Europe

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.

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.

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?

I wrote about the underbanked phenomenon in Eastern Europe a few weeks ago. Mainly I talked about which basic services are used, not used, and why.

With the new year picking up a head of steam, it’s time to turn our attention to the trends and themes set to shape financial services in 2023. Here at 11:FS, we’re more convinced than ever that UK banks are running out of time to address their core banking issues.

While chatting with my grandma on my annual trip to Romania this year, I had an epiphany. She is underbanked! So is my mom, uncle, cousin, and neighbour - you get the gist.

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.

If I’d told you six months ago that you could guarantee an affordable electricity supply for your home, you wouldn’t have cared.

Price walking [common in the insurance industry] a form of price discrimination whereby existing customers, especially long-standing customers, incur a loyalty penalty over new customers. 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.

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.

The US fintech scene is moving like a bat out of hell. But experts have pointed out it was pretty late to the party.