How do I evaluate a branding agency’s portfolio for financial services work?

By Yamm Labs · Updated September 2026 · 6 min read

A marketing head at a mid-size fund house in Mumbai has three agency decks open side by side. All three show handsome bank and insurer rebrands: new logos, new colours, a hero film still. Not one slide shows a risk warning, a key facts screen or an insurer’s registered name sitting under a logo. She has to shortlist one agency by Friday, and she cannot tell which of them has ever shipped work that got through a compliance desk. That missing slide is the whole test.

What should a branding agency portfolio for financial services show?

A general branding portfolio shows ideas. A financial services portfolio has to show ideas that survived rules. In India that means work built around SEBI, IRDAI and RBI requirements, and in payments around NPCI’s product rules. The rules do not change what a brand stands for. They change where things sit on a screen, how long a frame holds and what order a customer sees things in.

So the useful portfolio pieces are the unglamorous ones. The mutual fund film with its closing frame. The insurance print ad at its smallest size. The lending app journey from eligibility check to signature. Ask for those before you ask for the logo story. Our fintech and BFSI branding FAQ holds the short version of this answer; this page is the full one.

Which regulator-driven design decisions should you ask to see?

Each category of financial brand carries at least one rule that decides layout. A capable agency can name the rule in plain words and show the decision it forced. Use this table as your question list in the pitch meeting.

If an agency answers every row with “we are compliance-aware”, move on. If it pulls up the screen and explains the trade-off it made, keep talking.

How do you tell shipped work from concept work?

Many portfolios mix live campaigns with pitch concepts and unbuilt rebrands. For a regulated buyer, only the shipped work counts, because only shipped work has met a compliance desk. These five questions separate the two quickly.

• Where did it run? Ask for the channel and the approximate month it went live. Concept work has no answer.
• Show me the smallest size. Disclosures break at banner and story sizes first. A portfolio that shows only hero sizes is hiding the hard part.
• What changed after compliance review? Real projects have a before and after. Ask to see both versions and hear why the change was made.
• Who signed it off on the client side? The answer should name a role, such as compliance or legal, not only the marketing team.
• How long did review take? An agency that has shipped regulated work knows its review rounds and plans for them.

A financial services portfolio is proven by the disclaimer, not the logo.

What are the red flags in a BFSI branding portfolio?

• No disclosures anywhere. Every slide is a clean hero image. Either the work never ran, or the agency cropped out the part you most need to judge.
• Client logos without work. A wall of bank and insurer logos says nothing about what the agency made or whether it shipped.
• Outcomes without sources. Big percentage claims with no campaign, date or channel attached are a sign the numbers will not survive your own compliance team either.
• One template for every category. A fund, an insurer and a lender face different rules. If the case studies read the same, the agency is not working from the rules.

How should a buyer weigh portfolio, process and category fit?

The portfolio tells you what an agency can make. The process tells you whether it can make it again for you, on your regulator’s terms. Weigh them together. A strong portfolio in your own category, with shipped work you can inspect, is the best signal. A strong portfolio in a neighbouring category, plus a clear review process, is a reasonable second choice. A beautiful portfolio with no regulated work in it is a risk you will pay for in review rounds.

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Insurers should read our note on how to brief an insurance branding agency before the pitch. To judge us by the same standard, our clients include TATA AIA Life Insurance, HDFC Life, Axis Bank, Paytm Money and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, and you can see how we think on our work page. Ask us the same five questions.

A step-by-step review of a branding agency portfolio

Most shortlists are decided in a meeting of about an hour. The steps below fit that hour and leave you with notes you can compare across agencies. Send the list to each agency two days before the meeting, so nobody arrives with only a showreel.

1. Ask for two or three shipped pieces in your category. Name the category in the invitation: fund, insurer, lender, payments or broking. Tell the agency you will ask about the disclosures on each piece.
2. Open each piece at its smallest live size. Look at the phone-width banner, the story frame or the end frame of the film. Check that the required text is there and can be read.
3. Ask for the rule behind each placement. The agency should name the regulator and the requirement in plain words, then show the design decision it forced.
4. Ask for the before and after. One version before compliance review, one after. Listen for why the change was made and who asked for it.
5. Ask for the review calendar. How many rounds, how long each took, and who signed off on the client side.
6. Write down one score per piece. Use the same three questions for every agency: did it ship, are the disclosures in place, and can the team explain the trade-off?

The order matters. Steps one and two filter out concept work before you spend time on process questions, and step six keeps the comparison fair when the decks look very different from each other.

Common mistakes when judging a financial services portfolio

Buyers who have run many agency pitches still make a few predictable errors when the work is regulated. Each one below costs time later, usually in review rounds after the contract is signed.

• Judging the hero frame only. The hero frame is where the agency has the most freedom. The small sizes and the end frames are where the rules apply, so that is where skill shows.
• Letting marketing judge alone. If compliance only meets the agency after the contract, the first review round becomes the real pitch. Bring someone from compliance or legal to the portfolio meeting for part of the hour.
• Counting logos instead of pieces. A long client list tells you who paid the agency, not what the agency made. Ask which piece belongs to which client and what the agency’s own part was.
• Accepting “under NDA” as the end of the conversation. Confidential work can still be shown privately on screen. If nothing can be shown at all, you have nothing to judge.
• Treating a neighbouring category as your category. Insurance lockups, fund end frames and loan key facts screens solve different problems. Ask which of them the agency has actually shipped.
• Ignoring the agency’s own claims. If the agency’s deck carries big outcome numbers with no source, ask for the source. The way it answers tells you how it will handle claims in your advertising.

How to brief agencies before the portfolio meeting

A good brief makes every agency show comparable work. Without one, each agency brings its prettiest project and you end up comparing taste. Keep the brief to one page and send it to every agency on the same day.

State your category and your regulator in the first line. A mutual fund brief should say that audio-visual work carries the standard risk warning. An insurer brief should say that the registered name travels with the logo. A lender brief should say that the key facts statement comes before signature. You are not testing whether the agency knows the rule. You are asking it to bring the work that shows it.

Then list what you want to see: two or three shipped pieces in your category, each at its smallest live size, with the versions from before and after compliance review. Ask for the review calendar of one project. Ask who from the agency would run your account day to day, and ask that person to present one of the pieces.

Finally, tell each agency who will be in the room. If your compliance head is coming, say so. An agency that has shipped regulated work should be comfortable with that, and one that asks to keep compliance out of the first meeting has told you something useful.

A worked example: scoring three agency decks

Go back to the marketing head with three decks open. Here is how the method above turns her Friday deadline into a decision. The agencies and answers below are an illustration, not real firms.

Agency B drops out on the first row. Agency A has shipped regulated work but could not show the small sizes or the review history, so it stays on the list with questions attached. Agency C has shown every part of the test. She shortlists C, keeps A as the second option, and asks A for banner sizes and one before-and-after pair before the next round.

Notice what did not decide it: logo quality, the showreel and the client list. All three decks had those. The decision came from the parts of a branding agency portfolio that only regulated, shipped work can produce.

People also ask

Should a fintech brand only hire an agency with work in its exact category?

Not always. Exact category experience is the strongest signal, but an agency with shipped work in a neighbouring regulated category and a clear review process can adapt. What it cannot do is learn regulated work on your launch.

How many financial services case studies should a portfolio have?

There is no fixed number. Two or three shipped pieces you can inspect in detail, disclosures included, tell you more than twenty polished concept boards.

Can I ask an agency to show work under NDA?

Yes. Many BFSI projects cannot be published in full, so ask for a private walkthrough of the live assets. An agency that refuses even that has nothing regulated to show.

What is the best way to review a branding agency portfolio for a bank or lender?

Ask for shipped lending work at its smallest live size, with the disclosures in place. For a lender, that means the loan journey screens in order, with the key facts statement before signature. Ask what changed after compliance review and who signed off. Then score every agency on the same three questions: did it ship, are the disclosures in place, and can the team explain the trade-off it made?

Should compliance attend the agency portfolio meeting?

Yes, for at least part of it. A compliance or legal colleague will spot a missing disclosure faster than a marketing team, and the agency’s response to that colleague shows you how review rounds are likely to go. Share the agency’s shipped pieces in advance so the questions in the room are specific rather than general.

Does a long client list prove an agency can do regulated work?

No. A client list shows who paid the agency, not what it made or whether the work ran. Ask which piece belongs to which client, what the agency’s own role was, and whether the work went live. A shorter list with shipped work you can inspect is a better signal than a long wall of bank and insurer logos.

How long should a branding agency portfolio review take?

About an hour per agency is enough if you send the question list two days ahead. Spend most of that time on two or three shipped pieces in your category rather than on the showreel. Keep notes in the same format for every agency, so the comparison at the end is quick and fair to each of them.