After a busy year in crypto, 11:FS co-founder Simon Taylor checks in on his 2019 predictions to see what he got right and what he missed.

GDPR, MiFID II, Solvency II, SCA, PSD2, Brexit… The past decade has been pretty hard on Compliance teams if not only for all the acronyms they need to remember.

Over the past few months, 11:FS Ventures has seen a spike in interest from clients in private banking and wealth management.

We’re all busier than ever. Not even the most efficient human can cope with the trials we all face and the tasks we all have to do on a daily basis. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

Do you remember when you first saw a newspaper app on an iPad? It was as though a physical newspaper had been trapped under the black glass. There was even a page turning animation that you probably showed your friends. It was magical. It was digitised news. Ditto for buying albums on iTunes and ordering a traditional taxi; amazing experiences, but we just took what had come before and translated it directly to the new medium.

Africa is the most worthy market for mainstream adoption of decentralised finance. Why? I could go on and on about the underbanked, underserved populations and fragmented remittance ecosystem - while that’s all valid, the biggest pain point in my mind is currency devaluation. Volatile currencies make it difficult for Africans’ savings to hold their value. Solving for currency devaluation will provide the beachhead for the adoption of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) across Africa.

When our friends at Garanti asked us to take a look at their app, we could see pretty quickly that they were doing things a little differently. A traditional Turkish bank that broke away from the pack, Garanti is integrating next-generation services into their mobile app. Let’s look at our top 5 features.

In the second of this monthly design series, we look at a rebrand done right, an app that bids to be the future of car management, and one firm designing a better relationship between finance and the environment.

Nobody sets out to block innovation in their organisation. It just happens.

The last episode of Under The Hood, the podcast series with 11:FS that took a deep dive into the banking infrastructure that is disrupting traditional banking models and shaking up the system, has been released. And looking back, I realise how many great conversations we’ve had.

There’s a lot going on right now on personal, business and industry levels. But as I sit here in my home office over the last month talking to senior people in financial services, fintech founders and project teams all over the world, one thing keeps returning to me: “See, we didn’t need more strategy”.

Customer-centric, focused on financial inclusion, helping the underserved and unbanked. Have we rediscovered the principles of the first banks and building societies?

This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

Many marketers have a story of a boss or board that wanted all the benefits of a strong brand, without the investment, hassle or commitment of having to build one. This is taken from our Unfiltered newsletter. Subscribe now for a no BS, uncensored analysis of fintech news and hot topics delivered to your inbox each fortnight.

So. Let’s talk about DAO, baby.

Advice is regulated and personalised. Guidance is broader and safer - but that line is starting to blur.

Host Laura Watkins - Director of Media and Marketing at 11:FS - is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.

In this episode of Fintech Insider Insights, in partnership with PPRO, Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests to explore why APAC merchants are expanding into LATAM, the $100bn cross-border opportunity, and why payments are critical to success.

Host Benjamin Ensor - Director of Research and Strategy at 11:FS - is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.
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What does customer loyalty really mean in financial services - and has it ever been real? In this episode of Fintech Insider Insights, Kate Moody is joined by Rosie Lee, Jas Shah, and Alex Johnson to unpack the shifting nature of loyalty in a world where switching is easier than ever.

Host Benjamin Ensor - Director of Research and Strategy at 11:FS - is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.

In this episode of Fintech Insider Insights, in partnership with Pleo, host Benjamin Ensor is joined by Jeppe Rindom (Co-Founder & CEO at Pleo) and Tulsi Narayan (EVP, Commercial and New Payment Flows, Europe at Mastercard) to explore the next phase of embedded finance — as it evolves from a handy feature into critical infrastructure.

Host Laura Watkins - Director of Media and Marketing at 11:FS - is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by Rory O’Neill, Sahar Attaripour, and Sam Boboev to explore the rise of agentic payments - a fundamental shift from executing transactions to delegating intent.

Host Ross Gallagher - Head of Consulting at 11:FS - is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.

About this episode: Host Laura Watkins - Director of Media and Marketing at 11:FS is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week. This week's guests: David Sullivan -

Our expert host Ross Gallagher, and co-host Jamie Campbell, Co-CEO of 11:FS Holdings, present Fintech Insider News live from Village Underground in London, joined by some fantastic guests to discuss some of the interesting fintech and financial services stories of the week.

Recorded live from J.P. Morgan’s e-commerce and fintech forum, 11:FS CEO David M. Brear is joined by an all-star panel to tackle a deceptively simple question: can you still launch a startup in 2026?

Host Benjamin Ensor - Director of Research and Strategy at 11:FS is joined by some great guests to discuss the biggest stories from the world of financial services over the past week.

For years, banking has been framed as a battlefield: incumbents defending their turf while fintech challengers attack with better tech and customer experience. But in 2026, that picture may have changed.

Fintech is only 1% finished. But what do we mean by that? Simon Taylor, Head of Ventures at 11:FS takes us through the landscape of financial technology in this Lightboard edition of 11:FS Explores.
Just what is going on with Buy Now, Pay Later right now?

What does the future hold for lending? Live from Lendit USA 2022.
Will banks exist in 100 years?

In this episode of 11:FS Explores, Adam Davis picks apart Open Finance, and what we have to look forward to if this technology became a reality.
Inclusive design is a mindset and a process that suggests that you should bring as many people as possible - and the most diverse of voices that you can - into your product design product process, so that you're being truly inclusive. It's designing with people rather that just at them. Charlotte Fereday, Product Director, Ventures, explains what inclusive design is, why it's important, how you can design more inclusively, and answers - how possible is truly inclusive design?
On this episode of Spotlight, 11:FS Crypto Global Strategy Director, Mauricio Magaldi is joined by Ramp Network Co-Founder and CEO, Szymon Sypniewicz. In today's chat, the pair discuss Szymon's career, the current regulatory landscape in crypto, and what the future might hold when it comes to widespread crypto adoption.

In this 11:FS Explores: Lightboard Edition, Vaughan Shaman takes us through how asynchronous systems work, their advantages, and how they can remove potential bottlenecks.

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...

