Banking

We recently had the pleasure of welcoming a (fin)tech OG, Nick Ogden, to our offices to talk founding firms, online commerce and building ClearBank.

It is the nature of finance that, at its core, is risk.

Of course, these are our top 3 blogs of 2018. We took a look at the data, talked amongst ourselves about which ones we liked best and came up with the best blogs we’ve put out this year.

Disclaimer: Yes the piece is entirely structured around the lyrics of a Pulp song. Yes, we take requests.

“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.

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to have it all, only for you to be handed what all product designers dread - the existing constraints of a rigid and outdated brand playbook.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.

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

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.

The last few weeks have shone the spotlight on leadership teams at banks and how they have responded to the unprecedented circumstances created by a global pandemic.

A three-part series by 11:FS Non-Executive Director, Lisa Gansky Last week Lisa discussed how to become truly digital you must take a leap of faith, ask questions, make a mess and ultimately shake up business models completely. True transformation must fully pervade an organisation’s culture; it must be far more than just a project. Read part 2 in full here

Should I sell my cryptocurrency? Is all hope lost? Will Bitcoin die? If you were fast asleep, and then suddenly your bed accelerated at high speed, before going upside down and doing loops. You'd be pretty shocked, right? I mean, my dreams can be pretty out there at times but I mean like your actual bed moving like a rollercoaster.

A three-part series by 11:FS Non-Executive Director, Lisa Gansky Last week Lisa discussed how becoming truly digital requires a leap of faith, to boldly go where no one else has yet gone, even if it seems crazy at the time, and to ignore basic human instinct asking how? where? how long? how far? She outlined the three steps on the journey: The Digital Makeover – ask never ending questions if you want to evolve The Joy of Decoupling – refashioning process and perspective Is That Even Legal? – Innovation that completely redefines norms Read part 1 in full here

In the first of a new series we’re talking to our brilliant 11s to get to know them a little bit more. From the consultants building new digital propositions and the research team using cultural insights to inform them, through to the engineers bringing those services to market, the operations team that keeps the lights on, and everyone else in between.