual.”

“It’s often the products themselves that become the education tool,” Webster said, noting that such a tailored model represents a shift away from generic financial education by embedding learning into the experience itself.

“At the core of it is really first-party data,” Hong emphasized. The goal is not to use data for advertising, but to personalize insights that genuinely improve outcomes.

That ecosystem effect is central to Gen’s business model: the more trust it earns, the more data consumers willingly share, and the more personalized the protection it can deliver.

Hong added that MoneyLion’s “snackable” financial content, including short-form videos and social-style updates, is designed to motivate without overwhelming.

“A blog post about a rainy-day fund isn’t the reason someone doesn’t have one,” he said. “We look to address the root causes of instability—and show social proof that people like them are succeeding.”