
There’s a reason counties often refer to their tech hubs as “the Silicon Valley of [insert country name here].” The Bay Area is the proud birthplace of some of the world’s biggest technological triumphs, home to global powerhouses like Apple and Visa. Every year the Valley also attracts a host of fintech start-ups - such as Credit Karma, Chime and Varo Bank, to name a few. But it’s not just California driving the future of financial services. We’ve done our research to see which companies across the 50 states are leading the fintech charge. (Did you miss our first blog? See who’s doing awesome things on the other side of the pond with our list of the hottest European fintechs.)

Back at the end of 2019, we dived into the perfect fintech storm that was brewing in the Middle East. Diversification had already started in the region, but financial inclusion was reluctant to follow. So where are we now? It’s 2020, and things have been hotting up in the region with opportunities continuing to surface. But what does the region hold for fintech and why is the Middle East where the real gold lies?

Cyber attacks are hardly new, so why are banks putting renewed energy into combating them? 11:FS Market Research Analyst Joanne Kumire explains.

London’s been at the centre of the fintech bubble for over a decade now, and the rest of Europe isn’t far behind. One of the few silver linings of the coronavirus pandemic could be that it might act as a catalyst for a tonne of investment into fintech, as more and more people recognise the need to go digital. Despite the trend for falling investments in 2020, the UK fintech sector is still looking flush thanks to investments of over $1.84 billion. To give you a heads up on the next big companies on the scene, we’ve rounded up the hottest startups on our watch list 🔥

As we roll into 2018 thoughts inevitably turn to the big themes that we might expect (and hope) to see for user experience in the financial services industry this year.

This is the third 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 explores 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.

David M. Brear interviewed Jonathan Larsen, CIO, Ping An and CEO of their Global Voyager Fund, a $1bn investment fund, specifically for fintech. He tells David all about the fund and the innovations in fintech coming from China and making a huge impact worldwide.

Despite the astronomical price-tag and highly breakable look of early foldable phones, we can confidently predict a future of interesting new design challenges thanks to flexible screens.

In the first part of this series I introduced the story of Frederic Tudor, the American Ice-Block King; and discussed lessons learned from his then new product offering as it relates to blockchain technology. Tudor was able to successfully corner the ice-block shipping market and eventually was shipping blocks of ice to as far away as Calcutta from his home in Boston.

How can community banks remain competitive as large financial institutions gobble up more and more of the market?

How successful have government loan schemes in the UK and US been so far and what’s next?

What is Facebook coin / Libra? Is this a game-changing moment and what should we do about it?

Money 20/20 USA has kicked off and the 11:FS team are here on the ground!

Day 2 has come to an end here at Money 20/20 and, despite last night’s industry party, it was jam packed with action.

What is anticipatory design? In 2015, Aaron Shapiro the CEO of Huge coined the phrase ‘Anticipatory Design’ to describe how the next big evolution in design and technology will be the creation of predictive, pro-active multi-channel user experiences. It is the perfect marriage of design, data and technology to simplify complex decisions and in some instances, even eliminate some tasks and decisions from our lives entirely. The word anticipatory comes from the Latin anticipare, which means “taking care of ahead of time”. Think of it as personalisation 2.0 – a system which interprets users’ past behaviours and choices, in order to automatically make informed decisions on the user’s behalf, by utilising machine learning algorithms.

In this episode of Fintech Insider, David M. Brear sits down with Emily Turner, the newly appointed CEO of HSBC Innovation Banking UK, for a conversation about leadership, innovation, and the future of fintech in the UK.
.jpg)
In this episode of Fintech Insider, David M. Brear sits down with ClearBank’s UK CEO, Emma Hagan, to explore how the UK’s first new clearing bank in over 250 years is reshaping financial infrastructure from the ground up.
.jpg)
In this special live edition of Fintech Insider Insights, recorded at the FCA’s Supercharged Sandbox Showcase, David M. Brear is joined by leaders from the regulator, industry and the technology ecosystem to unpack the UK’s first AI-focused regulatory sandbox.
.jpg)
What’s next for fintech UX in 2026? Ross Gallagher, Head of Consulting at 11:FS, is joined by some great guests to break down six financial services UX predictions from the latest 11:FS Pulse Report, covering the shifts shaping digital banking, customer experience, onboarding, product design, and user research.
.jpg)
On this week’s episode, in partnership with Pleo, host Benjamin Ensor is joined by Jeppe Rindom, Co-Founder and CEO of Pleo; Søren Westh Lonning, CFO at Pleo; and Megan Cooper, CEO of Caywood, to explore how the role of finance has evolved over the past decade - and what it will take for finance teams to win the next 10 years.
.jpg)
On this week’s episode, host David Barton-Grimley is joined by Matt Weaver, Head of Solutions for EMEA at OpenAI, to explore the impact OpenAI is having on the financial services industry - and the meaningful collaborations taking place between the sector and the AI innovation giant.

On this week's episode, David M. Brear is joined by some great guests to tack a question on every bank and fintech leader’s mind: is AI redefining consumer-focused banking in 2026?
.jpg)
With the US GENIUS Act reshaping digital-asset oversight, the EU’s MiCA rules setting a unified standard, and the UK opening the door for stablecoins as an official form of payment, one thing is clear: stablecoins are going mainstream, fast.
.jpg)
Our expert host, David M. Brear, and co-host, Kate Moody, present Fintech Insider News live from Village Underground in London, joined by some fantastic guests to discuss the biggest fintech and financial services stories of the week.
.jpg)
Live from Paris, David M. Brear steps into the heart of payments transformation - a shift that’s unfolding far beyond the checkout screen and deep within the financial stack.

Host Laura Watkins, Director of Media and Marketing, is joined by a fantastic panel of guests as we dive into some of the biggest stories from the worlds of fintech, banking, and wider financial services this week.
Ever wanted to know what’s going on behind the scenes every time we make a payment?
Lending has been around for thousands of years and is one of the cornerstones of banking.
They're down, but they're not certainly not out.
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.
Just what is going on with Buy Now, Pay Later right now?

What does the future hold for lending? Live from Lendit USA 2022.

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

In this episode of 11:FS Explores, Adam Davis picks apart Open Finance, and what we have to look forward to if this technology became a reality.
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...

