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This week on Fintech Insider News David and Jason were joined by colleagues Pete Townsend and making his Fintech Insider debut, Ross Gallagher, from our Pulse and Research Team, to tackle the latest news from the last week. They were joined by regular guest Sarah Kocianski and Charlie Wood. Listen to the episode in full here or play and read below

I’ve blogged on some of the themes I’m going to cover below, but the story gets clearer and clearer in my head the more I blog about and talk about it, so this version may be a little clearer than some that have gone before.

Should I sell my cryptocurrency? Is all hope lost? Will Bitcoin die? If you were fast asleep, and then suddenly your bed accelerated at high speed, before going upside down and doing loops. You'd be pretty shocked, right? I mean, my dreams can be pretty out there at times but I mean like your actual bed moving like a rollercoaster.

Time to budget for your next beach holiday (or city break if that’s what you’re into). To help, Nationwide’s launched a new ‘Savings Goals’ feature for its mobile banking app. It prompts customers to set a specific financial goal to reach at a particular date. Let’s take a look at this new feature, and see how it compares to Monzo’s ‘Savings Target.’

Fintech Connect 2020 is just around the corner! It’s taking place online from the 30th November to the 4th December, with 8,000 attendees and more than 200 speakers already confirmed.

With the industry evolving rapidly around us, there’s little room for anyone who isn’t able to change at pace. A six month old greenfield codebase will be brown before you know it. You must be able to move quickly.

From dreams of running a five-star hotel to the reality of running a five-star bank, Ashok Vaswani, the CEO of Barclays UK, speaks with Simon Taylor about culture, digital transformation challenges and opportunities, front line staff empowerment and how Simon might be able to buy a Lamborghini in the future.

Lesley-Anne Vaughan, Director of MiLA Consulting and Co-Creator of M-PESA, Vodafone’s famed mobile money transfer service, has been dedicated to mobile money and mobile financial services in emerging markets since 2005. Here, she shares how M-PESA transformed from a microfinance product to a revolutionary service that’s changed Kenya’s infrastructure, increased financial inclusion, and earned the majority of the market for mobile money transfers.

The UK banking battlefield has never been more competitive. Customers expect financial apps that are personalised, seamless, and that genuinely make a difference — and they compare them not just to other banks, but to the best digital experiences in any industry. The margin for mediocrity is gone.

With so much noise about new market entrants in the SMB banking space, it’s easy to think your bank’s missed the boat and has to play catch-up. But that’s not necessarily the case.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has robo-advice on his mind. For him to be speaking about a nascent industry, he must believe that firms using technology to help manage people’s money will grow to become a significant part of the market. However, in his recent speech, he appears concerned about robo-advisors becoming a risk to our financial system, arguing they may lead to excess volatility or increase pro-cyclicality as a result of herding. Guest blogger Adam French, CEO of Scalable Capital, says this attack on robo-advice is misinformed for several reasons.

I was recently asked by a client: ‘how do I hire a design team?’

In the race to add as much functionality to mobile banking apps as possible, few banks are stepping back and thinking about the “little things” that will enhance the customer experience, such as re-vamped journeys and navigation. The newly released banking app from Nationwide Building Society, which automatically adapts to suit mobile and tablet screens, demonstrates that paying attention to the little things makes a big difference

Yesterday we saw Nationwide launch a new Savings Goal feature within its mobile banking app. It takes a different approach to savings, prompting customers to set a goal of the total amount of their savings account at a particular date.

Sarah Kocianski should be familiar to all of you now, she has hosted our three podcasts: Fintech Insider, Blockchain Insider, and Insurtech Insider, as well as penned many of our blog posts and reactions to major news in the fintech space. I had a chance to sit down with Sarah and talk to her about what makes her most passionate about fintech and what she believes needs to happen most in business.