
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.

It's a truism that the hardest job in engineering is that of 'Tech Lead'. You're the person who's not only writing code, but simultaneously leading a small group of other engineers and spending large amounts of time talking to stakeholders and the Product Manager (or, ten years ago, *Project* Manager). 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.

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.

There’s been a huge leak of files from FinCEN, the US-based Financial Crime Enforcement Network. Over 2000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and hundreds of other documents appear to show how banks have been unable to prevent trillions in money laundering, tax avoidance and criminality over the past decade. But there's a more in-depth story to uncover here.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 in US financial services and beyond including: Facebook rolls out its Facebook Financial Initiative; AmEx in talks to buy Kabbage and Robinhood blows past rivals in day trades, and much much more!

Simon Taylor is joined by some great guests from two of the biggest banking as a service providers from both sides of the Atlantic, GPS and Galileo, to lift the lid on this industry niche that's blowing up right now

Ross Gallagher and Simon Taylor are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Varo Money get their full national charter; Google teams up with 8 US banks to offer digital bank accounts by 2021 and Wirecard processed payments for the mafia.

Sarah Kocianski is joined by some great guests to talk about the development of digital payments and the global shift towards cashless payment solutions.

Sam Maule and Jason Bates are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: the US bank results are in and we analyse the fall out; Marqeta eyes an IPO as SoFi applies for a fintech charter and your weekly wacky Wirecard roundup.

Simon Taylor is joined by some great guests to discuss how the financial landscape of Africa is changing and the ways in which fintechs are playing their part.

TITLE: NEWS / INSIGHTS Simon Tayor and Jason Bates are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Square's new valuation; 16 EU banks team up to take on Visa and Mastercard and we keep ypu updated with the new unravellings in the Wirecard story.

Simon Taylor is joined by some great (and very international) guests to talk about the future of fintech hubs. Do we need them? Is location no longer important post-pandemic?

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.

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...

