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China has long been on the radar of those with ambitions of marrying technological innovation with a payments-savvy population of big spenders. Traditionally, though, China’s economy had been centrally-planned, driven by investment and built around large state-owned enterprises (SOE). Banks had focused mainly on providing services for these SOEs, under-serving SME and retail consumers. So, naturally, with Alibaba and Tencent so successfully serving other areas – e-commerce and social media respectively – it should come as no surprise that they’ve found themselves filling this vacuum.

You can catch the full Fintech Insider take on the news today at 4pm on the podcast here. Sticking to our Monday news blog format, we’re going to take a close look at one of the most interesting stories of the week’s show. For analysis straight from industry experts subscribe to our podcast! Fintech Insider host and 11:FS co-founder Simon Taylor sits down with Freddy Kelly, Veronique Barbosa, Tanya Andreasyan, and Philip Clarke to discuss the news, including Amazon teaming up with American Express for SMBs.

Today we’ve got the second in our four part mini-series on fintech in the UK with Tech Nation (go listen to the first one here if you haven’t already). Our latest episode on uniting the fintech kingdom focuses on what makes the UK such a unique regulatory environment. We also take a look at whether Brexit will remove the UK’s fintech crown. This post is just a little teaser for what’s coming out at 4pm today. In our podcast we examine why UK fintech is so attractive and how to keep the flow of talent and companies coming in. You can/should/need/have to listen to it asap.

This is the fourth instalment of a 6 part series that explores the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) for US SMBs that we identified in our recent research. Each blog post dives into one of the jobs and how we examined it with a JTBD canvas. If you missed the first post that explains JTBD and the canvas, check it out before reading this.

1st February was Time to Talk Day, a day dedicated to mental health awareness, and opening up the conversation around it in the aim of removing the stigma. The mantra behind the day is that mental health affects us all and it’s time to talk about it.

There’s a lot of recession talk at the moment. Are we entering the next recession? Are we already in it? We all remember the 2008 financial crisis, and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, and all the financial trouble they caused.

A banker who shall remain anonymous has penned this exclusive undercover piece, giving us the insider’s view on why they believe Open Banking APIs may be stifling rather than driving competition in UK Banking. Writing under the pseudonym “The Stigcumbent” to protect their identity, they want to expose the friction created by Open Banking, and the potential failure to create competition as a result. Read on for more…

From an idea to a live show in a few days. We’re looking to bring the financial services, fintech and wider community together while we’re all so far apart.

Today marks the first of our brand new mini-series in collaboration with Tech Nation. We’re launching One Fintech Nation, a series looking beyond London and uniting the fintech kingdom. For too long the UK fintech scene has been viewed (perhaps unfairly) as very London-specific, when it extends beyond London’s borders and to all the countries that make up the United Kingdom.In our podcast we pop the London fintech bubble and show you the groundbreaking work being done across the nation. You can/should/need/have to listen to it here.

I speak to a lot of banks and I get asked the same question: “How do I test my product ideas?” The secret is understanding how your customers measure value and align your proposition to their definition of success. However, the temptation for a lot of corporate innovation teams is to jump straight into product design which ultimately slows you down and sends you in the wrong direction. To set off in the right direction and accelerate to market you need to return the customer Job. Jobs To Be Done is a technique being used by some of the most innovative digital brands in the world.

Henry Ford owned the plants that manufactured rubber, glass, and steel to build the Ford Model T. Now car companies have a network of specialist suppliers of glass, rubber, and other key parts. These suppliers are better at building glass or rubber than the car companies themselves. You know that Henry Ford’s business model is no longer viable; that’s why you subcontract for multiple pain points in the industry. Why focus on developing all your own security when you can outsource it to specialists?

Jobs to be done (JTBD). It’s an interesting phrase. Pithy, agile-sounding, and adaptive. It’s about bringing humanity to an industry that sometimes forgets about it.I spoke to Ryan Garner, Innovation and Insight lead at 11:FS about what it means to introduce jobs to be done to the fintech space. And how being human is core to delivering a meaningful product. Ryan knows the only way for fintech to succeed is to understand people.

Open Banking turned one on Sunday, but why has no-one made a big deal about it despite all the potential?

Sports people make better business people. There, I said it. I’ve said it before so you shouldn't be too surprised at this point but I honestly believe in this statement.

Until the wider acceptance of Bill James ‘Sabremetrics’, immortalised in ‘Moneyball’ by Michael Lewis in his book from 2003, the rating of Major League Baseball (‘MLB’) players was determined by subjective talent scouts and a few basic statistics. James first defined Sabremetrics as ‘the search for objective knowledge about baseball’ in 1980. But it took over 20 years for Sabremetrics to be accepted as a powerful tool in rating players and understanding their impact on the financial side of baseball. What in the world does this have to do with understanding investing? Like baseball and Sabremetrics, technology has enabled a new breed of asset manager to connect in a more meaningful way with the end investor.