How to Make a Banking Pitch Deck [A Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 3d
- 7 min read
Updated: 1d
A few weeks ago, Damien, one of our clients, asked us an interesting question while we were building his banking pitch deck:
“What’s the one thing investors look for first in a banking pitch?”
Our Creative Director didn’t even pause before answering,
“Clarity. No one funds confusion.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many banking pitch decks throughout the year. And in the process, we’ve observed one common challenge: too much jargon, too little storytelling.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about how to build a banking pitch deck that feels grounded, clear and investor-ready—without sounding like you copied it from a compliance manual.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why Most Banking Pitch Decks Fall Flat
Let’s be honest. A lot of banking pitch decks read like a textbook from 2003. Dense language, 10-point font, and an overdose of acronyms. You flip through it and think, “Who is this for? An investor or an underwriter?”
That’s the problem.
You’re not pitching a regulatory framework. You’re pitching a business—one that happens to operate in a highly regulated space. And the people on the other side of the table? They’re not looking to audit your knowledge. They’re asking a simpler question: Should we trust you with our money?
This is where most banking founders miss the mark. They focus on sounding technical and sophisticated instead of sounding clear and credible. But investors don’t fund ideas they don’t understand. If they’re squinting at your slides trying to decode your core offering, your numbers won’t save you.
Now, we get why this happens. When you’ve spent years building something complex—maybe a new lending product, a credit-scoring engine, or a cross-border remittance system—you naturally want to explain every moving part. But complexity doesn't equal value. If anything, it hides it.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:The smarter your product, the simpler your deck needs to be.
Because clarity tells investors you know what you’re doing. That you’ve thought it through. That you can communicate it to your team, your customers, and the market.
And that’s ultimately what gets people to lean in.
How to Make a Banking Pitch Deck
We’ve built dozens of banking pitch decks. Fintech startups, private lending firms, credit advisory platforms, and yes, even traditional players trying to raise funds for a digital pivot. What we’ve learned is this: the format is flexible, but the logic behind a great deck is not.
So let’s walk through what actually works. Not theoretically. Not hypothetically. But what works when you're sitting across the table from an investor with a short attention span and a thousand other decks waiting in their inbox.
1. Open Strong, Not Safe
Please stop opening your deck with a slide that says “About Us” or “Our Vision.” It’s not that those things aren’t important. They are. But not at the very top. That first slide should punch above its weight. It should tell me why this deck matters and why now is the time to pay attention.
We usually start with something we call the “Opportunity Slide.” It’s a simple but bold snapshot of the industry gap. This could be a broken process in consumer banking, a rise in unbanked customers in emerging markets, or outdated underwriting models in small business lending.
Numbers help here. But only if they’re framed right. “$4.2 trillion in untapped lending opportunity” is a stat. But “$4.2 trillion in overlooked lending opportunity—because traditional banks still don’t serve X segment” is a message.
Your first slide isn’t about you. It’s about the world. And what’s wrong with it.
2. Define the Problem Like an Insider
Banking is full of buzzwords. “Financial inclusion,” “digital-first,” “compliance-driven,” “scalable infrastructure.” Most decks just regurgitate these. Don’t.
If you’re solving a real problem in banking, show us that you live it. That you know the bottlenecks in onboarding. The risks in underwriting. The pain points in managing float. Investors don’t just need to see the problem. They need to believe you’re the person who can solve it.
A good problem slide isn’t dramatic. It’s precise. For example:
“SMEs in Southeast Asia wait an average of 32 days for invoice payments, locking up working capital and delaying growth. Banks view them as risky. We disagree.”
That tells me you know where the fire is.
3. Your Solution Slide Should Not Be a Feature List
This is where most founders turn the deck into a demo. Slide after slide of product shots, dashboards, integrations. Look, we get it. You’ve built something cool. But features don’t sell a banking idea. Outcomes do.
Instead, your solution slide should answer one question: What changes for the user or customer because you exist?
Maybe you enable faster credit scoring using alternative data. Maybe you streamline onboarding by combining KYC and AML into one flow. Maybe you reduce fraud losses by X percent. The point is to focus on the shift you’re creating, not the buttons you built.
Pro tip: Use one clean visual here. Maybe it’s a before-and-after flow. Maybe it’s a short customer story. But make it visual, not verbal. The brain remembers pictures. Not paragraphs.
4. Business Model: Keep It Stupid Simple
Banking models can get messy. Licensing, interchange, fees, spreads, white-label partnerships. We’ve seen pitch decks that look like a legal agreement. Don’t do that.
Instead, map out your business model like you’re explaining it to your smart friend over coffee. What do you charge? Who pays you? How often? And how does scale make your economics better?
If you’re B2C, show us your margins and your cost to acquire users. If you’re B2B, break down deal sizes, sales cycles, and any recurring revenue streams.
Here’s a format that tends to work well:
Customer Pays: Flat monthly fee (or percentage of volume)
We Earn: $X per user per month
Margins Improve When: Onboarding cost drops, or customer lifetime extends
Investors don’t expect your model to be perfect. They expect it to be logical. Clean beats clever here.
5. Market Size: Make It Real, Not Ridiculous
This slide is often misused. We’ve seen too many decks throw in a massive number—something like “$30 trillion global banking industry”—as if that automatically makes the idea investable.
Here’s what we recommend: make the market size specific to your product and go one level deeper than the usual “TAM/SAM/SOM” pyramid.
If you’re building a new-age neobank for freelancers, tell us how many freelancers there are, what percentage are underbanked, and what they currently pay for similar services.
Real market sizing sounds like:
“There are 58M freelancers in the US. 40% don’t qualify for traditional business loans. Our offering addresses this segment, which we estimate to be a $14B opportunity.”
Keep it grounded. That’s what builds trust.
6. Traction: Show Signals, Not Just Sales
Not every banking startup is post-revenue, and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean you have nothing to show. Traction isn’t just dollars in the bank. It’s movement in the right direction.
Think about:
Partnerships signed (especially with banks or institutions)
Pilot programs completed
Customer growth or waitlist size
Early revenue or repeat usage
Regulatory licenses in progress
Even a strong testimonial from a beta user can work, if positioned right.
The point is to show that the wheels are turning, and that this isn’t just a slide show—it’s a living, breathing business.
7. Team: Don’t Just List Names, Tell Us Why You Matter
Another common mistake: founders just slap their headshots and LinkedIn bios on a slide and move on. That’s a missed opportunity.
The team slide is your credibility checkpoint. It’s where you convince investors that you’re the reason this thing could work.
Instead of just listing roles, explain relevance. Maybe your CTO built payment infrastructure at a big bank. Maybe your Head of Risk spent 10 years inside regulatory policy.
Position your team like this:
Name, Title: Ex-Visa, 10+ years in payment systems
What they own: Risk, Compliance, Regulatory Strategy
This tells the story: “We’ve got the right people in the right seats.”
8. Competitive Landscape: Don't Be Afraid to Name Names
A lot of founders skip this slide or pretend they’re the only ones doing anything remotely similar. That’s not realistic. Investors want to know you’ve studied the space.
Use a simple quadrant or table. Map your competitive landscape. Be honest. But position clearly.
Maybe you’re faster than the legacy players, but more secure than the startups. Maybe you serve a niche others ignore. Maybe your product stack allows integrations that others can’t support.
Don’t just say “we’re better.” Say how you’re different and why that difference matters.
Clarity wins trust here. Not arrogance.
9. Roadmap and Use of Funds: Don’t Get Lost in the Weeds
Use this slide to show direction, not detail. Investors don’t need to know the month you’ll launch Feature X. They need to know what milestones you’re aiming for and how their money gets you there.
Break it down like this:
Next 6 months: Expand engineering team, complete beta rollout
Next 12 months: Regulatory approvals, first 1,000 paid users
Use of funds: 50% product, 30% go-to-market, 20% operations
Keep it clean. Think big picture, not Gantt chart.
10. End With Clarity, Not Drama
End your pitch deck with a summary slide that ties everything together. Think of it as your closing argument.
What are you building?
Who is it for?
Why now?
How much are you raising?
That last one—your ask—shouldn’t be vague. Tell them the number. Tell them what it’s for. And tell them what it gets you to.
Something like:
“We’re raising $2.5M to take our platform from 500 beta users to 10,000 paying customers across 3 geographies in the next 18 months.”
That’s focused. It shows ambition without fluff.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.