
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.

In a very special edition of Fintech Insider, we bring you the 11th instalment of After Dark, recorded live in London! Returning to our roots, the original 11:FS crew take the stage to talk about some of the most interesting fintech stories of late and have a little rant about the latest fintech trends and topics.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: Cash is king once again, the Bank of England releases CBDC white paper, and MakerDAO faces an emergency shutdown. Simon Taylor hosts and is joined by Vinay Gupta, founder and CEO of Mattereum and Obi Nwosu, CEO of Coinfloor. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Ross Gallagher and Sarah Kocianski are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: RBS preps for coronavirus impacts, Standard Chartered detail virtual bank, and Starling joins Team GB!

Sarah Kocianski hosts today and is joined by some wonderful women in fintech to talk about gender, diversity and inclusivity in financial services. Guests on today's show are: Charlotte Crosswell - CEO at Innovate Finance, Wincie Wong - Head of Rose Review Implementation at Natwest, and Evelina Vrabie - CTO at Toucan.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: The US’ first regulated crypto bank, Shopify joins Libra and Sweden tests its e-krona. Simon Taylor hosts and is joined by Matthew Pollard, founder of Archax and Helen Disney, founder of Unblocked. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Host Will White is stateside this week and he's joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Intuit to purchase Credit Karma in landmark deal, JPMorgan wants to build a digital bank in the UK, A hole in the wall is now a tourist hotspot!

Simon Taylor and Adam Davis are joined by some great guests to talk about big banks' earnings. Guests on today's show are Sharon Kimathi, Editor at Fintech Futures and Lianna Brinded, Head of Yahoo Finance UK.

David Brear and Sam Maule are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: JPMorgan sets data deadline for fintechs, Marcus proves popular in new poll, and celebs invest in immigrant credit company.

Jason Bates is joined by TransferWise CEO, Taavet Hinrikus and GoCardless CEO, Hiroki Takeuchi to talk about their new partnership and the future of cross-border payments.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: DeFi protocol hit by hackers, JP Morgan’s Quorum looks to merge with ConsenSys, and multiples M&A moves in the crypto world. Today's guests include: Ed Cooper - Revolut, Michael Coletta - London Stock Exchange Group, Rhain Lewis - London Womon in Bitcoin, and Aman Kohli - DXC. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

In a Valentine's Day and episode 400 special, hosts Leda Glyptis, David Brear and Jason Bates get together to talk about the things they love most about this industry and their favourite fintech partnerships. Later in the show, they're joined by some friends of the podcast who also share some of theirs!

Nigel Walsh is joined by a panel of guests to talk through how insurance is evolving and changing in our modern world. All this and much much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

Leda Glyptis and David Brear are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Could Goldman Sachs and Amazon join forces on small business lending?, two more payments giants are consolidating, and banker busted for allegedly filching food.

Leda Glyptis and David Brear are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Could Goldman Sachs and Amazon join forces on small business lending?, two more payments giants are consolidating, and banker busted for allegedly filching food.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: will banks bet big on central bank digital currencies?, more execs leave Swiss stock exchange SDX, and Ripple eyes IPO. Simon Taylor hosts and is joined by Eric Van der Kleij, CEO of Frontier Network and Andrew Smith, CTO at RTGS.All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Hey, banks! This might sting a bit. You’re getting loyalty all wrong - and it’s costing you customers. But all is not lost!
The entire world is buzzing about AI, and that ain't changing anytime soon. But as AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, what impact will it have on financial services and how people interact with them?
It's not just a buzzword.
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.

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...

