Learn about the latest innovation happening in financial services.

As the Saudi fintech market matures, a new challenge is emerging. Most fintech interactions, whether payments, BNPL, or other services, remain fundamentally transactional.

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.

As the industry adjusts to a new digital landscape, players across the spectrum are fighting to muscle their way into the financial epicentre and ‘win’ the salary battle to become the payday home of their customers.

11:FS' own Ollie Sebley rounds up another edition of Finovate Europe, what he took away from the talks, and what they say about the outlook for financial services through 2026 and beyond.

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

The term ‘technical debt’ has been around a long time in software engineering. It shares some common characteristics with financial debt: You can accumulate it, you can ‘pay it off’.

Recap the biggest live show Fintech Insider: After Dark has ever done below. Listen back here or stream below as Jason, Simon and a panel of special guests tackle some of the biggest and silliest stories of the week.

Loyalty is broken. ‘We appreciate your loyalty’ greetings don’t fool anyone. Most of us can recall crappy experiences.

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.

How do I create the 5 year plan for 8 software releases a day? This is one of my favourite lines from an old school bank executive. It happened live on stage in front of 500 people when I made the point that challenger banks are now operating at 8 releases per day. It might seem nerdy, but why does it matter how often banks release new software?

Looking to crypto and seeing it simply as a speculative asset class is a common mistake for financial institutions and even regulators. But if you start to look beyond the headlines, you can see there’s untapped potential for banks to better serve the SMB market.

Although they date back to 2014, in 2017 we saw the rapid rise of ‘crypto funds’, or investment funds that invest mainly in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ethereum, or other ‘altcoins’. Those offering crypto funds are, in effect, managing digital assets. But what’s the difference between ‘managing digital assets’ and ‘managing assets digitally’? Many asset managers have digitized some analogue processes, but very few asset managers are truly digital in nature. What lessons can we learn from the first few years of those that manage digital assets such as crypto funds?, and how can the end investor benefit?

Asking the wrong questions will only ever lead to the wrong solutions. That’s why we lean into Jobs to be Done at 11:FS. It’s based on the notion that there’s no use in asking what the customer wants, because they don’t actually know. 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.