Fintech Insider By 11:fs

Walking on to Barry White blaring out over the sound system, Jason and Simon kicked off After Dark IV, the Valentine's Day special - our biggest ever live After Dark show at WeWork Moorgate. With over 300 fintech fans in attendance, the guys introduced a fantastic panel of guests including Valentina Kristensen, Head of Marketing at Oak North; 11:FS Pulse and Research Director, Ross Gallagher; our most prolific podcast guest, co-host of InsurTech Insider, Business Insider analyst and reporter, Sarah Kocianski, and HSBC’s Global Head of Corporate and Institutional Digital, Niall Cameron. Fully provisioned with alcohol and a wealth of terrible Valentine's day puns the panel were all set to unpick the week's top (and often sillier) stories. We kicked off with the news that venture capital investment into fintech more than doubles, according to Innovate Finance reports; next up we have a swathe of Blockchain Insider stories starting with Jay Z’s Roc Nation investment in Robin Hood, and France and Germany's cal

In this very special FCA Takeover Jason speaks to: Anna Wallace - Innovate Head of Department and Nick Cook - Head of Regtech & Advanced Analytics all about Project Innovate and future plans for the sandbox following Chris Woolard's announcement, interview and paper earlier in the week. (For more info on that, check out Ep 182 of Fintech Insider where Jason got the scoop). Next up he and Simon talk PSD2 and Open Banking with Graeme McLean - head of banking and lending policy; and Val Smith - Director of Credit Authorisations. They chat about the successes of Open Banking so far, what could've been better and what the future looks like. And we also had the chance to talk about the FCA’s Competition remit with Mary Starks - Director of Competition and Chief Economist. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Speci

Chris Woolard, Strategy and Competition Director, at the FCA speaks exclusively to Jason Bates about an announcement concerning their regulatory sandbox. Without giving the game away, they discuss the FCA;s latest paper about their future plans for the sandbox, how this will help companies and also take advantage of reg tech. Chris tells us about the success of the previous 4 cohorts of the sandbox to date, and what the future looks like. He explains what the Innovate department of the FCA does and what it focuses on. He tells us about the importance of regulation, especially for start ups and how the FCA is best placed to help start ups, they don't want to appear unfriendly or intimidating so that start ups actively avoid being properly regulated. Additionally they also discuss Chris' background, how he got into the role and the importance of competition in the market. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get i

In this week's news show Simon and Jason are joined by 11:FS NED Chris Skinner, Tanya Andreasyan, Editor at Banking Technology; Kristian Luoma - Head of OP Lab, in town from Helsinki for one night only and Cliff Evans, Head of Digital Banking at Capgemini, to take on the week’s top stories. This week they look at the monumental shifts in both global stock exchanges and crypto markets - what has been going on, can it bounce back and should we be worried?; the US take on Open Banking - what can they learn from the UK?, and exciting developments in the SME space both here and abroad. We speak to TSB Commercial Director Richard Davies to tell us more on their planned £100m injection of funds into the UK"s SME sector. The team also take on, big banks calling for regulation of tech giants, Alipay's new ventures into cashless European tourism, Penta's funding round, the death of the chatbot, the UX revolution in banking that might have passed you by, and how out of date computer systems are allowing hackers to

Simon Taylor chats to Mike Kelly, CEO and founder of Curl, a new payment network, designed around merchants and consumers. It works via usernames and bank transfers, and is built around Open Banking, and the opportunities that's developed in the market. Simon and Mike dig into what makes the Curl payment network stand out, what the rationale is behind the usernames, and the opportunities available with the arrival of Open Banking. They talk about Curl business model, how it helps both consumers and merchants alike, what the technology is behind the network and how it processes payments, and introduces us to the idea of "hands free" payments. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guest: Mike Kelly.

Simon Taylor speaks to Scott O'Malia, CEO of ISDA, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Kicking off: what IS ISDA? Why is standardisation so important? How do companies work with ISDA? Scott tells us all. He also tells us about his unique background and career, from a front row seat to the financial crisis to regulating for the future to avoid future crises. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guest: Scott O'Malia.

In today's show the team take on: whether Brexit really is more of an opportunity than a threat to fintech, as the MP involved seems to believe, your weekly dose of Open Banking insight, plus special mention of Credit Ladder's new use case for open banking, and the stepping down of Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Atom Bank. They also discuss the Gaurdian's story that 7 in 10 UK workers are “chronically broke”, and why that could be and are people just missing opportunities to save? Opinions are divided on this highly contested topic. Meanwhile in the US millennials are seemingly more financially secure that we thought. Simon takes on Robinhood's cryptotrading and its appeal to the millennial market, could it be using crypto as a way of luring users into their app to make other more traditional trades and investments? We speak also speak to PensionBee CEO Romi Savova about HER open letter to Aegon, accusing them of bullying and preventing users from transitioning out of Aegon into PensionBee. We hope you e

Mental health affect us all, not least when we have financial difficulties or worries. Time to Talk Day opens up the conversation around mental health and removes the taboo, asking all of us to be more open about our mental health. Simon Taylor chaired a panel discussing how financial services can be more astute about mental health and how they can improve the relationship between their products, customers and mental health challenges. We invited along subject matter expert James Routledge from Sanctus, an organisation specifically challenging perceptions of mental health, with the aim of normalising conversations around mental health and how workplaces can better accommodate this, as well as FS experts Ghela Boskovitch and Jo Ann Barefoot and the FCA's Nick Cook to tackle how financial services can offer more frictionless services that better accommodate customers' mental health as well as financial situation. If you’d like to know more, do take a look at some of the Money and Mental Health Policy Instit

Coming to you from Kabbage offices in Atlanta, where Sam and our wonderful guests delve deep into the Fintech hub over some beverages. San Francisco has Silicon Valley and Atlanta is has 'Transaction Valley'- but why? Well 70% of payment transactions come through a company listed in Atlanta. If there's someone in fintech in the payment space, they're either in Atlanta or have something to do with the area- safe to say Atlanta really does live and breathe payments. The team also talk about fintech education, organic company cultures and building the backbone of payments. They also take a look at some topical news stories in the payments space. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guests: Ginger Schmeltzer, Joe Kleinwaechter, and Kathryn Petralia.

Our show begins by discussing why Fintechs and Banks are duelling for talent, as financial technology startups go in hiring overdrive- thus butting heads with the incumbents for the very best candidates. Are banks worried about losing out on top rate talent? Next we explore some pretty damning stats, as the U.S. big four retail banks dealt with almost 20% increase in credit card losses last year. Financial crash anybody? The team get their bear masks on and discuss how growing credit card debts in individuals could be increasingly concerning for incumbents and the economy in general. Staying with empty bank accounts....Wells Fargo apologise for a a glitch that emptied out bank accounts. According to reports, a glitch caused online bill payments to be processed twice which led to some customers with very unhealthy bank balances. Moving across the world, Australia plan to introduce industry-wide platform for real-time payments called the NPP (New Payments Platform). The infrastructure will allow payments bet

Many financial services companies are trying to build from the ground up, creating new banking systems or products that are more in line with creating an efficient and customer centric front end. Avoka on the other hand, are creating acquisition products that work in tandem with core banking systems. Chief Experience Officer Derek Corcoran talks us through how Avoka are creating a platform for better customer experience. Indeed, opening current accounts and signing up for a credit card can be tedious, and it's definitely not mobile friendly. Instead of going through 30 layers of customer on boarding that most users fail to do all in one go, Derek discusses how their business model centres around the 'one and done' instantaneous form submission that makes sign-ups all so simple. Not only is their process faster and more convenient, there's also an added element of security- photo ID recognition means users take photos of their driving licences or passports making the sign-up faster and safer. They handle th

So what is an investment platform? According to our panel it's much like a supermarket- you go in and buy lots of things, however you're also doing all the cooking! We discuss how robo advisors can disrupt investment platforms, by scaling the 'do it for you' investment model through technology, and how this interesting supermarket analogy gets altered due to it. We then move on to Millennial wealth and investment, exploring how newer generations don't have the benefit of buying property and seeing prices skyrocket, whilst also being saddled with debt as they begin their working lives. But how does a generation that has grown up with social media, a generation that is exposed to instant gratification so often- grow to understand the non-immediacy of investment? Or is this the responsibility of investment platforms- does this area need to be more accessible? Mitigating the jargon and bridging that financial literacy gap is imperative, but could governments rather than financial isntitutions be the answer in

David, Jason and Simon were joined by Chris Skinner and Monty Munford for this week's news show from a pub in Bermondsey, complete with pints and pie - the full British pub experience. We’re now past “deadline day” so naturally our first batch of stories concerned Open Banking and what the banking landscape looks like so far in the wake of PSD2 becoming law on 13th January. The guys chat about the impact the media has had on people's perception of open banking and potentially on customer adoption of it. They also touch on how Nationwide is the latest big bank to ask for an extension to meet the PSD2 deadline, and is meeting the deadline necessarily in correlation with being "good"? Staying on the theme of open banking they also talk through Monzo's interim API that they released in conjunction with the PSD2 deadline, and reflect on our interview with Tom Blomfield where he contested that Monzo are potentially better placed that the GAFA companies to take on Alibaba and build the financial control centre for

OakNorth isn't perhaps the most high profile Challenger bank in the UK, solving a real problem by serving the 'missing middle' who aren't being served well by existing lenders. Their business began by exploring how they can actually solve this issue, rather than how they could become a great bank- Rishi citing this particular outlook as one of the reasons OakNorth has seen success. Looking at OakNorth's social impact, their data shows that they've added about 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs through their lending as well as about 2,500 homes. Now perhaps some of these people may not have had a chance if it wasn't for OakNorth's human element. Their lending committee actually analyses the entrepreneurs behind the projects, rather than using a 'computer says no approach.' Rishi clearly feels OakNorth are still in infancy when looking at their future roadmap, he states that they want to vastly expand the business as they believe they can solve problems in multiple markets. The future certainly seems bright for this

We bring you the second part of our special wealth series, as we concentrate on asset management trends and how 2018 will impact the investments market. First, our panel discuss how evolving demands from varying types of customer in the asset management industry are challenging legacy ideas. How does millennial inheritance impact their thinking? And do longer life spans require asset managers to explore different avenues to meet customer needs? Next we move on to discuss the value chain, more specifically distribution, portfolio & management risk, middle & back office and finally 3'rd parties. It wouldn't be an 11:FS podcast if we didn't discuss Fintech to some extent, and the team dissect various trends that are leading indicators of what to come. How could Tech giants become disruptors in this space? Robo-advisory platforms have become more and more prevalent but is there a limit to how far they can go? Most data shows that many consumers are more comfortable with human elements in this business model,

First up on today's news show, the FCA bans BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) across the the entire UK finance sector. Whilst regulation is on the tip of everyone's tongue, cryptocurrencies managed to sneak their way onto the show once more as Kodak launched KODAKcoin, boosting stock prices an outrageous 44%. From one major announcement to another, tech giant Tencent gets a licence to sell mutual funds to WeChat's 1 billion users in China. Moving on, TransferWise is quietly launching its "borderless" debit cards to 1,000 customers, with a full rollout coming later in the year. We discuss what the future of borderless payments could look like and how this brings the company in closer competition with Revolut. Our next story comes from a report written by FleishmanHillard named 'The Fads, The Fears and the Future' which details the most overhyped technologies and trends in 2017. Simon Taylor interviews Claudia Bate the author, where they discuss the report at length including the methodology behind the statistics

From pre-paid card to fully fledged Current Account, Tom Blomfield details the journey of UK challenger bank Monzo with great enthusiasm and vibrance. Tom talks our host Simon Taylor through Monzo's viral growth and how their marketing team has managed to grow the company 1000% in the last year alone, on a very limited budget. 'I don't think we're a million miles away from the mainstream' is a great quote and highlights the ambition of the challenger bank, as we discuss Monzo's roadmap for the future. Regulation has been a hot topic to kick off 2018 and so you won't be surprised that PSD2 is much discussed throughout the interview. Indeed Tom gives his opinions on how large banks and open banking will be impacted by the regulation. Murmurs of both a Monzo IPO and potential acquisition have been constant throughout 2017, and Tom's admirable attitude that an acquisition "would feel like failure" shows just how dedicated the Monzo team is to creating a better banking product for its customers. He takes r

In the first of our three-part series on investments, Simon Taylor is joined by special guests Joe Parkin, Gemma Godfrey, Phil Smith, Olivia Vinden & Gareth Johnson. We kicked things off by asking our panel what IS wealth management? How does it differ from asset management and what does the future of the industry look like? Our guests have a wealth of experience (pun intended) in this industry, and tried to dissect the role of the wealth manager and how technological evolutions will transform this space. We discuss whether or not digitisation of the role would to some extent mitigate the human element behind wealth management, and how exactly this will alter the customer relationship. DLT, Machine learning and AI are all buzzwords, but how could these growing areas of innovation change wealth management? How will data, in tandem with these technologies successfully make wealth management for more accessible to the consumer? The panel discuss how these areas could benefit the industry, offering some ve

First up on today's show, Alibaba's Ant Financial has abandoned a $1.2bn takeover of MoneyGram. So what were the US regulator's concerns over national security and personal data. Continuing the regulatory theme, we explore open banking and traditional banking. The guys discuss why open banking might threaten the survival of traditional banks. Plus, new research suggests that consumer awareness of open banking is at a major low, amidst suggestions that in 2018 you'll pay through Amazon and Facebook. Next, we ask what is MiFID II and how will it increase transparency and bolster investor protection? The guys discuss why the credit card fees ban has backfired, and why consumers face new 'service charges' and higher prices. Is it right that by 'fat-cat Thursday', top bosses' pay after just three days overtakes workers' average annual salary? P2P payments are back, so is it true that Apple Pay Cash won't be the death of Venmo? And if not, could Zelle do it? And in the world of banking and savings apps

Sam Maule is joined by Jason Bates and new 11:FS team member, Doug Bobenhouse in Chicago to discuss the State of the Union in the US, wrapping up 2017 and looking ahead to next year. They discuss the history of fintech, starting with pre-paid cards, and the slowness of movement by the big players in the US in particular to adapt and change. Jason talks through "platformification" and the ability to make fast changes by building new propositions on top of old systems, turning products into services. They discuss the risks and also the opportunities for smaller banks in the space to collaborate and share learnings and also APIs and backend systems, with each other and also the big banks in order to take advantage of the changes in the space, and "take the game to the big guys". What does "ruining the romance" in banking mean? Jason and Sam explain all. Sam and Doug discuss how Chicago made its mark on the financial services landscape of the US, and its benefits for start ups in the space. And Jason