Nationwide: Payments Built for Every Person

Isabel Pitt, Deputy Payments Director at Nationwide Building Society, brought an energetic, human-centred perspective to the future of payments — one rooted not in infrastructure diagrams or abstract strategy, but in the lived experiences of the people who rely on payments every single day. Pitt’s approach begins with a simple truth: everyone makes a payment. Regardless of socioeconomic status, education, background, or circumstance, payments remain universal. And because payments touch every part of society, the teams designing them must reflect that same diversity.

For Pitt, that realisation has shaped her entire career. She entered the industry through technology, discovering early on how much innovation was needed when she walked into an airport hangar in Australia and found teams manually reconciling thousands of card transactions on spreadsheets. Coming from a tech background, she was stunned — and motivated. It was the moment she realised just how many systems were outdated, underserved, or built without the people in mind who actually use them. That experience now fuels her passion for bringing technology, innovation, and empathy together inside payments.

Her mission is not just to make payments faster or cheaper, but to ensure they are representative, inclusive, and designed with real customers in mind. She emphasises that product teams must avoid designing for themselves — because they are rarely a reflection of the broader population. Understanding people’s lives, needs, vulnerabilities, and moments of financial stress is essential.

One of the things Pitt is proudest of is the impact of Nationwide’s mutual model. Unlike banks with shareholders, Nationwide reinvests its surplus directly into its members. Its recent “thank you” payment, delivered during a challenging economic period, had a meaningful impact on households. Pitt described how customers shared stories of what that unexpected help meant to them — moments that reinforced the significance of community banking done well.

Nationwide also invests heavily in social impact, supporting charities focused on youth rehoming, ageing, and vulnerable communities. For Pitt, these initiatives reflect a simple principle: payments aren’t just a utility — they can be a force for dignity, inclusion, and positive change.

Her message to the industry is clear: if you build payments for everyone, you need everyone in the room when decisions are made. Diversity isn’t optional; it’s the foundation of a fair, functional financial system.