
I’ve been thinking about HENRYs recently. Not the Henry who asked me to marry him - I was 8, he was 5 - although he does cross my mind occasionally. HENRYs, short for ‘High Earners Not Rich Yet’, was coined as a label by Shawn Tully in 2003.

If you listened to the headlines, you'd think the competitive race in financial services is about one thing: building the smartest AI. We think that's the wrong way to look at it.

Embedded banking without strategic intent is expensive theatre. Lots of APIs, lots of partnership announcements, lots of pilots, but not much revenue. And that’s the risk facing corporate banks right now.

AI assistants already help people compare products, check availability and plan purchases. Agentic commerce extends that role to placing the order: a customer sets a budget and a few conditions, then gives the software permission to complete the purchase.

For most people, the month falls into two phases - before and after payday - when balances jump, debts feel manageable, and financial intentions come back within reach. But in most banking apps, payday is treated as a passive event.

Financial institutions are moving quickly into agentic AI. Coding agents, workflow agents, document agents, service agents and operational agents are already entering the enterprise. Many will create useful gains, some of them genuinely impressive. But that is not the real test.
Barclays is acquiring the UK arm of GoHenry, a money app for 6 to 18-year olds. With a reported price tag of £180 million for around 500,000 active accounts, £360 per head is a chunky investment.

For the past decade, the banking industry has been focused on developing frictionless interfaces. Financial institutions have prioritised seamless transactions, instant gratification, and engaging gamified features in a bid to build the ultimate digital financial experience.

The need for better, tailored support through the customer experience is clear, but few are accounting for the fundamental shift that financial services has experienced with the introduction of AI.

Loyalty is defined as “a strong feeling of support or allegiance”. However, in the context of financial services, it is more accurately defined as engineered persistence: a series of subconscious cues that steer customers toward familiar choices.

For years, banks have relied on OTPs as a second factor for logins and sensitive actions. Sent via SMS, these short codes were designed to add security on top of a password. But they have become one of the weakest and most frustrating parts of the banking experience.

The people using business banking tools don’t necessarily have financial backgrounds. Many smaller businesses can't afford a dedicated finance team. Yet banks keep building products that assume expertise their customers don't have, leaving them to figure things out on their own.

As our financial lives become more complex, there is a growing expectation for banks to offer more support, be more relevant, and generate greater everyday value. One of the clearest places this shift is starting to show up is in subscription banking.

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS and Nucoro, to discuss designing financial services for high-net-worth individuals.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a show dedicated to developers and their worlds. We take a look at what a dev actually does and how to break into their world, what opportunities are out there, and how important dev communities really are. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Zayzoon and PayMeNow, to discuss the earned wage access industry.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Tech Nation, F10 and OakNorth, to explore the impact of tech accelerators on the fintech space.

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: Latin American crypto firm Ripio launches prepaid crypto card in Brazil, Steven Bartlett’s web3 creator platform Thirdweb raises £20m, and Netflix enters Decentraland metaverse promoted by Ryan Gosling. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Kate Moody and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests, from Betakit and Silicon Republic, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Shopify is picking a fight with Amazon, UBS scraps $1.4 billion deal to buy Wealthfront, and Japan decides it's time to stop using floppy disks.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Spiralem, and The Aspen Insitute, to discuss how embedded finance could be the trojan horse of financial inclusion.

John Bean and Benjamin Ensor are joined by a panel of guests from e-Zee Insurance and Snapsheet to talk through the biggest news of the month. Hear about: Insurtech funding bounces back after global downturn, Lloyd’s to end insurance coverage for state cyber attacks, and cyclists could be made to have registration plates and insurance. All this and much, much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

Benjamin Ensor and Nicole Perry are joined by some great guests, from Anthemis and Lightyear, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: UK and US consumers using Buy Now Pay Later to purchase groceries, Pezesha raises $11m from Women’s World Banking, and the PayPal story could be coming to a screen near you.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from Allica Bank and Novo, to discuss whether the initial promise of financial services for SMEs has truly been delivered.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a very exciting deep dive: this time - into film and web3. How do films and filmmaking change and work in web3? Does web3 have the power to revolutionise the process of filmmaking as we know it, and could it encourage more diversity and inclusivity? All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Ross Gallagher and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Prometeo launches LatAm’s first A2A payments platform, Ramp steps into the Buy Now Pay Later Market, and we dive into the Fintech Insider mailbag!

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Bunq, Techfugees, and Leaf Global Fintech to ask: 'How can fintech help solve the refugee crisis?'

Nigel Walsh and John Bean are joined by a panel of guests from 11:FS and Maptycs to talk through the process of building trust and transparency in insurance. All this and much, much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

David M. Brear and Nicole are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Wise partnership with Plaid gives customers access to 6000 US apps, Klarna strives for Super App status, and Adam Neumann raises BIG from A16Z!

David M. Brear, our 11:FS CEO, takes us through legacy technology within banks - but of course, with a really cool Lightboard.

Fintech Marketing Podcast Season 2: Coming soon

After Dark - Open Finance: fact or fantasy?

Banks are facing a lot of challenges compared to their fintech rivals.
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.

What does the future hold for lending? Live from Lendit USA 2022.
Will banks exist in 100 years?

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.
On this episode of Spotlight, 11:FS Crypto Global Strategy Director, Mauricio Magaldi is joined by Ramp Network Co-Founder and CEO, Szymon Sypniewicz. In today's chat, the pair discuss Szymon's career, the current regulatory landscape in crypto, and what the future might hold when it comes to widespread crypto adoption.

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...

