Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS

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 the West. Speaking of Alibaba, the guys muse through their latest developments and the willingness of the Chinese government to support the Eastern tech giants in a way that regulators and governments are yet to do in the West. This leads to a lot of philosophising from all sides on the perpetual East vs West conundrum and who is currently winning? Moving on to arguably the biggest story of the week, the guys discuss the so-called "Crypto blood bath", as all cryptocurrency prices tumbled and no one really knows why the price tumbled for as far as it did for as long as did, or why it happened now. Following on from Business Insider's thoughts on why the prices have fallen so quickly, the team give their predictions, stay tuned to see who is right! Other notable stories of the week include Revolut's foray into travel insurance, Xinja's impressive fund raising, and U2's investment fund getting involved in fintech - could it be a Beautiful Day or maybe he Still Hasn't Found What He's Looking For. 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: Chris Skinner and Monty Munford.Links: Open Banking: Will Facebook, Google, and Amazon get into finance? Nationwide delays Open Banking launch Monzo launches their interim API for Open Banking Tom Blomfield on Monzo's 1000% growth and taking on the tech giants - 11:FS Alibaba and Microsoft AI beat human scores on Stanford reading test Bitcoin sinks below $10,000 in cryptocurrencies retreat What caused January's bitcoin and cryptocurrency market crash - Business Insider Revolut now lets you automatically buy travel insurance based on your phone’s location Xinja raises $500,000 in less than a day U2 Frontman Bono Directs Investment Fund into FinTech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 challenger bank and their social impact is certainly impressive! 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: Rishi Khosla. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, but could the millennial generation change this? The blockchain hype just won't go away, and rightfully so, as we discuss whether or not blockchain could become part of the infrastructure that future asset management business models are built upon? AI is another regularly discussed topic in this space, is it all hype? Or is there something there in the technology that asset managers could use to create a better financial product for their customers. 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: Chris Mills, Pete Townsend, and Zeynep Meric-Smith.Links: Millennials to secure 'inheritance boom' Legg Mason chief warns of ‘disruptive’ period for asset managers Tencent gets a licence to sell mutual funds to WeChat’s 1 billion users in China Vanguard Taps Symbiont's Private Blockchain for Index Fund Data Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on today's news show, the FCA bans BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) across the the entire UK finance sector. Whilst regulation is on the tip of everyone's tongue, cryptocurrencies managed to sneak their way onto the show once more as Kodak launched KODAKcoin, boosting stock prices an outrageous 44%. From one major announcement to another, tech giant Tencent gets a licence to sell mutual funds to WeChat's 1 billion users in China. Moving on, TransferWise is quietly launching its "borderless" debit cards to 1,000 customers, with a full rollout coming later in the year. We discuss what the future of borderless payments could look like and how this brings the company in closer competition with Revolut. Our next story comes from a report written by FleishmanHillard named 'The Fads, The Fears and the Future' which details the most overhyped technologies and trends in 2017. Simon Taylor interviews Claudia Bate the author, where they discuss the report at length including the methodology behind the statistics and upcoming regulation. Our last episode was named 'Tis The Season of Open Banking and the subject just won't go away. The Guardian published an article which asks whether open banking is a 'radical shake-up, or threat to your private data?' and our panel explore this at length. Do people know where their data is going? Our panel explore whether or not consumers actually need to know how their data is being used so long as it creates a better product for them. Next, we discuss Brexit's impact on the Fintech space and whether or not cynics have been proven wrong. Uncertainty has been prevalent over Brexit particularly in finance and this is something dissected during this episode. Software-only Wealthfront were also in the news as they raised $75 million as they aim to target millennials. We discuss who the term 'millennial' refers to and also what the traditional demographic usually is. We break down 'Meltdown and Spectre' (scary headline for a financial services story), a bug that could be used to compromise computer chips creating security vulnerabilities, what is being done to fix it and how it could impact legacy systems. On the brighter side of things, more than £300m of 'forgotten' money is to be stripped from bank accounts and given to charities and people in debt instead. Robin Hood springs to mind and the team details whether or not this is the right way of dealing with the dormant money. Finally, 'fake cannabis' drives record number of Swiss start-ups. Are we moving from 'Cash & Cocaine' to 'Bitcoin & Weed'? 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: Charlie Wood, Pete Townsend, and Sarah Kocianski.Links: FCA 'gold-plates' EU rule, bans BYOD across entire UK finance sector Kodak stock is up 44% after announcing it's launching a cryptocurrency called KODAKCoin Tencent gets a licence to sell mutual funds to WeChat’s 1 billion users in China TransferWise launches borderless accounts & debit card FinTech in 2018: The Fads, the Fears and the Future ‘Open banking’: radical shake-up, or a threat to your private data? Brexit impact on venture capital investment into UK fintechs Software-only Wealthfront raises $75 million What bankers need to know about Meltdown, Spectre chip flaws More than £300m of 'forgotten' money to be stripped from bank accounts and given to charities and people in debt instead Fintech and fake cannabis drive record number of Swiss start-ups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From pre-paid card to fully fledged Current Account, Tom Blomfield details the journey of UK challenger bank Monzo with great enthusiasm and vibrance. Tom talks our host Simon Taylor through Monzo's viral growth and how their marketing team has managed to grow the company 1000% in the last year alone, on a very limited budget. 'I don't think we're a million miles away from the mainstream' is a great quote and highlights the ambition of the challenger bank, as we discuss Monzo's roadmap for the future. Regulation has been a hot topic to kick off 2018 and so you won't be surprised that PSD2 is much discussed throughout the interview. Indeed Tom gives his opinions on how large banks and open banking will be impacted by the regulation. Murmurs of both a Monzo IPO and potential acquisition have been constant throughout 2017, and Tom's admirable attitude that an acquisition "would feel like failure" shows just how dedicated the Monzo team is to creating a better banking product for its customers. He takes responsibility for the IPO rumours saying that it was down to a copywriting indiscretion, however also states a future IPO is possible. This episode is sponsored by Toptal, an exclusive network of the top freelance software developers, designers, and finance experts in the world. To find out more, visit Toptal.com. 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: Tom Blomfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first of our three-part series on investments, Simon Taylor is joined by special guests Joe Parkin, Gemma Godfrey, Phil Smith, Olivia Vinden & Gareth Johnson. We kicked things off by asking our panel what IS wealth management? How does it differ from asset management and what does the future of the industry look like? Our guests have a wealth of experience (pun intended) in this industry, and tried to dissect the role of the wealth manager and how technological evolutions will transform this space. We discuss whether or not digitisation of the role would to some extent mitigate the human element behind wealth management, and how exactly this will alter the customer relationship. DLT, Machine learning and AI are all buzzwords, but how could these growing areas of innovation change wealth management? How will data, in tandem with these technologies successfully make wealth management for more accessible to the consumer? The panel discuss how these areas could benefit the industry, offering some very interesting insights. Finally, we explore how changing demographics - both managers and customers - alter the approach to wealth management? It's incredible to think that many children born today, will live close the age of 100. This changes the approach from a wealth management point of view, but also increases the range of people who will understand future technologies that will have a vital role to play in this area. Thanks for listening! Spread the word, tell all 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: Gareth Johnson, Gemma Godfrey, Joe Parkin, Olivia Vinden, and Phil Smith.Links:Forget Banks, in 2018 you will pay through Amazon and Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on today's show, Alibaba's Ant Financial has abandoned a $1.2bn takeover of MoneyGram. So what were the US regulator's concerns over national security and personal data. Continuing the regulatory theme, we explore open banking and traditional banking. The guys discuss why open banking might threaten the survival of traditional banks. Plus, new research suggests that consumer awareness of open banking is at a major low, amidst suggestions that in 2018 you'll pay through Amazon and Facebook. Next, we ask what is MiFID II and how will it increase transparency and bolster investor protection? The guys discuss why the credit card fees ban has backfired, and why consumers face new 'service charges' and higher prices. Is it right that by 'fat-cat Thursday', top bosses' pay after just three days overtakes workers' average annual salary? P2P payments are back, so is it true that Apple Pay Cash won't be the death of Venmo? And if not, could Zelle do it? And in the world of banking and savings apps, the guys explore news that Thomas Cook is planning a banking app, plus the consequences of news that savings app Folio has gone under. After a very relevant tweet, we return to a story from Ep. 141. The future will be tokenised, with an update on the Chinese government's plans to give every citizen a score based on their trustworthiness. So does this sound like a great endorsement of your behaviour or an Orwellian intrusion? Let us know your thoughts @FintechInsiders. In the last story for this week's news, why psychedelic stickers are blowing AI minds. We think these might become quite popular in the near future... And finally on today's show, we offer our predictions for 2018. Tune in to hear the team's thoughts on open banking, SMEs and anticipatory design, and check out our 2018 predictions blog. Thanks for listening! Spread the word, tell all 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: Andra Sonea and Benedict Shegog.Links: Alibaba's Ant Financial abandons $1.2bn MoneyGram takeover as US authorities refuse to back deal Why new rules threaten the survival of traditional banks Consumer awareness of Open Banking at major low, spelling traditional banking demise Forget Banks, in 2018 you will pay through Amazon and Facebook What is MiFID II, Europe's sweeping financial regulations, which begin today? Credit card fees ban backfires as consumers face new 'service charges' and higher prices 'Fat cat Thursday' as top bosses' pay overtakes UK workers' - BBC News Apple Pay Cash won't be the death of Venmo but I found the little-known alternative that will Thomas Cook plans banking app Exclusive: Savings app Folio goes under Emily Rauhala on Twitter: "I'm on the Tianjin to Beijing train and the automated announcement just warned us that breaking train rules will hurt our personal credit sc… https://t.co/TtOCbxN96h" The Chinese government wants to give every citizen a score based on their trustworthiness These psychedelic stickers blow AI minds Our 2018 Predictions - 11:FS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Maule is joined by Jason Bates and new 11:FS team member, Doug Bobenhouse in Chicago to discuss the State of the Union in the US, wrapping up 2017 and looking ahead to next year. They discuss the history of fintech, starting with pre-paid cards, and the slowness of movement by the big players in the US in particular to adapt and change. Jason talks through "platformification" and the ability to make fast changes by building new propositions on top of old systems, turning products into services. They discuss the risks and also the opportunities for smaller banks in the space to collaborate and share learnings and also APIs and backend systems, with each other and also the big banks in order to take advantage of the changes in the space, and "take the game to the big guys". What does "ruining the romance" in banking mean? Jason and Sam explain all. Sam and Doug discuss how Chicago made its mark on the financial services landscape of the US, and its benefits for start ups in the space. And Jason asks are faster payments even possible in the US? Sam and Doug debate, and Sam Maule is left speechless by one suggestion - listen out for that! The guys also look ahead to 2018 and give their predictions for the next year in financial services for the US, including Dodd Frank, and marketplace competition vs monopoly. Enjoy the show! Spread the word, tell all 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: Doug Bobenhouse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Simon Taylor speaks to Eric Wilson, CEO at Xinja, who are building Australia's first digital bank. First off Eric introduces us to Xinja - what is it, how does it work and what makes it unique and of course we had to ask how they came up with the name Xinja and how it's pronounced (like ninja). We ask about Xinja's business model; how they make money, who their customers are and how they acquire them, and what their longterm goals are. Eric also tells us about Xinja's partnership with Equitise to offer equity crowdfunding and the Founding Xinja community, and their aims to bring humanity back to banking and how they feel about the label "neobank". We also get his thoughts on the future of cash, particularly in Australia, and how the Australian market compares to the UK, Europe and the States. 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: Eric Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Bates meets Toby Triebel, CEO for Europe of Wealthsimple, a leading innovative software company. ] They discuss Toby's background, how he got into fintech and finance, and introduces us to Wealth Simple for those who might not know. They only started in September 2014 and have come a long way since then - $1bn (CAD) in AUM as of May 2017 - we ask how they scaled up so fast? They also discuss Wealthsimple's accomplishments being Canada’s first robo advisor in the space, and the challenges and impact this had, in addition to having real, human advisors on hand via phone, text, email or video call, to give advice - and is this at odds with their business model of fast, digital investment? Toby tells us all. He also talks about their hugely successful social media marketing campaign with their Wealthsimple Money Diaries, using celebrity stories to open up conversations around money and finance. Jason also asks the gritty questions about how they acquire customers, what their customer base looks like, and how they make money, their partnership with Mint and the importance of ethical investment to themselves and their customers. 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: Toby Triebel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices