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.

In this Insights episode, David recorded live from the Tavern Stand at Lords Cricket Ground to explore new ways of working, with Andy Ellis and Peter Ryan-Bell from RBS, and Tunde Olanrewaju from McKinsey.

This week very special friend of the show Sarah Kocianski is in the hosting seat as neither David, Jason and Simon were available this week. She is joined by guests including Anna Bennett, Nina Mohanty, Liz Lumley and Sophie Winwood.

Simon Taylor and the birthday boy Colin G Platt (still enjoying the beach in sunny Australia) cover the best of the week's news, including the death of SegWit2x, the surge in Bitcoin Cash and the latest on the parity hack. Plus interviews with Michael Casey, advisor, author, speaker and commentator, and Daniel Cotti and David Sutter from TradeIX.

This week we bring you a very special Insights show, recorded live at BBVA's Global Summit in Madrid, where Simon Taylor hosts a panel to discuss the future of banking and disruption with Marko Wenthin, Leanne Kemp, and Elena Alfaro.

David, Jason, and Simon are joined by Fluidly Founder, CEO and OBE Caroline Plumb, and CEO and Founder of Norio Ventures, Pete Townsend for this week's news!

This week, Sam Maule talks to the wonderful Amber Baldet, Executive Director and Blockchain Programme Lead at J.P. Morgan.

Simon and Colin bring you another packed show covering the week's topsy turvy news, including SegWit2x, more on Bitcoin prices, Colin's long thing and some fantastic guests talking e-sports.

This week is an extremely special Halloween episode: After Dark II recorded in front of a live studio audience from our home at WeWork in Aldgate, London, and we're celebrating an important milestone; it's episode number 150!

In a special interview this week, David speaks to Liesbeth Rigter, CEO at MoneYou and Eric Mouilleron, CEO at Bankable, about their partnership and their plans for the future.

David introduces the second installment from our trip to Xerocon 2017, featuring Edward Berks, Director of Sales, Banking and Fintech at Xero, Ian Christie, CEO at Boma Technologies, Margaret Laidlaw, Partner at Mazars, Mark Sykes, Partner at BDO and Anna Curzon, Chief Partner Officer at Xero.

This week, Simon and Colin catch up and the weeks news and talk to Stephen Palley, Software Development Lawyer, and Jeff Bandman, Principal at Bandman Advisors and former CFTC Fintech Advisor.

Sam Maule hosts a very special episode of Fintech Insider from a flat in Toronto! Sam's joined by Mike Sigal from 500 Fintechs (part of 500 Startups), Dion Lisle from CapGemini, Jo Lang from IBM, and April Rudin from The Rudin Group.

This week Jason, David and Simon are joined by Sharon O'Dea, consultant, advisor, and blogger, and Kadhim Shubber, Tech 100 #68 and FT Alphaville journalist to discuss the week's top news.

This week Simon and Colin talk through the Bitcoin good news story as well as Tezos, R3, and much more. Plus, we hear Sam Maule talk to Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple.

This week, we cover David's time at Xerocon, where he hosted a panel on Frictionless Finance featuring Niall Cameron, Global Head of Digital at HSBC, Caroline Plumb OBE, CEO at Fluidly, Colin Goldstein, Head of Partnerships at iwoca, Stewart Roberts, Executive VP at iZettle, and Shachar Bialick, CEO at Curve.

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...

