299. News: Buzzwords for everyone

Feb 25, 2019

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This week we have some huge stories for you as David and Simon are joined by two fantastic fintech CEOs:

Tom Blomfield, CEO of Monzo
Romi Savova, CEO of PensionBee

We kick off the episode with a story that'll give you 24 billion reasons to be impressed with the state of the UK's financial industry. It's the first time the four biggest lenders have made more than £20BN since 2007 and while it might appear to be a return to the good old days of pre-financial crisis finances, Romi points out that although the numbers are great, they might not be as great as they would have been in 2007 due to balance sheets. Tom also points out that banks have only made superficial changes so far but that's about to change (02:14).

Next up, we talk about Santander's $700M deal with IBM. Tom points out that we only ever see headlines like this at the start of project, never at the end describing the results. Romi talks about how it's a sign that change is coming, but why are companies that market themselves as technology companies outsourcing for technology? (13:34).

Later on in the show we discuss the RBS Remedies Fund. In a special segment with 11:FS' Adam Davis we discuss how this situation came to pass and the state of play of the fund at the moment. Tom puts the fund in the context of Monzo and how the challenger bank has £100M, the same amount of the second prize fund, to date on development (34:10).

We also announce the winners of the fund, just in case you've missed out (49:42).