
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.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: HSBC launch money transfer app Zing, Pave Bank launches, and the UK and Switzerland sign the Berne Financial Agreement.

Happy New Year Fin-techers! To celebrate, hosts David M. Brear, Ross Gallagher and Kate Moody make some bold fintech predictions for 2024, and look back on how right (or wrong) they were last year!

We look back to a conversation David Brear had with a panel of expert guests to discuss the future of fintech in Australia.

David M. Brear is joined by financial services veteran, Ashok Vaswani, to discuss how he draws on his experience going forward and why he continues to put learning first.

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests to take a closer look at that tricky balance between managing regulation without compromising innovation in financial services.

L.F.G. Today we bring you our 200th episode!! For this very special landmark we will be taking a look at the future of bitcoin; the developments on the Lightning Network; and the impact building on the bitcoin infrastructure will have for the future of cryptocurrency and how we interact with it. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Crowdcube acquires Semper, Adyen and Plaid team up in the US, OakNorth move into business banking, and N26 pulls out of Brazil.

Kate Moody is joined by some great guests to talk about how climate change is impacting fintechs, and how fintechs are supporting other businesses to achieve their climate goals.

David Barton-Grimley and Kate Moody are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: A joint venture from the biggest US banks launch digital wallet Paze, Atom Bank raise £100m in equity funding, Railsr are making a comeback, and Deutsche are closing nearly half of their branches.

Benjamin Ensor and Kate Moody are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: former J.P. Morgan exec launches Refund-as-a-Service TodayPay, and Airwallex continue expansion into LATAM.

11:FS CEO David M. Brear and Deputy CEO Jason Bates come together to discuss concept of fast following. Is it always a bad thing? How can you get it right, what pitfalls to avoid getting it wrong and what is the impact on the end customer?

Hey, banks! This might sting a bit. You’re getting loyalty all wrong - and it’s costing you customers. But all is not lost!
The entire world is buzzing about AI, and that ain't changing anytime soon. But as AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, what impact will it have on financial services and how people interact with them?
Regulation is essential. It stops banks from going bust or behaving badly.
Lending has been around for thousands of years and is one of the cornerstones of banking.
Mastercard and Visa are the two biggest credit card networks in the world.
We kick off our Decoding: Banks series with a look at the banking landscape today and how we got here.

David M. Brear, our 11:FS CEO, takes us through legacy technology within banks - but of course, with a really cool Lightboard.

There are one billion people globally who can't prove their identity. That's a big problem for accessing financial services.
Inclusive design is a mindset and a process that suggests that you should bring as many people as possible - and the most diverse of voices that you can - into your product design product process, so that you're being truly inclusive. It's designing with people rather that just at them. Charlotte Fereday, Product Director, Ventures, explains what inclusive design is, why it's important, how you can design more inclusively, and answers - how possible is truly inclusive design?
On this episode of Spotlight, 11:FS Crypto Global Strategy Director, Mauricio Magaldi is joined by Ramp Network Co-Founder and CEO, Szymon Sypniewicz. In today's chat, the pair discuss Szymon's career, the current regulatory landscape in crypto, and what the future might hold when it comes to widespread crypto adoption.

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...

