Fintech Insider By 11:fs

Kicking off with the biggest news, we talked about the gender pay gap, who has 'fessed up and who hasn't, why the disparity in earnings is no great surprise, and what can be done to improve diversity in all its forms across the industry. We also discuss why women are put off tech careers before they even leave school (and why Reddit isn't the most scientific way to collect data), why female tech role models are desperately needed, why enthusiasm for app-only banks is on the wane, Monzo's marketplace launch in beta, and what Atom will do with their latest round of funding. Next up are the two biggest Amazon stories of the week - their proposed plans for a checking account product with either JPMorgan or CapitalOne and Jeff Bezos' refusal to lose India, having conceded China to Alibaba. We also have a mini section on corporate social responsibility as Nuns (and other trading bodies) call out unethical practices at WellsFargo, and Kabbage take a strong stand in the light of the tragiv Parkland shootings. A

First up, Laura talked to Rachel Kent about her background and how she's got the position she's in. How has she overcome any restricting factors in a typically male dominated industry? Why is it so important to highlight the contributions for women in this industry? What's the future for women in this industry? Next up, Wendy Jephson joins to talk through what makes Sybenetix so special and why she decided to create this company. What gap did she look to fill in the market? We also talked through Wendy's past, particularly her background in law and psychology, more specifically how this breadth has helped her in this industry. Sophie Bialaszewski was next to give the lowdown on her career! We talk through how she broke into finance and how people actually innovate. How hard is it to instil a culture which promotes innovation? Min Teo was next up to reveal all to Laura, going through the ins and outs of the fascinating business that is 'Yo-yo wallet'. What's the future like for women in Fintech? Last

With Ross Gallagher in the host's seat for the very first time, he led co-host Simon Taylor, Nina Mohanty, Doug Bobenhouse and Valentina Kristensen to take a look at the week's top stories. We kicked off with news that research from Cedr and Trustpilot discovered a way for open banking to pump £1bn into the UK economy. This is obviously great news but is dependent on customers fully adopting the opportunities Open Banking offers and begin sharing their data. The next three stories surround digital banking and new propositions as Lloyds announce plans for a £3bn digital transformation of their services over 3 years (not so long after their last 3 year transformation plan). Hot on their heels is Virgin Money's less pricey but not insignificant £38.3 million investment in a digital bank, which is disparaged by our team as being "just an app" (so far) and "putting lipstick on a pig". Finally there's easyJet CEO launching easyMoney, but kicking off with just an ISA, as the first of several products. Again the

In the next 5 years we're going to see Data commoditised and in an era where data sovereignty is going to be come more prominent, how to large companies use this to create more customer centric products. Many would say data is going to become digital oil, but should it be seen as digital water? Something everyone (should) have access to? BrainTribe aim to create an open source operating system for data and Stefan Ebner explains how their clients use said data to improve their business models. How is it open source? What are data lakes? How much does efficient use of data improve companies? Find out the answer to all of this and more in this interview! Hope you enjoy the show and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes! Let us know your thoughts @FintechInsiders and join the discussion by signing up at Fintech Insider News. Special Guest: Stefan Ebner.

Today we’re bringing you an insights show with a difference. 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. Joining us we had both the Tech City UK team behind the event and also an event sponsor and an event winner: Gregoire Michel - Senior Program Manager at Tech City UK Miles Debrah - Evaluation Grant Manager at Money Advice Service Virraj Jatania - CEO & Co-founder, Pockit We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and d

Walking on to Barry White blaring out over the sound system, Jason and Simon kicked off After Dark IV, the Valentine's Day special - our biggest ever live After Dark show at WeWork Moorgate. With over 300 fintech fans in attendance, the guys introduced a fantastic panel of guests including Valentina Kristensen, Head of Marketing at Oak North; 11:FS Pulse and Research Director, Ross Gallagher; our most prolific podcast guest, co-host of InsurTech Insider, Business Insider analyst and reporter, Sarah Kocianski, and HSBC’s Global Head of Corporate and Institutional Digital, Niall Cameron. Fully provisioned with alcohol and a wealth of terrible Valentine's day puns the panel were all set to unpick the week's top (and often sillier) stories. We kicked off with the news that venture capital investment into fintech more than doubles, according to Innovate Finance reports; next up we have a swathe of Blockchain Insider stories starting with Jay Z’s Roc Nation investment in Robin Hood, and France and Germany's cal

In this very special FCA Takeover Jason speaks to: Anna Wallace - Innovate Head of Department and Nick Cook - Head of Regtech & Advanced Analytics all about Project Innovate and future plans for the sandbox following Chris Woolard's announcement, interview and paper earlier in the week. (For more info on that, check out Ep 182 of Fintech Insider where Jason got the scoop). Next up he and Simon talk PSD2 and Open Banking with Graeme McLean - head of banking and lending policy; and Val Smith - Director of Credit Authorisations. They chat about the successes of Open Banking so far, what could've been better and what the future looks like. And we also had the chance to talk about the FCA’s Competition remit with Mary Starks - Director of Competition and Chief Economist. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Speci

Chris Woolard, Strategy and Competition Director, at the FCA speaks exclusively to Jason Bates about an announcement concerning their regulatory sandbox. Without giving the game away, they discuss the FCA;s latest paper about their future plans for the sandbox, how this will help companies and also take advantage of reg tech. Chris tells us about the success of the previous 4 cohorts of the sandbox to date, and what the future looks like. He explains what the Innovate department of the FCA does and what it focuses on. He tells us about the importance of regulation, especially for start ups and how the FCA is best placed to help start ups, they don't want to appear unfriendly or intimidating so that start ups actively avoid being properly regulated. Additionally they also discuss Chris' background, how he got into the role and the importance of competition in the market. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get i

In this week's news show Simon and Jason are joined by 11:FS NED Chris Skinner, Tanya Andreasyan, Editor at Banking Technology; Kristian Luoma - Head of OP Lab, in town from Helsinki for one night only and Cliff Evans, Head of Digital Banking at Capgemini, to take on the week’s top stories. This week they look at the monumental shifts in both global stock exchanges and crypto markets - what has been going on, can it bounce back and should we be worried?; the US take on Open Banking - what can they learn from the UK?, and exciting developments in the SME space both here and abroad. We speak to TSB Commercial Director Richard Davies to tell us more on their planned £100m injection of funds into the UK"s SME sector. The team also take on, big banks calling for regulation of tech giants, Alipay's new ventures into cashless European tourism, Penta's funding round, the death of the chatbot, the UX revolution in banking that might have passed you by, and how out of date computer systems are allowing hackers to

Simon Taylor chats to Mike Kelly, CEO and founder of Curl, a new payment network, designed around merchants and consumers. It works via usernames and bank transfers, and is built around Open Banking, and the opportunities that's developed in the market. Simon and Mike dig into what makes the Curl payment network stand out, what the rationale is behind the usernames, and the opportunities available with the arrival of Open Banking. They talk about Curl business model, how it helps both consumers and merchants alike, what the technology is behind the network and how it processes payments, and introduces us to the idea of "hands free" payments. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guest: Mike Kelly.

Simon Taylor speaks to Scott O'Malia, CEO of ISDA, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Kicking off: what IS ISDA? Why is standardisation so important? How do companies work with ISDA? Scott tells us all. He also tells us about his unique background and career, from a front row seat to the financial crisis to regulating for the future to avoid future crises. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guest: Scott O'Malia.

In today's show the team take on: whether Brexit really is more of an opportunity than a threat to fintech, as the MP involved seems to believe, your weekly dose of Open Banking insight, plus special mention of Credit Ladder's new use case for open banking, and the stepping down of Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Atom Bank. They also discuss the Gaurdian's story that 7 in 10 UK workers are “chronically broke”, and why that could be and are people just missing opportunities to save? Opinions are divided on this highly contested topic. Meanwhile in the US millennials are seemingly more financially secure that we thought. Simon takes on Robinhood's cryptotrading and its appeal to the millennial market, could it be using crypto as a way of luring users into their app to make other more traditional trades and investments? We speak also speak to PensionBee CEO Romi Savova about HER open letter to Aegon, accusing them of bullying and preventing users from transitioning out of Aegon into PensionBee. We hope you e

Mental health affect us all, not least when we have financial difficulties or worries. Time to Talk Day opens up the conversation around mental health and removes the taboo, asking all of us to be more open about our mental health. Simon Taylor chaired a panel discussing how financial services can be more astute about mental health and how they can improve the relationship between their products, customers and mental health challenges. We invited along subject matter expert James Routledge from Sanctus, an organisation specifically challenging perceptions of mental health, with the aim of normalising conversations around mental health and how workplaces can better accommodate this, as well as FS experts Ghela Boskovitch and Jo Ann Barefoot and the FCA's Nick Cook to tackle how financial services can offer more frictionless services that better accommodate customers' mental health as well as financial situation. If you’d like to know more, do take a look at some of the Money and Mental Health Policy Instit

Coming to you from Kabbage offices in Atlanta, where Sam and our wonderful guests delve deep into the Fintech hub over some beverages. San Francisco has Silicon Valley and Atlanta is has 'Transaction Valley'- but why? Well 70% of payment transactions come through a company listed in Atlanta. If there's someone in fintech in the payment space, they're either in Atlanta or have something to do with the area- safe to say Atlanta really does live and breathe payments. The team also talk about fintech education, organic company cultures and building the backbone of payments. They also take a look at some topical news stories in the payments space. We hope you enjoy the show - spread the word, tell your friends and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts@11fs.com or on Twitter @FintechInsiders and follow us on Facebook. Special Guests: Ginger Schmeltzer, Joe Kleinwaechter, and Kathryn Petralia.

Our show begins by discussing why Fintechs and Banks are duelling for talent, as financial technology startups go in hiring overdrive- thus butting heads with the incumbents for the very best candidates. Are banks worried about losing out on top rate talent? Next we explore some pretty damning stats, as the U.S. big four retail banks dealt with almost 20% increase in credit card losses last year. Financial crash anybody? The team get their bear masks on and discuss how growing credit card debts in individuals could be increasingly concerning for incumbents and the economy in general. Staying with empty bank accounts....Wells Fargo apologise for a a glitch that emptied out bank accounts. According to reports, a glitch caused online bill payments to be processed twice which led to some customers with very unhealthy bank balances. Moving across the world, Australia plan to introduce industry-wide platform for real-time payments called the NPP (New Payments Platform). The infrastructure will allow payments bet

Many financial services companies are trying to build from the ground up, creating new banking systems or products that are more in line with creating an efficient and customer centric front end. Avoka on the other hand, are creating acquisition products that work in tandem with core banking systems. Chief Experience Officer Derek Corcoran talks us through how Avoka are creating a platform for better customer experience. Indeed, opening current accounts and signing up for a credit card can be tedious, and it's definitely not mobile friendly. Instead of going through 30 layers of customer on boarding that most users fail to do all in one go, Derek discusses how their business model centres around the 'one and done' instantaneous form submission that makes sign-ups all so simple. Not only is their process faster and more convenient, there's also an added element of security- photo ID recognition means users take photos of their driving licences or passports making the sign-up faster and safer. They handle th

So what is an investment platform? According to our panel it's much like a supermarket- you go in and buy lots of things, however you're also doing all the cooking! We discuss how robo advisors can disrupt investment platforms, by scaling the 'do it for you' investment model through technology, and how this interesting supermarket analogy gets altered due to it. We then move on to Millennial wealth and investment, exploring how newer generations don't have the benefit of buying property and seeing prices skyrocket, whilst also being saddled with debt as they begin their working lives. But how does a generation that has grown up with social media, a generation that is exposed to instant gratification so often- grow to understand the non-immediacy of investment? Or is this the responsibility of investment platforms- does this area need to be more accessible? Mitigating the jargon and bridging that financial literacy gap is imperative, but could governments rather than financial isntitutions be the answer in

David, Jason and Simon were joined by Chris Skinner and Monty Munford for this week's news show from a pub in Bermondsey, complete with pints and pie - the full British pub experience. We’re now past “deadline day” so naturally our first batch of stories concerned Open Banking and what the banking landscape looks like so far in the wake of PSD2 becoming law on 13th January. The guys chat about the impact the media has had on people's perception of open banking and potentially on customer adoption of it. They also touch on how Nationwide is the latest big bank to ask for an extension to meet the PSD2 deadline, and is meeting the deadline necessarily in correlation with being "good"? Staying on the theme of open banking they also talk through Monzo's interim API that they released in conjunction with the PSD2 deadline, and reflect on our interview with Tom Blomfield where he contested that Monzo are potentially better placed that the GAFA companies to take on Alibaba and build the financial control centre for

OakNorth isn't perhaps the most high profile Challenger bank in the UK, solving a real problem by serving the 'missing middle' who aren't being served well by existing lenders. Their business began by exploring how they can actually solve this issue, rather than how they could become a great bank- Rishi citing this particular outlook as one of the reasons OakNorth has seen success. Looking at OakNorth's social impact, their data shows that they've added about 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs through their lending as well as about 2,500 homes. Now perhaps some of these people may not have had a chance if it wasn't for OakNorth's human element. Their lending committee actually analyses the entrepreneurs behind the projects, rather than using a 'computer says no approach.' Rishi clearly feels OakNorth are still in infancy when looking at their future roadmap, he states that they want to vastly expand the business as they believe they can solve problems in multiple markets. The future certainly seems bright for this

We bring you the second part of our special wealth series, as we concentrate on asset management trends and how 2018 will impact the investments market. First, our panel discuss how evolving demands from varying types of customer in the asset management industry are challenging legacy ideas. How does millennial inheritance impact their thinking? And do longer life spans require asset managers to explore different avenues to meet customer needs? Next we move on to discuss the value chain, more specifically distribution, portfolio & management risk, middle & back office and finally 3'rd parties. It wouldn't be an 11:FS podcast if we didn't discuss Fintech to some extent, and the team dissect various trends that are leading indicators of what to come. How could Tech giants become disruptors in this space? Robo-advisory platforms have become more and more prevalent but is there a limit to how far they can go? Most data shows that many consumers are more comfortable with human elements in this business model,