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Goldman Sachs broke the fintechnet this week when it launched its developer portal, intentionally allowing companies to ‘embed finance’ within their organisation using their Banking as a Service (BaaS) offering. Hari Moorthy, Goldman’s Global Head of Transaction Banking, referred to it as “the financial cloud for corporates.” Cue a flurry of emails inside every large bank from CEOs wondering how seriously they should take this. Take it seriously. Take it very seriously.

Let’s start by calling Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) what it is - debt. Debt, of course, has many faces. But ‘credit, pay in instalments, pay nothing today, etc.’ are all just debt. 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.

Over the past twelve months, we’ve been seriously busy here at 11:FS. Now we’re announcing arguably the most exciting project we’ve ever taken on.

That’s what 11:FS bank building guru Jason hears when he tells people that he’s just spent the last two years building a new digital bank, and they’re right!

The Pulse team spends their time trawling through the world of banks and fintech apps, sorting the good from the bad so you don’t have to.

In this blog post Simon Taylor explores the concept of a Central Bank Digital Currency and why you would want a DLT (or “Blockchain”) like architecture for such a system.

If you missed Part 1 of this 2 part piece then you can catch it here and catch up with the rest of the class: BaaP (Banking as a Platform) Part 1 – Why haven’t we seen a banking platform play?

The landscape for fintech and banking is evolving more rapidly than ever, and in case you weren’t aware, there’s a war going on for your customers. With challengers attacking from left, right, and centre, it’s never been more important to stay on top of the latest and greatest UX innovation. Pssst – click here to go straight to the goods and request a demo of 11:FS Pulse.

The opportunity to change the way we deliver financial services is changing as new channels, products and partnerships are being explored. Banking as a Platform (BaaP) is one of the alternatives.By me, David M. Brear, CEO and Co Founder at 11:FS and Pascal Bouvier, Venture Partner at Santander InnoVentures

While 2015 was just awesome on nearly all fronts, I think the close of the year has left us with a cliff hanger that George RR Martin would be rather proud of. For the curious among you, the question remains what’s next? What will 2016 bring? Across the actors and audiences, we feel there are the 9 questions we need to answer to be able to gauge who the winners and losers in 2016 banking will be. To get to the bottom of these questions, we have given our opinion, have asked a panel for their inputs and have asked a few expert friends of Think Different Group also for theirs.

“Hey Siri – Are you the bank of the future?”… “No comment, David” – Sometimes when someone says no comment that means no but when the thing saying it is a computer assistant then “no comment” means someone has taken the time to think about it and decide upon a snarky comment rather than nothing at all! For years AI has been a good idea without real world application or the processing power, connectivity or interface intelligence to maximize the opportunity. In the last 6 months, and ever increasingly, those restrictions are being removed unlocking huge potential.

We asked some of the 11:Mamas what they think we do. Here's how that went.

As consumers order the new Apple Watch, could this eventually be the missing piece of banking’s ‘branch of the future’? With secure digital payments, facilitated through the iPhone and Apple Watch, is this the potential game changer everyone has been waiting for? This article was first published on the Financial Brand in April 2015.

Legacy banking organizations are filled with career bankers who are set in their ways and naturally resist change. These managers can stifle the creativity and innovative spirit of others, impacting the ability for the organization to make needed transitions and remain competitive. What type of banker are you? Banks have been talking about a legacy holding them back for decades, but usually this discussion revolves around IT, core banking systems, distribution channels and traditional operation processes. This article was first published on the Financial Brand in July 2015.