Financial inclusion

I wrote about the underbanked phenomenon in Eastern Europe a few weeks ago. Mainly I talked about which basic services are used, not used, and why.

While chatting with my grandma on my annual trip to Romania this year, I had an epiphany. She is underbanked! So is my mom, uncle, cousin, and neighbour - you get the gist.

A couple of weeks ago I went into an overpriced London salad shop for lunch. Before I could part with my hard-earned money for some wilted spinach and avocado, the connection on the iPad I was ordering on went down.

TL;DR – It’s a textbook bubble, consult your financial advisor, only invest what you’re willing to lose, and no, I don’t know when the bubble will pop, nobody does – heck, it might have already happened.

As July continues apace, brands all over the world are rolling up their rainbow logos and packing them away for another year.

The link between poor mental health and money worries is well-known, as is the fact that all too often it can become a vicious circle.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she returns to the issues with her high street bank.

It’s fair to say that Anthony Thomson knows a thing, or three, about setting up challenger banks. He recently talked to Simon Taylor about customer centricity, Techfin and Australian banking.

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week...Volume 5 (in a likely ongoing series) of her personal banking saga.

Sharing our stories, our challenges, and the things that truly matter to us. Today we talk to Jamie Clements from the 11:FS Pulse team to discuss mental health, opening up and what led him to creating a podcast about these complex issues.

If you’re a banker, particularly a retail banker, last year was like the longest pre-fight build up we’ve ever seen. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that this year four new challenger banks will finally come to the UK market in the form of Monzo, Atom, Starling, and Tandem. They were the constant drum beat in the background while you were making your roadmaps and planning your transformations; the constant understanding that winter was coming.

Big business is dying. But you already know that from my previous discussion with Jeff Tijssen last week. I digged a little deeper into the issue with him to find out how big businesses need to transform to stay alive.

A couple of months ago our 11:FS CEO David Brear was invited to be a judge of Tech City UK’s Fintech for All competition. This was a nationwide competition in 2017 to find fintech startups that make financial services work for everyone. As well as some fantastic entrants and eventual winners, this event got us thinking about the wider implications of financial inclusion. Therefore we felt we really needed to do a podcast to delve into the issues raised and what this competition really highlighted, and how best the problems of financial inclusion and serving the underbanked can be solved in the UK.

As we are approaching a new academic year, at the forefront of returning students’ minds (aside from pulling themselves out of bed to attend 9am lectures), is how on earth to sort out household bills. Organising multiple bills is a nightmare, even more so when there are many people living together.

With over one million students studying away from home during the 17/18 academic year, managing budgets and expenses is an ever-increasing need.