We all employ a user-centred design (UCD) approach to inform what products we build and how they should work, but all that customer insight gives us one oft-overlooked learning: the actual language customers use to speak about their problems.
You don’t have to spend much time in retail banking before you come across legacy systems - a catch-all term often used to explain why banks are so slow and unresponsive.
Tucked away in a small corner of the WeWork offices in Aldgate Tower, I sat down with Ross Gallagher. Financial inclusion is the touchstone on financial products for Ross. Regular host of the Fintech Insider podcast with a history in financial services consulting and research. Ross is known around the office as a tupperware fiend and always up for a laugh but as with many people who work for 11:FS he has a real passion for finance and financial inclusion in particular.
In a recent report EY point out that the big advantage the UK has in “Fintech” is it’s progressive policy from Government and Regulators. This post examines the latest policy the regulatory sandbox; to understand how it might work, what companies entering it need to know, and how other jurisdictions could repeat the trick. Can it help financial services be a bit more awesome?
Recently, Nick Miller, Senior Ventures Strategist at 11:FS, published an article on why ESG investing is broken. If you haven't already, go and give it a read before you dive into this one.
This week on Fintech Insider News David, Jason and Simon were joined by Innovate Finance’s Sophie Winwood and making his Fintech Insider debut, Banking Editior at The Economist, Patrick Lane, to tackle the latest news from the last week. Listen to the episode in full here or play and read below
Banks are having a midlife crisis. Their tech is at that stage where it’s old enough to gather regrets. Lots of them. 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.
Everyone’s got a bike these days, right? How many bikes would you admit to owning? Is your ‘multi-bike’ strategy paying off? Now ask yourself the same questions about your use of cloud.
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.
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.
In this guest blog Bailey Kusar, co-founder and CEO of Toucan, examines how open banking can be used to deliver services that better support people with mental health conditions to manage their finances.
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.
We’ll say it till we’re blue in the face - FS companies need to do more to improve their users’ financial literacy. And that goes for kids too.
COP26 is over. But the climate emergency is still with us. The headlines might say otherwise but I got the feeling that very little progress was made on climate change. 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.

Simon Taylor and Sarah Kocianski are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Crowdcube and Seedrs' merge, the FCA’s new sandbox dedicated to overcoming coronavirus challenges, and Venmo launches a credit card, as Credit Karma launches a checking account.

Sarah Kocianski and Ross Gallagher are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Open Banking doubles its user base in 2020, Amazon's new payment method in the palm of your hand, and can Ping An rescue HSBC?

Simon Taylor and Ross Gallagher are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: The FinCEN file leak, Tink continues path to European domination, and NationWide claps back again racism.

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.

Sarah Kocianski and Jason Bates are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Railsbank in talks to buy Wirecard UK, JPMorgan to [possibly] launch a UK digital challenger bank by 2021 and the UK's 800% surge of open banking payments during lockdown. All this and much more on today's show.

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.

Simon Taylor is joined by some great guests to talk about the growth and impact of digital banking in the APAC region, with a special focus on Australia.

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...

