Digital innovation continues to impact every sector, and especially that close-knit and fast paced community collectively known as Wall Street. It’s a vastly competitive neighborhood, with the inhabitants tightly packed together, and everyone jockeying for position. Much like the Avengers, yet another NYC-based phenomenon, egos and innovation are barriers to entry and the keys to success.

Against that landscape, FinTech innovators continue to evolve and invest in new concepts, services and IP every week. But whether it’s advances in global risk management, yield calc, or even blockchain integration, the technology is all blurring together in a sea of sameness – at least from a user interface perspective. From Dashboards to Trading Systems, the face of the applications tend to all look the same. While emerging platforms and tools look to create new market opportunities, or give a competitive edge over existing products, they also need to project a personality, tell a story, and differentiate themselves from the pack.

When Tony turns to Jarvis, it’s not the underlying circuitry that sets him apart. It’s that innovative and uniquely effective interface that draws attention. The ability to interact with a persona, to visualize concepts, to control a computer with direct conversation and intuitive gestures – this is Tony’s vision and the differentiator that gives him a clear advantage on the battlefield.

Mr. Stark’s insight is fully extendable to many different sectors, and especially to the competitive FinTech playing field. The underlying IP and technology are, of course, fundamental. But not necessarily decisive. It’s an engaging and intuitive user interface that distinguishes the winners from the losers.

It quickly becomes obvious that even an extensive set of features and the most advanced algorithm on the street is useless, if the user can’t figure out how to use it and quickly put it to work.  The key to winning hearts and minds of internal users, and external clients, is through their overall user experience.

And just to make things even more challenging, increasingly it’s not the end user, but rather the CFO and senior management who are the decision makers for new tech development and acquisition.  For them, given a choice between two platforms, one that looks like it was a holdover from a Windows XT garage sale, and the one that looks like it was personally designed by Steve Jobs himself – the decision becomes clear.

So whether you’re head of the Board Committee for Technology Acquisition at a mid-cap risk fund, or CIO of the latest fintech startup out of Silicon Alley, listen to your Uncle Tony:  the right next gen interface will reduce training, increase adoption, drive ROI, make you stand out, and always win the battle.