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This is the fourth instalment of a 6 part series that explores the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) for US SMBs that we identified in our recent research. Each blog post explores one of the jobs and how we examined it with a JTBD canvas. If you missed the first post that explains JTBD and the canvas, check it out before reading this.

There’s a sweltering heat wave hitting the city and I’ve never been so thankful for the office air conditioning. We’ve just entered July, everyone’s moving onto their Q3 targets and writing reports on Q2. So what happened in Q2 for the fintech world? And where are we about to go for Q3? I take a look at the 11 biggest stories that happened in fintech over the last three months.

China has long been on the radar of those with ambitions of marrying technological innovation with a payments-savvy population of big spenders. Traditionally, though, China’s economy had been centrally-planned, driven by investment and built around large state-owned enterprises (SOE). Banks had focused mainly on providing services for these SOEs, under-serving SME and retail consumers. So, naturally, with Alibaba and Tencent so successfully serving other areas – e-commerce and social media respectively – it should come as no surprise that they’ve found themselves filling this vacuum.

You can catch the full Fintech Insider take on the news today at 4pm on the podcast here. Sticking to our Monday news blog format, we’re going to take a close look at one of the most interesting stories of the week’s show. For analysis straight from industry experts subscribe to our podcast! Fintech Insider host and 11:FS co-founder Simon Taylor sits down with Freddy Kelly, Veronique Barbosa, Tanya Andreasyan, and Philip Clarke to discuss the news, including Amazon teaming up with American Express for SMBs.

Today we’ve got the second in our four part mini-series on fintech in the UK with Tech Nation (go listen to the first one here if you haven’t already). Our latest episode on uniting the fintech kingdom focuses on what makes the UK such a unique regulatory environment. We also take a look at whether Brexit will remove the UK’s fintech crown. This post is just a little teaser for what’s coming out at 4pm today. In our podcast we examine why UK fintech is so attractive and how to keep the flow of talent and companies coming in. You can/should/need/have to listen to it asap.

This is the fourth instalment of a 6 part series that explores the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) for US SMBs that we identified in our recent research. Each blog post dives into one of the jobs and how we examined it with a JTBD canvas. If you missed the first post that explains JTBD and the canvas, check it out before reading this.

There’s a lot of recession talk at the moment. Are we entering the next recession? Are we already in it? We all remember the 2008 financial crisis, and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, and all the financial trouble they caused.

I speak to a lot of banks and I get asked the same question: “How do I test my product ideas?” The secret is understanding how your customers measure value and align your proposition to their definition of success. However, the temptation for a lot of corporate innovation teams is to jump straight into product design which ultimately slows you down and sends you in the wrong direction. To set off in the right direction and accelerate to market you need to return the customer Job. Jobs To Be Done is a technique being used by some of the most innovative digital brands in the world.

Henry Ford owned the plants that manufactured rubber, glass, and steel to build the Ford Model T. Now car companies have a network of specialist suppliers of glass, rubber, and other key parts. These suppliers are better at building glass or rubber than the car companies themselves. You know that Henry Ford’s business model is no longer viable; that’s why you subcontract for multiple pain points in the industry. Why focus on developing all your own security when you can outsource it to specialists?

Jobs to be done (JTBD). It’s an interesting phrase. Pithy, agile-sounding, and adaptive. It’s about bringing humanity to an industry that sometimes forgets about it.I spoke to Ryan Garner, Innovation and Insight lead at 11:FS about what it means to introduce jobs to be done to the fintech space. And how being human is core to delivering a meaningful product. Ryan knows the only way for fintech to succeed is to understand people.

Open Banking turned one on Sunday, but why has no-one made a big deal about it despite all the potential?

Sports people make better business people. There, I said it. I’ve said it before so you shouldn't be too surprised at this point but I honestly believe in this statement.

I’ve read an awful lot of research reports in my professional life. I also studied History at university and if that doesn’t set you up with the ability to detect sense from nonsense when it comes to research, I don’t know what will. More recently, I’ve written a lot of market research reports and have every intention of writing more in the future. But I want my next set of research outputs to be different. So I turned to Twitter, that great hotbed of opinion, to conduct a survey (with many methodological holes) to find out what people’s biggest bugbears are with most of the content out there today.

I love the Showtime drama series Billions. It gets two big thumbs up from me and I highly recommend binge-watching the series. You'll thank me later.I recently finished season 3 of the program and I actually burst out laughing during the beginning of the show. Real-life celebrities and billionaires are a constant staple of the series. Past guests have included Mark Cuban, Maria Sharapova, and even my beloved Metallica. But what made me chuckle was the brief appearance of Sara Blakely playing, well, herself.And why not? She's a self-made billionaire and founder of Spanx as I detailed in my first blog post on the commonalities between the Spanx product and the digitization of financial services. Seeing her pop up on my screen while watching the season finale prompted me to sit down and write part 2 of this blog post.

11:FS announced today that Microsoft has become a strategic partner over the forthcoming months across our Fintech Insider podcasts. Microsoft wants to be an integral part of tackling some of the biggest challenges in financial services and collaborate on topics of interest to the industry audience.