
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.

Sarah Kocianski and Nigel Walsh are joined by a panel of guests to talk about health insurance post COVID-19!

Sarah Kocianski and Ross Gallagher are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Open Banking doubles its user base in 2020, Amazon's new payment method in the palm of your hand, and can Ping An rescue HSBC?

Simon Taylor is joined by some great guests to talk about the growth of ESG and sustainable finance
David Brear is joined by Lotanna Ezeike, Co-Founder and CEO at XPO, in this bonus episode to bust some myths about social media influencers, and challenge David's opinions from a few episodes back. Tune in to find out more!

Simon Taylor and Ross Gallagher are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: The FinCEN file leak, Tink continues path to European domination, and NationWide claps back again racism.

Sam Maule is joined by some fantastic guests from across Latin America to talk about development, growth and impact of fintechs in the region.

Jason Bates and David Brear are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Alibaba invest 3 BILLION in Grab, Klarna reaches an $11Bn valuation, and Microsoft dig up a data centre they buried underwater off the coast of Scotland 2 years ago.

David Brear is joined by some fantastic experts from IBM to discuss the opportunities that public cloud offer for business transformation in financial services.

Sam Maule and Sarah Kocianski are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: RTGS Global rolls out stage 1 of liquidity visibility network in collab with Microsoft, banks work with fintechs to counter ‘deepfake’ fraud, and Paypal terminates accounts linked to a Russian influence operation.

Simon Tayor is joined by some special guests to talk about the growth cryptocurrencies in mainstream finance.

Sarah Kocianski and Nigel Walsh are joined by some amazing guests to talk through digital transformation in the insurance industry.

David Brear and Mel Stringer are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: More raises as Chip launches Series A, Paypal is coming for Klarna and AfterPay, and Goldman Sachs launches its own font: Goldman Sans.

Simon Taylor is joined by some great guests to talk about the growth and impact of banking as a service on financial services in the US. This week we're joined by Railsbank, Marqueta and Synapse.

Sarah Kocianski and Jason Bates are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Railsbank in talks to buy Wirecard UK, JPMorgan to [possibly] launch a UK digital challenger bank by 2021 and the UK's 800% surge of open banking payments during lockdown. All this and much more on today's show.

This week we bring you our first-ever, Truly Digital After Dark! In the sound of the times, we have not only turned our fantastic After Dark show Truly Digital, but we also bring you insights as to how digital is currently shaping the financial industries!

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...

