As financial services continues to ride the digital transformation wave, there is a big problem emerging: recruiting the tech talent required to achieve the scale of change needed.
This article was originally published in February 2021. In light of a looming cost-of-living crisis, soaring inflation and spiralling interest rates, we feel it’s more relevant now than ever. So, after a bit of tinkering, we’ve republished it. Enjoy.
While I was COO at Revolut, Vlad Yatsenko - the company’s Co-Founder & CTO - commented a number of times about how opportunity cost of time is typically the biggest cost in a scaling company, and I’ve come to realise this is more and more true.
If I’d told you six months ago that you could guarantee an affordable electricity supply for your home, you wouldn’t have cared.
One of the dirty secrets of the fintech and banking community is that everyone thinks that everyone else understands how it all works and that they’re the only one who doesn’t really get it.
The digital banking scene in Southeast Asia is hot right now. Over the past two years, it’s experienced some rapid changes. Changing regulations have triggered a mass of new players entering the market.
There’s a lot of positivity, creativity and excitement within game developer communities. People are flocking to games for entertainment and there have never been more tools to create them.
Working with agencies can sometimes feel like you spend weeks or even months covering ground that you already know before you start seeing value.
If you’re building a fintech or adding financial services to an existing platform, there’s no doubt that the concept of embedded finance with white-label solutions has passed you by.
Price walking [common in the insurance industry] a form of price discrimination whereby existing customers, especially long-standing customers, incur a loyalty penalty over new customers. 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.
James Safford is a name you might not be familiar with from the 11:FS team. He’s starred in a couple of our shows with brilliant insights on what’s going on in the fintech space. James is a Market Research Analyst working on the 11:FS Pulse platform delivering insights into customer journeys globally. I took a moment to sit down with James and talk to him about how things differ working in fintech compared to publishing, and why he moved into the space after deciding against a lifelong dream.
This past weekend an estimated 177m people tuned in as Matthew Stafford’s (strong surname BTW) LA Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVII.
The 11:FS research team recently finalised the first part of a major piece of work examining the services available to US Small to Medium-sized businesses. Here’s some of what we discovered.
Providing the best service to have the largest market share. That’s what banks want to be and want to have. And for a very long time they did.

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests from Visa, Chipper Cash, and DJAMO, to discuss the evolution and further potential of mobile money in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Innovate Finance, and TwentyOne to talk about the biggest lessons for financial services in the first half of 2023.

Kate Moody is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Nationwide, and Plum, to discuss how banks and fintechs can shape how customers manager their finances.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Atom Bank, Coastal Community Bank, and Vexi to talk about the value of trust to financial services.

Kate Moody joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Super.com’s $85M raise for a super app for savings; Could First Republic be the next SVB as the US scrambles to save it; and Klarna roll out a suite of AI-enabled personalisation tools for shoppers and merchants.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Branch, Iwoca, and Treyd, to look at the opportunities and challenges of opportunities of specialised offerings for small and medium-sized businesses.

Our expert host, David Barton-Grimley, is joined by a fantastic guest from Airwallex to continue exploring the connected nature of travel and financial services in APAC.

Benjamin Ensor and Kate Moody are joined by some great guests, Bridge built by Citi and Seattle Bank, to look at the challenges and opportunities for community banks in America.

Love Island's Sharon Gaffka teams up with FCA in clampdown on influencers, Visa partners PayPal for interoperable P2P payments, and Verto picks up a quarter of Silicon Valley Bank customers in Africa – Ross Gallagher and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests, from Verto and CCG Catalyst, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from the Aspen Institute, GoCardless, and Lowell, to discuss how innovations can improve the reputation of the industry of debt.

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests, from Visa, YouTrip, and Revolut, to focus the connected nature of travel and financial services in APAC.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Global Ventures, Novo, OakNorth Bank, and Spiralem, to look at the business banking options and challenges for small and medium-sized businesses across the world.

Our expert host, David Barton-Grimley, is joined by a fantastic guest from Totem to continue exploring financial inclusion in the USA.

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests, from Visa and Capway, to really dig into the keys to successful financial inclusion in America.
It's not just a buzzword.
11:FS CEO David M. Brear takes to the lightboard to give us the full run-down, with examples of companies that are leading the way.

There’s no one-size-fits-all design proposition for the Middle-East. While emergent markets such as Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain are all seeking to diversify their economies...
Just what is going on with Buy Now, Pay Later right now?

There are one billion people globally who can't prove their identity. That's a big problem for accessing financial services.

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...

