Fintech Insider By 11:fs

About this episode: Small and medium-sized businesses -or SMEs - are the backbone of the global economy. But despite their vital role in the financial ecosystem, they’re still too often overlooked and underserved. This week, we’re putting SMEs back in the spotlight - and for good reason. You might be thinking, “Haven’t we covered this before?” And yes, we have. But in 2025, the challenges have evolved - and so must our solutions. So, how can we better meet the needs of SMEs, not just locally, but globally? What real steps can we take to close the gap? At 11:FS, we never stop banging the drum for SMEs - and in this episode Benjamin Ensor is joined by a brilliant lineup of experts ready to tackle the hard questions and explore what comes next. This week's guests:  Conrad Ford, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Allica Bank Robin Jones, Co-lead iwocaPay  Hanna Sommer, Director of GTM & Strategic Partnerships at Liberis --  Links to check out:  Join our WhatsApp community, where you

About this episode: Host Benjamin Ensor, Director of Research and Strategy at 11:FS, is joined by a fantastic panel of guests as we dive into some of the biggest stories from the worlds of fintech, banking, and wider financial services this week. Stories covered on the podcast: This week, Monzo begins migrating its investment accounts to Seccl, and we’re joined by Seccl to unpack what this means for users and the wider platform. We also explore Pipe’s latest move into AI, with the unveiling of powerful new agent technology. As Buy Now, Pay Later regulation tightens, even the smallest loans may soon require affordability checks — but what could this mean for providers and consumers alike? Plus: Stripe acquires Orum to boost real-time payments, Sam Altman shares fresh concerns about AI’s future, and we ask — should fintech be on the school curriculum? Young voices weigh in. This week's guests: Claurelle Rakipovic- Chief Product Officer at Pipe James Holmes - Chief Commercial Officer at Seccl 

About this episode: Today, we're zooming in on one of the hottest buzzwords in financial services: personalisation. But we're not just talking about your bank app greeting you by name - we're asking the big questions:

About this episode: Host David Barton-Grimley, Fintech Strategy Director at 11:FS, is joined by a fantastic panel of guests as we dive into some of the biggest stories from the worlds of fintech, banking, and wider financial services this week. Stories covered on the podcast: JPMorgan is reportedly planning to charge fintech companies for access to customer data. Elsewhere, we explore what this development could mean for the industry. Wise joins us to discuss their latest partnership with UniCredit - a European first. In other news, Bilt's valuation has soared to $10.75 billion following a $250 million funding round. Is Lloyds Banking Group considering a takeover of Curve? And which British soap opera has been breaking the rules by promoting a fintech product on their show? This week's guests: Jason Mikula - Founder of Fintech Business Weekly  Julie Arnoux - Europe Commercial Head, Wise Platform Veronica Glab - Independent FinTech Strategist Also featuring a voice note from: Phoebe Chi

About this episode:  Today, we’re diving into fresh insights from our friends at Marqeta, who are gearing up to release their annual State of Payments report. This year’s survey spans 500 small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, 500 in the US, and 3,000 consumers across both regions. So, what’s keeping SMBs up at night? And how can next-generation payment solutions help them stay competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape? In this episode, David Barton-Grimley is joined by experts from Marqeta and a panel of industry leaders to answer these questions. This week's guests:  Marcin Glogowski - Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Europe and UK CEO of Marqeta Hanna Sommer - Director of GTM & Strategic Partnerships at Liberis Stéphane Dehaies - CEO of Spendesk Financial Services Visit Marqeta’s website to be the first to know when their State of Payments Report launches. --  Links to check out:  Join our WhatsApp community, where you can get the inside track on all all things

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

About this episode: On this week’s episode of Fintech Insider Insights, recorded live at Money20/20 Europe in partnership with Adyen, host David Barton Grimley is joined by some great guests to take a deep dive into the pain points of spend management - and how embedded finance can help solve them.Now, we’re all aware of spend management, but how important is it, exactly, for small and medium-sized businesses in particular?At the forefront of addressing some of these challenges is a new partnership between Adyen and Spendesk.So, how is embedded finance better serving SMBs, and what role can new technologies play in harnessing its capabilities? This week's guests:  Stephane Dehaies - CEO of Spendesk Financial Services Joëlle Bønding - VP of Vertical Strategy for Platforms at Adyen Links to check out:  Join our WhatsApp community, where you can get the inside track on all all things 11:FS, as well as having your say on the things we should be paying attention to. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://chat.whatsapp.com

About this episode: Host  Laura Watkins, Director of Media and Marketing at 11:FS, is joined by a fantastic panel of guests as we dive into some of the biggest stories from the worlds of fintech, banking, and wider financial services this week. Stories covered on the podcast: Curve launches Curve Pay to compete with iOS in Europe. Google pushes ahead with its AI offering with an agnostic shopping experience. We talk through what the CFPB’s ruling means for the future of banking in the US. We also take a closer look at the South Korean payments market with Kakao’s acquisition of SSG Pay and Smile Pay to further digital optimisation in the country. There’s also been a boom in UK fintech hiring — and are Singapore really considering corporal punishment as a consequence for scamming? This week's guests: Aditi Subbarao - Strategic Partnerships Lead at Instabase Edoardo Volta- SVP Partner Marketing and Business Development at Curve Kate Flocken-Principal at FS Vector Timestamps/stories:  Intro - (0

At 11:FS, we don’t just talk digital - we make it happen. We're building truly digital financial services by partnering with bold teams to take them from market insights to real-world products. Whether you're an incumbent innovating or a startup breaking new ground, we bring the strategy, research, design, and delivery to make it real. Less talk, more impact.Proud winners of the British Bank Award for Consultancy of the Year - five times and counting.

About this episode: On this episode of Fintech Insider, host David Barton-Grimley sits down with Matej Pfajfar, Group CTO at Monzo Bank, to talk about one of the fintech industry's least glamorous - but most critical - topics: outages. With banking apps now at the core of how we manage money, a few minutes of downtime can spark serious disruption. Back in February 2025, a wave of UK bank outages affected millions and it feels like the problem is only getting worse. So, how is Monzo planning to stay ahead? Enter Monzo Stand In, the bank’s behind-the-scenes solution designed to keep essential services running, even when things go wrong. On this episode we unpack what an outage actually means in modern banking, why they’re so hard to avoid, and how Monzo’s unique culture and architecture enabled them to build resilience into their platform by design. This week's guest: Matej Pfajfar - Group Chief Technology Officer, Monzo Bank Advertisements: If you're running an early-stage business with Seed o