
If you listened to the headlines, you'd think the competitive race in financial services is about one thing: building the smartest AI. We think that's the wrong way to look at it.

Embedded banking without strategic intent is expensive theatre. Lots of APIs, lots of partnership announcements, lots of pilots, but not much revenue. And that’s the risk facing corporate banks right now.
As the Saudi fintech market matures, a new challenge is emerging. Most fintech interactions, whether payments, BNPL, or other services, remain fundamentally transactional.

Loyalty is defined as “a strong feeling of support or allegiance”. However, in the context of financial services, it is more accurately defined as engineered persistence: a series of subconscious cues that steer customers toward familiar choices.

As our financial lives become more complex, there is a growing expectation for banks to offer more support, be more relevant, and generate greater everyday value. One of the clearest places this shift is starting to show up is in subscription banking.

Most AI deployments so far have focused on AI that “talks”, which can search, summarise, and draft content to support employees. The next wave is different: AI agents that “do” are starting to take bounded actions inside workflows, moving cases forward and coordinating steps end-to-end, with humans kept in control where it matters.

While consumer-focused fintech has seen waves of innovation since the early 2000s, the small and medium-sized business (SMB) sector has remained comparatively underserved.

Unlocking agentic AI’s upside demands rethinking how humans and systems share control, rebuilding data and API foundations, and scaling autonomy in measured steps with rigorous human-style QA

In the highly competitive insurance sector, customer experience is a critical differentiator. While insurers focus on policy features and premiums, the claims payout process is often overlooked, creating a significant point of friction.
At one of our Truly Digital After Dark events, Anne Boden said “if you call yourself digital, you’re not digital”.
The fintech scene in Asia is booming. In recent years, the region has developed rapidly, with a diverse array of startups and established banks transforming how financial services are delivered and consumed.
Payments in the Middle East are evolving. The payments landscape in the Middle East has stood at an important tipping point for some time.

The U.S. Treasury and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) both hit the headlines with fintech-related announcements. Treasury released a 222-page report on the subject of Nonbank Financials, Fintech, and Innovation, while the OCC almost immediately followed with the news that it would finally begin accepting National Bank Charter applications from fintechs, in line with Treasury recommendations.

Our expert host Ross Gallagher and co-host Rachel Pandyan are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Goldman Sachs stepping back from consumer lending, Galileo's new BNPL offering to SMBs, and a Citibank worker who paid the price for a dodgy expenses claim.

David M. Brear, CEO at 11:FS, is joined by our very own CTO Ewan Silver for a fireside chat to unpick what we mean when we say the services have fallen out of financial services.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Apple launch open banking service in the UK, Revolut move closer to a banking licence, and Saga launch a savings platform for the over 50s.

Laura Watkins is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Adyen get a UK banking licence, Perfios eye UK & US expansion, and a new campaign tackles the gender investment gap.

What is the best metric for measuring the success for fintech? In this rewind show from the archives, Benjamin Ensor is discussing the answer to that question, joined by some great guests, from Allica Bank, Anthemis, and This Week In Fintech.

Klarna rebuts misconceptions about their business model as losses narrow, more than one in eight bank branches are expected to close this year, Airwallex and Public team up for a new investment platform, and Switzerland want to impose the highest ALM standards in Europe. Kate Moody is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including Alia Mahmud from ComplyAdvantage, The Financial Times' Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, and Dann Bibas from Public.com.

David Brear is joined by some great guests from Fireblocks, DigitalX and Moniflo to talk about how financial services are actually using blockchain technology and how they choose an option that works best for them.

Kate Moody is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, ClearEstate, and PensionBee, to look at the financial services aimed at customers over 60.

David M. Brear and Jason Bates are joined by some great guests, from Milli, to bring you this deep-dive into setting up a new banking proposition in the USA!

Shopify launches credit card, HSBC and Tradeshift launch joint embedded finance venture, and Snoop gets acquired – Ross Gallagher and David Barton-Grimley are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days.

David M. Brear is joined by Standard Chartered CEO, Bill Winters, in this interview deep-diving into innovation in the banking space!

In this second episode on our monthly topic, David Barton-Grimley is joined by a fantastic guest, from QED Investors, to look at the roles and responsibilities of US VCs in the current market.

Investment platform Public launches in the UK, Solaris raises to focus on core values, and Martin Lewis 'sickened' by deepfake investment scam – Kate Moody is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days!

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests from Visa, Mana Tech, and Commerce Ventures, to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the fintech market in the United States of America.

a16z to open first international office in London, HSBC builds innovation division from the bones of SVB UK, and Snoop Dogg launches NFT tour pass – Ross Gallagher and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days.

The UK banking battlefield has never been more competitive. Customers expectfinancial apps that are personalised, seamless, and that genuinely make a differenc...


The UK banking battlefield has never been more competitive. Customers expectfinancial apps that are personalised, seamless, and that genuinely make a differenc...

