Global

If you’re a banker, particularly a retail banker, last year was like the longest pre-fight build up we’ve ever seen. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that this year four new challenger banks will finally come to the UK market in the form of Monzo, Atom, Starling, and Tandem. They were the constant drum beat in the background while you were making your roadmaps and planning your transformations; the constant understanding that winter was coming.

Much has been written about how Open Banking has announced itself with more of a whimper than a bang, since going live at the beginning of 2018.

Each week, Leda Glyptis, CEO of 11:FS Foundry creates #LedaWrites. This week her attention turns to failing and terrible advice.

If you look at the Trustpilot reviews for Plum (the UK savings app), one thing stands out. People don’t talk that much about the product; instead, they proudly declare how much they’ve saved.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, CEO of 11:FS Foundry creates #LedaWrites. This week, she tells us the best way to avoid frustrated ambition and missed opportunities.

Software has been around for some time, but it was the explosion of mobile phones that changed the dynamic and timeline of building new products. In Europe alone, fintech app usage is up 72% since the start of the pandemic. 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.

If all the bits of your car lived in different countries, and you had to ship them to your house and assemble them every time you wanted to drive somewhere – it would get a bit annoying right? You would question why anyone thought this was an acceptable way of building something so critical.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she turns her attention to dudes and core banking.

Jason Bates interviewed Rishi Khosla, CEO of OakNorth for Fintech Insider, the under the radar fintech unicorn in the SME lending space. They discuss OakNorth’s origin story, how they reached profitability within 24 months, the social impact of the SME lending space and what the future holds for this little-big company with deep roots. Listen to the interview in full on the podcast here or stream it below.

China’s currently the second biggest hub for fintech in the world. In 2018 the nation managed to secure $15.1BN in funding for fintechs. A great deal of that reputation for success is down to the power and growth of Ant Financial.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she turns her attention to industry conferences and forgetfulness.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Obvious opening statement for a blog published on February 14th but on the off chance you forgot, you might want to bookmark this blog, run and buy a card. I’ll be here when you get back.

Big business is dying. But you already know that from my previous discussion with Jeff Tijssen last week. I digged a little deeper into the issue with him to find out how big businesses need to transform to stay alive.

Despite the global fintech boom, a lot of people in the Middle East remain unbanked, and there is plenty of work to do.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she’s thinking about how fintechs can survive doing business with big banks.