
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?

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.

At the beginning of 2022, many early-stage investors looked ahead with optimism as we emerged from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, and global economies started to show signs of growth again.

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.

Guest author Richard Davies gives his thoughts on the importance of scaling agile to all functions of an organisation, and some key factors on how to get there.

There’s been no shortage of attention paid to the emergence of fintech in the Middle East recently. In fact, we wrote about the ‘perfect storm’ that was brewing in the region and recently gave an overview of the digital challengers emerging to meet these needs.

We’ve sifted through the data to find out what 11:FS Pulse users have been loving and where their focus has been for the last 12 months.

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.

I’ve poked fun at banks and fintechs, but now it’s time to take on the consultancies. Sometimes it can feel like you’re spending your money on bad advice and worse decisions. Sometimes you are.

There’s a sweltering heat wave hitting the city and I’ve never been so thankful for the office air conditioning. We’ve just entered July, everyone’s moving onto their Q3 targets and writing reports on Q2. So what happened in Q2 for the fintech world? And where are we about to go for Q3? I take a look at the 11 biggest stories that happened in fintech over the last three months.

Gwera Kiwana and Sim Rai are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Nova Credit Teams with Alloy on inclusive business lending, world's first green fintech taxonomy launched, and Sex Pistols launch God Save the Queen coin and NFT collection.

Benjamin Ensor and Sim Rai are joined by some great guests, from Tranch and Anthemis, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Klarna lays off 10% of its workforce via video message, Chase marks 500,000 UK customers, and our panel answers your questions!

Gwera Kiwana and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests, from Griffin, Indebted and Redpoint Ventures, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Griffin applies for UK banking licence, Digital debt collection agency InDebted looks to shake up the UK market, and Goldman Sachs offers senior staff unlimited holiday!

Kate Moody is joined by some great guests, from Lucky and Global Ventures, to talk about the rise of fintech in Egypt!

David Brear and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests from Truelayer, Evening Standard and The Fintech Times to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Monzo launches their Buy Now Pay Later product – Monzo Flex, QED announces $1 billion fintech war chest, and face payments launched on the Moscow Metro and so much more!

David Brear and Amy Gavin are joined by some great guests from Carry1st and Financial News to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Contactless card payment limit in UK to jump to £100 next month, Stripe and others invest $200M in African fintech Wave – now valued at $1.7 billion, and Peter Thiel is building a luxury vacation bunker in New Zealand. Tune in to find out more!

In this week's episode of the Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Eric Fulwiler is joined by Chris Pitt, CEO at First Direct - to discuss all things marketing - what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what every marketer needs to know to keep levelling up.

Simon Taylor are joined by some great guests from Google, Fronted and Synctera to talk about how banks structure their technology and why this can make transformation so difficult.

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: Google takes on Venmo and Square with new payments features, Starling hits profit for the first time, and the Queen of England unexpectedly takes an interest in blockchain.

Sam Maule is joined by some incredible guests to talk about economic abuse and the role of banks and financial institutions.

Sam Maule is joined by a panel of fantastic guests to discuss economic inequality and the racial wealth gap in the US.

Sarah Kocianski is joined by some great guests to talk about cybersecurity in financial services.

Simon Taylor and Mel Stringer are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Stripe acquires Nigeria’s Paystack, Marqeta’s research discovers Covid-19 has forced three-quarters of banks to change their future strategy, and ESG funds forecast to outnumber conventional funds by 2025.

Sarah Kocianski is joined by some great guests to talk about Open Banking two years on and the key developments that have been made since then.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests to discuss how fintech and digital transformation is shaking up the financial landscape of the Middle East.

David M. Brear, our 11:FS CEO, takes us through legacy technology within banks - but of course, with a really cool Lightboard.
Welcome to episode 5 of our new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service!

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.
Welcome to episode 4 of our new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service!
Welcome to episode 3 of our new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service!
Welcome to episode 2 of our new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service!

Welcome to episode 1 of our new video series, Decoding: Banking as a Service!

When people discuss 'banking being broken', they often refer to the technology itself. However, that isn't necessarily the case.

Minimum Lovable Brand | 11:FS Explores

In this video, our Head of Research, Sarah Kocianski, unpacks exactly how banks make money - with the handy edition of a super cool lightboard!

Fintech is only 1% finished. But what do we mean by that? Simon Taylor, Head of Ventures at 11:FS takes us through the landscape of financial technology in this Lightboard edition of 11:FS Explores.

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.
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?

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...

