Articles

I’ll be honest when I joined 11:FS I didn’t really expect to end up in West Africa. But on reflection, that was pretty short-sighted. We create truly digital ventures for the good of people everywhere, and we mean everywhere.

Since the dawn of the crypto asset space with Bitcoin, the mainstream reaction has been somewhat wary and distrusting of many of the innovations we're seeing. Yet the growth of crypto assets has reached a tipping point, in my view, where it can no longer be ignored. If you consider the diamond industry is $250Bn, the crypto asset industry is at $170Bn and growing, this is something we can no longer ignore. Against this backdrop of uncertainty and potential for fraud, money laundering and consumers losing out – it would be helpful to see the development of best practice and codes of conducts. Regulators and governments could look for these practices to help a nascent industry self regulate.

We went to the IFGS to meet some of the biggest and newest names in Fintech. We’re bringing you some fantastic insights from our first five interviewees on the fintech landscape for 2018. Ross Gallagher and Simon Taylor spoke to: Benedetta Arese Lucini, Co-founder, Oval Money Charles d’Haussy, Head of Fintech, InvestHK Thomas Eyre, CEO and Co-founder LOQBOX Li Wang, Head of EMEA, Alipay James Mackonochie, COO and Co-founder, Pia Listen to all the interviews in full on Fintech Insider here or stream them below.

Payment ecosystems in the USA aren’t working. They barely exist and are far behind other countries in terms of just going from A to B, but that’s set to change.

Building societies are ubiquitous in the UK with 43 currently operating across the country. They are however, often conflated with banks. The key difference between building societies and banks though, is a big one: a building society is owned entirely by its members rather than shareholders, to whom they pay dividends every year.

“Money is a matter of functions four: a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.”But, money is also a form of communication. Money has the power to communicate success, shame, inadequacy, desire, isolation, disdain, greed, support, addiction and resentment. Talking money is also one of society’s greatest taboos. Femtech has had to tackle its own set of taboo topics, so in the spirit of International Women’s Day I’m looking at a thing or two fintech could learn from femtech. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

Customer-centricity is a phrase that’s been used and abused over the last decade. But what does it mean in practice and how can Jobs to be Done make it happen?

Good content is so important now more than ever, especially for B2B content creators. In a saturated market only good content stands out - or bad but usually for the wrong reasons, and mediocre content just doesn’t get traction at all.

In a recent episode of our Insurtech Insider podcast, Nigel Walsh and John Bean sat down with some fantastic guests to chat about the good, the bad and the ugly. No, not the seminal spaghetti Western with the Ennio Morricone score.

With consumers becoming increasingly conscious of the impact of their lives, and financial services providers, on the environment, how can retail banks look to react to this trend?

I’ve worked in fintech for 10+ years now, since before it was a popular term, and long enough to see multiple hype cycles come and go. One of the more enduring fintech themes in that time has been “financial education” and, more recently, “financial health”. These are linked but there are some important conceptual differences! This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

TL;DR – Creating something new is hard, because the idea and design is the easy part. Anyone can have an idea. Getting it in the hands of the customer is the hard part. This is why a Minimum “Loveable” (not “Viable”) Product is your new best friend.

SMBs are the lifeblood of most economies. In the UK alone they make up 99.9% of all private sector businesses and employ 60% of all private sector workers. Yet they are chronically underserved by incumbent financial institutions (FIs) across all segments.

The third episode of our brand-new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service, is here! If you missed it (or any of the others) catch up here. Here’s a rundown of this episode if you prefer reading to watching 📖

Fintech Insider is going on the road and taking our live show to OP’s Slush after party!