
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 Barton-Grimley and Rachel Pandyan are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: P2P payments are coming to X, Revolut are facing a class action lawsuit for biometric data breaches, mortgages rates are coming down, and Andaria partners with Mastercard to improve their embedded finance offering.

11:FS CEO David M. Brear is joined by some great guests to talk about the current state of open banking, how it is transforming financial services and, as more countries push for formal open banking regimes, what does the future hold?

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: HSBC launch money transfer app Zing, Pave Bank launches, and the UK and Switzerland sign the Berne Financial Agreement.

Happy New Year Fin-techers! To celebrate, hosts David M. Brear, Ross Gallagher and Kate Moody make some bold fintech predictions for 2024, and look back on how right (or wrong) they were last year!

L. F. G. And Happy New Year! Mauricio and Catherine bring you our 2024 predictions. Alongside special guest Balaji Srinivasan, we revisit our 2023 predictions, see where we went right or wrong and look ahead to the key trends to look out for in 2024. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a live bonus episode! Mauricio Magaldi is joined live on stage at Blockchain Rio by some great guests from FEAT THE FUTURE and BLOCKFORCE to discuss blockchain for good. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a live bonus episode! Simon Taylor is joined live on stage at New York FinTech Week by some great guests, from Visa, EMTECH and The Digital Dollar Project, to discuss whether a US central bank digital currency is now inevitable. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

As we wrap up another rollercoaster year in fintech, 11:FS CEO David M. Brear is joined by some a panel of colleagues to talk about the biggest, best, and most outrageous happenings of 2023.

Benjamin Ensor and Rachel Pandyan are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: CaixaBank investing in 100-person team to work exclusively on GenAI, TikTok acquire Tokopedia following new social media laws, and Canapi launch a $750m VC fund to support fintechs.

L.F.G. Mauricio and Catherine bring you a deep dive into tokenised deposits on the blockchain. What they are, how they work and how they differ from CBDCs and stablecoins and the different ways to utilise each one. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

David Barton-Grimley is joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Robinhood are coming to the UK... no, seriously this time, and Wise partner with Allica Bank to make cross-border payments easier for SMEs. Plus, if you're looking for a new family board game this year, head to your local Natwest branch.

David M. Brear is joined by financial services veteran, Ashok Vaswani, to discuss how he draws on his experience going forward and why he continues to put learning first.

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...

