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.

Around the world, people have instant, around-the-clock access to banking apps and their own financial data. So why do so many people still feel uncertain about their financial future?

Most AI deployments so far have focused on AI that “talks”, which can search, summarise, and draft content to support employees. The next wave is different: AI agents that “do” are starting to take bounded actions inside workflows, moving cases forward and coordinating steps end-to-end, with humans kept in control where it matters.
Financial accessibility has long been framed as a matter of compliance or corporate social responsibility. But today, it’s emerging as something much bigger: a competitive advantage.

As the industry adjusts to a new digital landscape, players across the spectrum are fighting to muscle their way into the financial epicentre and ‘win’ the salary battle to become the payday home of their customers.

Consumers are evolving, and so are their expectations and demands. As the purchasing power of the younger, digital-native Gen Z and Gen Alpha grows and older generations become more comfortable with the possibilities that AI and other new technologies enable, businesses have to work harder to keep them happy and retain their business.

Saving money and paying bills might not sound exciting - but today’s finance apps are borrowing tricks from video games to change that.

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: Key US senators introduce crypto bill outlining sweeping plan for future rules, the crypto community says the UK's FCA is finally starting to listen, and Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey launch 'Bitcoin Academy' at rapper's childhood home in Brooklyn. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Benjamin Ensor and Gwera Kiwana are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: SME lender Allica Bank secures £55m in equity and debt round, Backbase earns a €2.5bn valuation, and Deadmau5 is launching his own online bank

David M. Bear is joined by some great guests, from Fintech Business Weekly and Railsr to ask what can the crypto industry learn from traditional finance?

David M. Brear is joined by some great guests, from Truelayer, Binance and Banking Circle, live from Money 20/20 to discuss how payments companies are adding more to their offerings to stay ahead of the competition!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a deep dive into real world use cases. We'll take a look at what real life use cases really means, cover some fantastic case studies and discuss what the role of wallets is within all of this. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Gwera Kiwana and Sim Rai are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Nova Credit Teams with Alloy on inclusive business lending, world's first green fintech taxonomy launched, and Sex Pistols launch God Save the Queen coin and NFT collection.

Gwera Kiwana is joined by some great guests, from NovoPayment, Treasury Prime and Anthemis, to find out who are the winners and losers of the embedded finance revolution.

Mauricio Magaldi and Simon Taylor take a deep dive into the Terra/LUNA story for this very special bonus episode of Blockchain Insider.

Benjamin Ensor and Sim Rai are joined by some great guests, from Tranch and Anthemis, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Klarna lays off 10% of its workforce via video message, Chase marks 500,000 UK customers, and our panel answers your questions!

David M. Brear and Jason Bates are podcasting from the metaverse!

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: an in depth conversation about all things Play To Earn and Metaverse. We’re going to be looking at the why, the what, and the how – with the help of some great expert guests in the Play to Earn space. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

David Brear, Simon Taylor and Jason Bates are here to answer all of your questions on our new Ask Me Anything episode. Tune in to hear more!

In the fourth roundtable episode of Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Mariette Ferreira takes a look at how fintechs use performance marketing for growth. Mariette is joined by a great panel of guests to help unpack this and dive a bit deeper into- wide array of tools and tactics, and every company will have its own flavour, from SEO, to PPC, to paid social, to affiliates. Some call it growth marketing, paid marketing, even (sadly) digital marketing.

In this week's episode of the Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Eric Fulwiler is joined by Chris Pitt, CEO at First Direct - to discuss all things marketing - what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what every marketer needs to know to keep levelling up.

In the second roundtable episode of Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Mariette Ferreira takes a look at what it really takes to build a finance brand. Mariette is joined by a great panel of guests to help unpick this and dive a bit deeper into trust - the core to brands in financial services, how to maintain your customer connection and your brand identity through a rebrand, building an impactful but lean brand, and much much more.

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...

