JPMorgan Chase last month predicted a 60% chance of recession by 2020, and that increases to an 80% chance by 2021. It’s not clear how traumatic an event it would be for the U.S. economy, but considering all the new players that have jumped onto the financial scene since the last downturn a decade ago, it could get messy.

Most fintech startups have never faced an event like a global recession. Even innovation groups at banks are relatively new. But will these companies and initiatives at big banks be first on the chopping block when things go south?

Russell Raath, president of Kotter Consulting, and formerly with Deloitte and Bank of America, told Bank Innovation, if you want to know whether a company is going to weather the storm, look at its leaders.

He said many fintechs just simply aren’t in it for the long haul and their leaders put as much thought into the exit plan as entering the market to begin with. There are odd cases, he said, like Square, that seem to have carved out a formidable niche in the financial space.

At this year’s Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, the CEOs of Prosper Marketplace, Lending Club and SoFi all spoke to a common theme – preparing for the coming storm and choosing loans for quality, not quantity.

David Kimball, CEO of Prosper, had told Bank Innovation that the company grew “much more conservative” in its two years under his leadership. Not only did Prosper get pickier in choosing its borrowers, whose average FICO floated up to around 720, the company also cut staff from 670 to around 400 employees and brought on a more diverse group of investors (drifting away from hedge funds).

Raath said most fintechs will have to figure out how to leverage the advantage of “being cool” and having products that set them apart from others in order to attract and retain investors, and/or be integrated into a larger system. He said the bottom line is not all fintechs can survive without the support from (or outright acquisition by) large banks.

“It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he said.

Raath said banks, for their part, should focus not only on improving the tools of banking but on technology that helps leaders make decisions and be better prepared. He also said banks need to understand what their differentiator is and drive the majority of their innovation dollars toward making that the best product or service in the industry.

For all the areas in which banks and fintechs are driving innovation, often removing people from processes, Raath said people still want facetime and an actual person, rather than a machine, they can trust.

“We want predictability,” he said. “When things are predictable we’re more chill.”

He stressed the importance of communication, which is something he said was lacking leading up to and after the last recession, internally and externally.

“No one knew how to communicate,” Raath said, adding that he’s seeing more banks requiring teams to talk to each other every week.

Still, he said many leaders are playing a role they haven’t played before when it comes to dealing with people.

Raath also said banks need to be honest and set aside fears of missing out or fears of people’s opinions. He said corporate communications and PR teams can “suck the life out of authenticity,” which is crucial in building trust with customers and investors.

“Everyone knows when the world isn’t looking so rosy,” he said.

Raath said banks of all sizes would benefit from keeping the human component of banking in mind when it comes to deciding how to spend innovation and technology dollars. He said small and midsize banks especially can differentiate when it comes to relationships and customer intimacy, rather than technology or product offering.

“That’s innovation in a way we haven’t really seen yet,” he said. “There’s an opportunity now to look at the human dynamic that’s around banking.”