
In a beautiful flat on the edge of San Francisco’s sun-kissed Inner Sunset neighbourhood, the inimitable Sam Maule invited a plethora of fintech experts over for dinner. Across two evenings in the run up to our After Dark San Francisco show, Sam serves up chilli, tacos, and foodie fintech insights. You can listen to them here and here. Disclaimer: The food was actually cooked by Ollie Judge, Head of Media at 11:FS.

At 11:FS, we spend a lot of time looking at next-generation mobile trends and technology. Every now and again we come across a product or feature that just blows us away. It can be as simple as a smart integration with another product or as complicated as a whole app that’s powered by bleeding edge technology.

“Thank you to the Academy…” Sure. Classic Oscar speech energy.But do you know what hits harder than a polite golf clap from a panel of judges? Winning when your actual customers vote. And that’s what happened at the 2025 British Bank Awards, where 11:FS was named Consultancy of the Year. Again! 2019. 2020. 2021. 2023. And now 2025.

In her latest column for Forbes, 11:FS Head of Research Sarah Kocianski examines the new set of authentication procedures and how they are being implemented by UK banks.

11:FS are pleased to announce that Lisa Gansky joined us as a Non-Executive Director, on 3rd July 2017.

As a designer, it’s an all too familiar scenario: you’re about to undertake work on an exciting new digital product or service. It has the potential to have it all, only for you to be handed what all product designers dread - the existing constraints of a rigid and outdated brand playbook. It can certainly feel like a crushing blow. But approached in the correct manner, these constraints can be transformed into an opportunity to take both the product and the brand to the next level.

Digital Banking is only 1% Finished. That’s our motto at 11:FS. You can see it plastered across everything we do, we talk about it at events, and it’s in all of our client work. Taking a paper statement to the telephone, to a website and then a mobile app isn’t where digital banking ends; it’s where it begins. Digital Banking having 99% to go is a statement of optimism, of opportunity and its how you differentiate, as consumer expectations will only grow in the coming years.

On 1st August at approximately 12:20 UTC, the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin formally began a process to fork – or split into two- creating Bitcoin Cash, a new currency. It is unclear exactly what the implications of this will be in the long term but here’s a summary of what we know so far:

It’s about trust. Why do banks insist on having everything? Because they think if they only insist on some, they’ll never get the rest.

Fintech is technology used in the financial services industry, insurtech is technology used in a subset of that industry, insurance. And yet while one is typically considered fascinating, worthy of pages of mainstream media coverage, mention of the other is often greeted with eye-rolling outside of specialist circles.

Sam Maule joins 11:FS as Managing Partner, Americas

This week I had the super-smart Mariano Belinky tell me that the current crop of challenger banks are really just ‘better mousetraps’.

A few weeks ago, I outlined the problems with the financial products that supposedly address small and medium sized businesses’ (SMBs) needs, and how they are chronically underserved by incumbent financial institutions (FIs) across all sectors. Since then, we’ve explored how things are changing in the SMB insurance space and delved into the developments in the areas of bank account opening, payments and loans in our podcasts. I’ve also been busy trying to discover, articulate and demonstrate what “best in class” in this industry looks like in my latest research report.

At 11:FS we like to say that digital banking is 1% finished, well the same is true of Open Banking. The unknown potential of the regulation far outstrips what is being done right now. And that potential has caught the imagination of foreign regulators.

Dave Bruno, Co-Founder at YNOME and Head of WM Innovation at UBS, explains how digital can scale wealth management for everyone.

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.

In this week's episode of the Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Eric Fulwiler is joined by Carla Zakhem-Hassan, CMO at Citi - to discuss all things marketing, and find out what inspires and motivates her.

In the first roundtable episode of Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Mariette Ferreira takes a look at what good content marketing looks like. Mariette is joined by a great panel of guests to help unpick this and dive a bit deeper in the quality, quantity, and growing trends.

For the season 2 première of the Fintech Marketing Podcast, your host Eric Fulwiler is joined by David Wheldon - WFA President Emeritus and Former CMO at RBS - to discuss all things marketing, and find out what makes him tick.

Simon Taylor are joined by some great guests from Google, Fronted and Synctera to talk about how banks structure their technology and why this can make transformation so difficult.

Adam Davis and Kate Moody are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: TransferWise goes Down Under as they join Australia's real-time payments network, Stripe gets into business lending and Mogo goes into Rainforest Mode in their new app!

David Brear and Mel Stringer are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Google takes on Venmo and Square with new payments features, Starling hits profit for the first time, and the Queen of England unexpectedly takes an interest in blockchain.

Sarah Kocianski and Kate Moody joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Santander buys Wirecard’s core European business for €100m, PNC buys BBVA USA and the FCA says no, as Lanister launches its new polymorphic payment card.

Simon Taylor and Adam Davis are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: WhatsApp gets approval for payments in India, the US government want to block Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid, and Klarna gets sued by Pablo Escobar’s brother

Sam Maule and Sarah Kocianski are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Goldman bets on Banking as a Service, British banks stay bullish despite Lockdown 2, and Ant’s record-breaking IPO has been blocked by the Chinese regulator.

Sarah Kocianski and Nigel Walsh are joined by a panel of guests to talk about travel insurance, and how Covid-19 has changed the face of the industry. All this and much much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

Ross Gallagher and Simon Taylor are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Ant Group and the biggest IPO of all time, cryptocurrency initiatives amongst industry giants PayPal and JP Morgan, and raccoons break into California bank.

Sarah Kocianski is joined by some great guests to talk about cybersecurity in financial services.

Simon Taylor and Mel Stringer are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Stripe acquires Nigeria’s Paystack, Marqeta’s research discovers Covid-19 has forced three-quarters of banks to change their future strategy, and ESG funds forecast to outnumber conventional funds by 2025.
Ever wanted to know what’s going on behind the scenes every time we make a payment?
Regulation is essential. It stops banks from going bust or behaving badly.
The invention of the computer revolutionised banking in the 1950s.
Lending has been around for thousands of years and is one of the cornerstones of banking.
They're down, but they're not certainly not out.
Mastercard and Visa are the two biggest credit card networks in the world.
We kick off our Decoding: Banks series with a look at the banking landscape today and how we got here.

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

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...

