
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.

Simon interviewed the husband and wife team Arthur and Kathleen Brietman, the co-founders of Tezos, about their recent token sale for the very first episode of Blockchain Insider.

AML is the world’s most ineffective policy experiment. Imagine if you have a car that didn’t work 99.9% of the time. That would be annoying right? 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.

Benjamin Ensor is joined by some great guests, from Tech Nation, F10 and OakNorth, to explore the impact of tech accelerators on the fintech space.

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: Latin American crypto firm Ripio launches prepaid crypto card in Brazil, Steven Bartlett’s web3 creator platform Thirdweb raises £20m, and Netflix enters Decentraland metaverse promoted by Ryan Gosling. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Kate Moody and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests, from Betakit and Silicon Republic, to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Shopify is picking a fight with Amazon, UBS scraps $1.4 billion deal to buy Wealthfront, and Japan decides it's time to stop using floppy disks.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Spiralem, and The Aspen Insitute, to discuss how embedded finance could be the trojan horse of financial inclusion.

A little bonus to end the year, we're not all perfect here at Blockchain Insider. To prove it Simon's got a quick cut of some of the funniest mistakes we made this year.

John Bean and Benjamin Ensor are joined by a panel of guests from e-Zee Insurance and Snapsheet to talk through the biggest news of the month. Hear about: Insurtech funding bounces back after global downturn, Lloyd’s to end insurance coverage for state cyber attacks, and cyclists could be made to have registration plates and insurance. All this and much, much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from Allica Bank and Novo, to discuss whether the initial promise of financial services for SMEs has truly been delivered.

We. Are. Here. Today we bring you: a very exciting deep dive: this time - into film and web3. How do films and filmmaking change and work in web3? Does web3 have the power to revolutionise the process of filmmaking as we know it, and could it encourage more diversity and inclusivity? All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Ross Gallagher and Benjamin Ensor are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Prometeo launches LatAm’s first A2A payments platform, Ramp steps into the Buy Now Pay Later Market, and we dive into the Fintech Insider mailbag!

David M. Brear and Nicole are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: Wise partnership with Plaid gives customers access to 6000 US apps, Klarna strives for Super App status, and Adam Neumann raises BIG from A16Z!

EL. EF. GEE. Today we bring you: hackers drain £5m from 8,000 wallets linked to Solana crypto network, Nomad crypto bridge loses $200 million in ‘chaotic’ hack, US Senators push bill to make small crypto transactions tax-free, and Revolut partners with Polkadot to launch “Learn to Earn” feature. All this and much more on today's Blockchain Insider!

Kate Moody and Nicole Perry are joined by some great guests to talk about the most interesting stories in financial services over the last 7 days, including: cash’s comeback as the cost of living climbs, Heopagos raising big for Latam payments, and Italy says ‘ciao!’ to Domino's Pizza.

Ross Gallagher is joined by some great guests, from 11:FS, Sibstar, and Purple, to talk about you design financial services for people with disabilities.

In this exciting bonus episode, David M. Brear is joined by Andy Bromberg, CEO of Eco, to talk about the fine line between copying, imitation, and competitor research. All this and much much more on today's bonus show!

Nigel Walsh and John Bean are joined by a fantastic guest from Hubb to talk through what the future for brokers might look like in today's insurance space. All this and much, much more on today's Insurtech Insider!

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...

