1017. News - After Dark: Long live the high street bank! Revolut checks in with Booking.com, and Visa trials stablecoin payouts

Summary

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Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS

Episode 1017: News – After Dark: Long live the high street bank! Revolut checks in with Booking.com, and Visa trials stablecoin payouts
Date: November 24, 2025
Host: David Brear (CEO, 11:FS) with expert panelists Kate Moody (11:FS), Tom Easterby (HSBC Innovation Banking), Denise Johansson (Enfuce), Richard Davies (Alica Bank)
Live from Village Underground, Shoreditch

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Episode Overview

This “After Dark” live episode delivers an animated, real-world discussion on the future of the UK high street bank, Visa’s pilot of stablecoin payouts, Revolut’s new partnership with Booking.com, and more. As always, the hallmark is sharp, witty debate with hands-on leaders from fintech and banking, plus lively audience participation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. UK High Street Banks – Endangered or Evolving?

(Main segment: 05:46–18:39)

• Nationwide’s Pledge: Nationwide has committed to keeping all 696 branches—Virgin Money included—open until at least 2030.

  • Host joke: “When somebody says until, it makes me think they’re going to shut them all immediately after 2030.” (06:36)

• Audience Pulse:

  • Hands up: Most attendees favored keeping branches open.
  • Reality check: Fewer had visited one recently, and more admitted doing so only when some process forced them.

• Expert Responses:

  • Kate Moody (11:FS):

    • “Branches have played a very important role in helping vulnerable customers … people with disabilities, elderly customers, stay connected to the financial system.” (09:08)
    • Branches may not be essential in their current form; banks must think carefully about the actual ‘jobs to be done’.
    • Banking hubs and alternatives are growing: “If you take those away, how do you replace those services for customers?” (09:49)

  • Denise Johansson (Enfuce):

    • “For any life changing moment you still maybe want that human interaction.” (10:18)
    • Human engagement can build trust, but digital, mobile-first journeys should be everywhere.

  • Richard Davies (Alica Bank):

    • “We have no branches. We do have people. … That sort of moment of truth where a business is borrowing half a million quid ... they want to speak to someone, but we don’t see any role for the branch. … The client would much rather that person was … available on a video call.” (12:22)

  • Tom Easterby (HSBC Innovation Banking):

    • Branches' value is more tied to community reassurance than day-to-day use.
    • “If we did open up an innovation banking branch in Shoreditch, it would probably be the most populous branch in London!” (13:24)

• Financial Inclusion:

  • Denise highlighted digital exclusion among elderly customers, noting, “If we go 100% digital, the financial inclusion will be an issue, definitely.” (18:41)

• International Perspectives:

  • The UK is compared with Nordic countries, where branches have nearly vanished, without major exclusion—“You have to work really hard [to find a branch] in Stockholm” (Richard, 19:25).

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2. Visa’s Stablecoin Payouts Pilot

(Main segment: 21:23–31:55)

• The News: Visa is trialling businesses sending payments directly to stablecoin wallets; recipients can opt for USD stablecoins (USDC) even if paid in fiat. Aim: rapid, cross-border, low-cost payouts—especially for creators and freelancers.

• Audience Pulse:

  • Many had dabbled in stablecoins and would try getting paid in them—surprising given audience's ties to both branches and stablecoins!

• Expert Analysis:

  • Kate:

    • “It’s unsurprising stablecoins have come to the forefront. … Being paid quickly is really important, especially for freelancers, gig workers, people working across borders.” (23:38)

  • Richard:

    • “In the UK I don’t see the problem to solve … domestic payments are kind of free and instant already... International payments – clearly SWIFT is pretty terrible.”
    • Cited personal pain sending money to Switzerland due to unpredictable fees.
    • “There’s something quite broken about SWIFT that needs to be changed.” (24:54)

  • Tom:

    • In Europe/UK, stablecoins aren’t a big leap technologically over current rails; internationally or in volatile markets, their use case is more compelling.
    • “Why can’t you just see this projecting forward over the next few periods?” (26:49)

  • Denise:

    • “I am very much compliance first and I actually believe in regulations. … Need to keep it regulated, keep track of money laundering, understanding where money is coming from.” (28:35)

• Central Bank Perspective:

  • David:

    • “If I was a central bank I’d hate this. … If I can see savings leaking out into stablecoins, I lose a little bit of control over the economy.” (31:09)

  • Richard:

    • For emerging markets, citizens using stablecoins as a currency hedge “is I think quite a real thing”—raises interesting regulatory questions. (31:28)

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3. Revolut x Booking.com Partnership

(Main segment: 32:54–44:39)

• The News:

  • Overlap of 9m Revolut users having booked via Booking.com.
  • Now: Checkout integration routes payment through the Revolut app (biometric secure, multi-currency). Users get 10x Rev Points.

• Audience Pulse:

  • Most saw Revolut as the bigger winner; panel agreed ‘points-chasers’ will jump at the offer.

• Expert Analysis:

  • Kate:

    • “We’ve seen Revolut really double down on that kind of traveler consumer segment … massive focus on FX, travel insurance, lounge access.” (35:06)
    • “Revolut have 65 million users worldwide … that’s a fucking lot of customers.” (35:56)

  • Panel on Ecosystem Play:

    • Creating a closed system: If you book holidays with points, exchange FX seamlessly, and keep everything ‘in-app’, you’re more likely to stay loyal to Revolut.
    • “I had a really irrational … I just really didn’t like Revolut … they’re just too aggressive and not queuing properly, and all that sort of stuff. And I’ve kind of got past that now.” — Kate, 37:11

  • Tom:

    • On partnership scale: “It’ll have been all across different iterations of its website. … but for me, this is all about the loyalty points.” (37:41)

  • Richard:

    • “I think we may be over bigging the partnership … essentially it’s just a payment acceptance method really.” (38:39)
    • Shared that “Revolut Pay” as a checkout method saves fees for both parties, echoing Asian market tactics.

  • On Changing Customer Behaviour:

    • Denise:
      • “If you haven’t been booking with Booking before and now you get 10x, … you are going to change your behavior and go with Booking.” (40:20)
      • Partnership is a ‘win, win, win’ for customer acquisition, deeper ecosystem embedding, and fee reduction.

  • Richard on User Flow:

    • Annoyed by checkout friction: “They should expose the one click checkout earlier … It’s all basically about the data, right? And who owns that data as to where they expose the button for the payout.” (41:58)

  • Kate on Holiday Bookings as Financial Inflection Point:

    • “There are relatively few moments in the average year where someone will sit down and make a really, really considered financial purchase. And I think booking a big trip or a holiday is probably one of those moments.” (42:59)

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4. Fintech Christmas Wishlist – Rapid Fire Audience & Panel Poll

(Main segment: 46:54–54:49)

• Audience submitted their fintech wishes—panel & crowd voted on each:

  • Keep EU Data Protection & AI Act:

    • Audience and panel: Keep it, though few seem to have read it!
    • Kate: “I’m just going to be trying to get my son to put that on his Christmas list because I don’t think that one will cost me anything.” (47:26)

  • Revolut to IPO in the UK:

    • Wide support; “Patriotic room … keep it in the UK is exactly where it’s needed.” — Tom, 48:44
    • Richard: “Nick is a very rational guy… the London market needs a lot more growth investor interest… I did see maybe Christmas came early … Revolution said they were considering a dual listing.” (49:05)

  • Bank Tech Platforms to Be Boringly Secure:

    • Audience overwhelmingly wants ‘boringly secure and reliable’ banking over excitement.

  • Pensions Industry to Move Faster:

    • Richard: “It’s clear … the desire to see pension funds invest more in growth assets – my god, would you like to see that move faster? Yes.” (52:03)
    • Denise (on Finland as a model): “I have no complaints. I think it’s easy to understand... you should send some folks over to the Nordics to see how you can do it better.” (54:19)

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Memorable Quotes

• “If we could strip it back and try and work out what are the actual core jobs to be done that bank branches serve—do those need to be served by bank branches? Maybe not.”
  — Kate Moody (09:49)

• “In the UK I don’t see the problem to solve around domestic payments… International payments—clearly SWIFT is pretty terrible.”
  — Richard Davies (24:54)

• “If you haven’t been booking with booking before and now you see that you get 10x if you put that transaction ... of course you are going to change your behavior and go with booking.”
  — Denise Johansson (40:20)

• “There are relatively few moments in the average year where someone will sit down and make a really, really considered financial purchase. And I think probably booking a big trip or a big holiday is probably one of those moments...”
  — Kate Moody (42:59)

• “I have no complaints. I think [Finland’s pensions] is easy to understand... you should send some folks over to the Nordics.”
  — Denise Johansson (54:19)

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Notable Timestamps

• 05:46–18:39 — UK bank branches: future, use-cases, and audience attitudes
• 21:23–31:55 — Visa stablecoin pilot: use-cases, pain points, regulation
• 32:54–44:39 — Revolut & Booking.com: partnership mechanics, loyalty, and market strategy
• 46:54–54:49 — Fintech Christmas wishlist: audience rapid-fire wishes, panel takes

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Tone & Style

• Casual, warm, and peppered with British wit and audience banter
• Experts provide real-world stories, practical analogies, and challenge each other lightheartedly

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TL;DR

This episode provided real talk and sharp insight on whether UK high street bank branches are still fit for purpose, dug deep into the hype and realities of stablecoin payments, and deconstructed the significance of Revolut’s latest mega-partnership. The audience was kept directly engaged, voting and sharing wishes for the fintech industry. The consensus: While digital is ascendant, inclusion and security matter; innovation is only as strong as it is accessible and trustworthy.

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Transcript

[A]

From 11th Fest, this is FinTech Insider News Live from the Village Underground in Shoreditch. Give us a big whoop. I'm David Brea, CEO of 11FS, and tonight we're going to be covering a bunch of good stories. Is the UK high street banking Head for extinction. Sounds terrifying. Visa pilot Stablecoin payouts. Is this the future of everyday payments? We will find out. And Revolut checks in with Booking.com in a new partnership to discuss these. We have some more of the biggest news stories for this week as well. But I'm also joined by some of the hottest. Hottest. Not bloody tonight, we're not. It's freezing, isn't it? But some of the hottest experts in the industry right now. And to build the atmosphere and keeping with a bit of a darts theme, I'm going to keep going on that one, guys. I'm sorry. My recent slight obsession is darts, so I'm going to be giving you all darts nicknames. It's going to get weird, guys like, they might stick. You're going to get DMS on LinkedIn using these, I reckon. So good luck with it. First we have my co host and 11Fs colleague, strategy director Kate Da Vinci's Vulture. Moody. How's it going, Kate?

[B]

I think that could have been a lot worse, to be honest.

[A]

Yeah, it could have been, yeah. You should have seen the draft, honestly. There was. HR took it out, I'll be honest with you. So how are you doing anyway? Are you good?

[B]

I'm good. I'm wearing some thermals, so I'm very happy.

[A]

Who decided to do this on the coldest bloody day of the year. But it's good that everybody came out for it anyway. That's good.

[B]

Yeah, no kudos. And please, yeah, bring as much bodily warmth to the room as possible.

[A]

Yeah, if you could just follow hot air this work, that would be great. So what you been up to?

[B]

Yeah, I'm working on a really interesting project at the moment, looking at different paid and subscription accounts all around the world. So I've been interviewing lots of customers from Brazil through to Austria, Finland about different apps that they're using. So, yeah, it's quite fun.

[A]

Very cool. There was a rumor you were trying to kill me going around the office, by the way. So is that founded? Because the last two after darks I mysteriously was ill and then Kate stepped in, apparently. So. Trying to puff me off, are you?

[B]

Well, obviously not because you're here today or I just haven't been very successful third time around, but it's just all.

[A]

A cover, I reckon.

[B]

I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here.

[A]

Good, good. Yeah, you say that now. All right, next up we have Tom Easterby who AKA Easterby Edge. You like that? Does that work?

[C]

Easterby Edge.

[A]

Yeah, I do like that.

[C]

That can stick. That's a lot.

[A]

We're two for two so far. That's good. Head of fintech at HSBC Innovation Banking. How's it going?

[C]

Very good, thank you. Quite enjoying being here but I'm regretting taking my coat off.

[A]

Yeah, get, get a. It's either you have a real coat or a alcohol coat. Like there's. I think there's a beer under your chair, so you'll be fine. You're obviously no stranger to the show you've been on before, but for anybody who doesn't know your role, tell us a little bit about what you do.

[C]

Yeah, so I head up the fintech team at HSBC Innovation Banking. We provide banking debt funding and ecosystem connectivity for VC backed fintechs from seed right through to IPO and beyond.

[A]

Very, very cool. All right, next we have Denise Johansson who AKA the Payment Panther. I like that one as well. Yeah, that's a good one. I feel like we should have all got you topped. I don't know what you're laughing at, Richard. Wait until you hear your one. It's coming. Co founder and co CEO over at Enfuse. How are you doing?

[D]

I'm doing pretty well, thank you. You just call us the hottest people on stage so I'm going to carry that with me.

[A]

Nice. There you go. It's just, it's all stuff I was saying backstage and for anybody who doesn't know Enfuse, tell us what you do. And co CEO. That's a cool role.

[D]

Yeah, it is a cool role and I'm actually stepping in for my co CEO who was supposed to be here but apparently got ill after some slash event. Here I am.

[A]

Wait, was that Kate? Did she hang around with Kate at all?

[D]

Probably. You made her do this? No, Enfue is the issuer processor. Born out of the Nordics, Finland, but have great customers also in UK and we are industry leading customer satisfaction. So if you want your cartwrails to work, you know where to find them.

[A]

Nice. I particularly like that. That was good. Yeah, that adds something to it. All right. And last but not least, Richard Davies AKA Richie Rocket. There we go. CEO over at Alica Bank. How's it going, Richard? Great to have you on again.

[E]

Yeah, great to Be back.

[A]

It's. I think, I think you've done like four or five. I mean, you must, you must be up there. I think it's like you and Val maybe like vying it out for who's been on FinTech Insider more at this stage.

[E]

We need to fix that.

[A]

Come on, we'll get you back more frequently. Yeah. All right. For anybody who doesn't know, tell everybody about what you do.

[E]

Yeah. I mean, St. Alica is a business bank. We focus on what we call established SMEs, so 5 to 250 employee companies and we provide a full range of products to that. So current accounts, loans, cards, the full whack. Yeah, I've been doing that for about five and a half years now, having a lot of fun. You may have seen our adverts on the tube recently. Kind of spookily good business banking for Halloween.

[A]

Like what you did there. Is there going to be like a whole different holiday ranges of that to go with the different. Different holiday puns or.

[E]

I hope so. I hope so.

[A]

Very good. All right. We have brilliant guests, we have a brilliant audience. We probably should get on with the show, I guess. All right, so the first one that we picked up of sort of big news and interesting things to chat about this week we picked up on Finexia. It's covered in a bunch of places, but Nationwide pledges to keep all branches open until 2030. Nationwide Building Society has pledged to keep all. There's a fan of branches or somebody who works at Nationwide. Well, as this story goes on, we'll figure out which one that is. But. So Nationwide Building Society is plenty to keep all of its 696 branches, including all of those of Virgin Money, open until at least 2030. When somebody says until, it makes me think they're going to shut them all immediately after 2030. But we'll come to that in a minute. This commitment extends its existing branch promise by a further two years and applies even to its locations where Nationwide and Virgin Money branches are near each other. The move comes as other UK banks felt like there might be a boo then, but there wasn't. Fine. Continue. Widespread branch closures. Since January 2015, 6,561 branches have been shut down. That's pretty terrifying. Right, let's get you guys involved in this before we get to these guys, then. So what do you guys think then? Do you think that branches should be kept open on the high street? So if you stick up your card and show me the green side, if you think they should be Kept open. And the blank side, the black side, if you think they should be shut. All right, you ready? Three, two, one. All right, most people think they should be kept open, then. Okay, fair enough. There's lots of. Lots of people. Like, do you guys go into the high street these days? Like, I think I've literally consumed Amazon like every day of my entire life. But. All right, maybe if we check into the. How realistic your points are here then. So let's do that again. So put it back up again and show me the mint side. If you've actually been into a branch, you put the mint side out before I even said what it was like. You were just. You're just happy to be here, sir. And. Yeah, so, yeah, all right, so mint side up, if you've actually been into a branch recently, black side up if you haven't. 3, 2, 1. You're a bunch of liars, aren't you? Right, most of the people in the audience say that they have been into a branch recently then. So. Okay, interesting. You know this is a fintech thing, right? Just pointing it out to you. Yeah, checks anybody? You're using those two. Oh, no. Okay, Right, what do you reckon then, Kate? Am I being a little bit facetious here or is like. Is the idea of keeping the branch network open on the high street doing a good. Like, I'll be honest, all the branches in Norwich have been turned into pubs. Like some. Some really good pubs, but, like, they're all pubs now.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say my. My local high street.

[D]

Our.

[B]

Our Lloyds branch has just reopened as a lovely gift shop.

[A]

Nice. So what, a Lloyd's gift shop or just like black horses and stuff?

[B]

No, like overly priced emergency presents for time poor parents such as myself. So, yeah, I'm quite grateful. But no, I suppose more seriously, I think we do know that branches have played a very important role in helping vulnerable customers and vulnerable customers in particular. So either people with disabilities, elderly, customers, stay connected to the financial system. Typically, I think the focus has been on access to cash and kind of how we kind of keep that accessible. And sure that people can have access to it when they need to. But yeah, I'm not too sure if I really believe that bank branches in their current form need to stay. I think if we could strip it back and try and work out what are the actual core jobs to be done that bank branches serve. Do those need to be served by bank branches? Maybe not. We've seen the emergence of banking hubs. I think those are growing. I think we've got 150 open at the moment and the government have committed to I think 350 by the end of the current parliament. So yeah, I'm not necessarily wedded to the idea of bank branches but I am wedded to the idea that banks continue to think about like what is it that customers need to get done in their financial lives and which of those jobs to be done are best served by bank branches and if you take those away, how do you replace those services for customers? And I think that's kind of to me what's more important.

[A]

Yeah. Denise, what do you think? I mean it's digital world, it's.

[C]

Aren't we?

[A]

But is there a place for physicality, physical locations?

[D]

Yeah, I am with the audience there that I don't think it's about killing them or not. But I do think you should rethink the purpose of having a branch. I think for any life changing moment you still maybe want that human interaction. Let's say you are going to buy your first home, you are going to take a big house loan. You maybe want to talk that through with a real human at the branch. So maybe we have a really young audience here and that's why so many have recently been to a branch.

[A]

You say young then?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, I thought you said dumb. I was like fucking hell, this is going to get old.

[D]

Almost the same. Young and dumb. No, sorry, no, I don't believe that.

[A]

I wanted to clarify on your basis just so there wasn't a riot.

[D]

Yeah, sorry, no young. So I think there is a reason to have them but I don't think you should protect them in their current form either. So you should be aware of the customer journey. Where are your customers moving around, where is it valid to be around and where are you not needed? So to make a statement we are going to keep them for X years. I don't understand the purpose of that but I do think that we are going to keep having human interactions. That's a statement. And that I think can continue to build trust or engage with customer. But no matter if you are in branch or in app, it's all about still having the technology and mobile first journeys no matter where you meet your customers.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean I remember when I worked at a big bank we had very long leaders, do you know what I mean? So I think a lot of this is like making the best of a bad situation sometimes in terms of what you can do with them. But I mean that's an interesting point Richard, on the, you know, physical Presence doesn't have to mean lack of human engagement, does it?

[E]

Yeah. So my view is it is kind of good that different people take different positions in the market. Right. So there is some role for branches and kind of great kudos to nationwide. Let's take that position as the branch player. I mean, I guess as alica. We have no branches. We do have people. We kind of totally believe in what Denise was saying around that sort of moment of truth where a business is borrowing half a million quid to buy another business or to buy a warehouse. They want to speak to someone but we don't see any role for the branch that the client would much rather that person was either visiting their premises or like available on a video call.

[A]

Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Like the whole sort of branch experience, the personalization that you can see through digital capability, how you replicate some of those bizarrely, like the physical world is trying to replicate the digital personalization and the digital world is trying to replicate the humanity and the engagement, isn't it? There's a. There's sort of a meeting in the middle somewhere, isn't there? Oh, absolutely, yeah.

[C]

I definitely think that there's something around how the data that's being tracked within the branches is able to kind of feed into the types of products and services that should be provided at branch level. But actually you can almost point and direct individuals to digital channels around that. And I know that when that journey of branch closure started in the kind of mid 2000 teens, so many of the big banks all launched these big digital campaigns. Whether it was the Barclays Eagle Labs, think the situation, the digital Eagles, whether it was hsbc, we had a HSBC at home. So it kind of kind of piece around teaching people how to be digital so you could kind of morph that gap in between. I will also say just to caveat all that, that I work for the part of the HSBC that doesn't have any branches. Though, judging from the audience, I think if we did open up an innovation banking branch in Shoreditch, it would probably be the most populous branch in London. So I'm going to need to take that back to the ranch.

[A]

I mean you could do anything in Shoreditch really, can't you? And it's popular. But ye. Yeah, I agree with you.

[C]

As long as it's a matcha latte.

[A]

And indeed, yeah, Kate, I mean I guess I sort of presumed Covid kind of eradicated the need for all of this physicality, but is it just sort of Creeping back into the psyche, then, do you think?

[B]

Well, I think we definitely have seen statistically, in the kind of current economic crunch, people going back to cash more. So obviously, kind of that connection between branches and cash, I think is important. I think anecdotally, the piece of work that I'm doing currently, I'm interviewing customers that are. Most of them are paid app users for N26 bunk revolut. So people that have gone all in on these digital LED platforms and even so, when I speak to these customers, the vast majority of them still had a traditional bank account. When I asked, when you probe to understand what's driving that, there is still, I think, a huge attachment to kind of the security of knowing that if the shit hits the fan and something goes wrong in your financial life. The Revolut Ultra customer I spoke to in Austria was like, I'm going to get in my car and drive to the bank branch. I think people still want there to be somewhere that they can physically go, some reassurance that they're not just going to be stuck on a phone line or in a chat bot queue with no one to help them if they lose access to their money. I think it's. There's still kind of something hugely important there to the majority of people about knowing that when something goes wrong, there's a physical place to go to. So, yeah, that's the kind of main thing that I think a lot of people still associate with bank branches. It's that kind of moment of last resort. And it was amazing. Even if people hadn't had a personal issue themselves, most of them could cite my mum or my friend. Somebody had had some kind of crisis where a bank branch had come to the rescue. So the kind of narrative around that is very strong and very compelling for people.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, that's interesting, isn't it? The sort of, you know, traditional place of banks in the sort of heart of the community side of things. But it's. It's whether that needs to be physical or not. You know, I mean, it's whether that can be a, you know, a support structure that doesn't require very long leases on very expensive bits of, you know, property.

[C]

Essentially, you know, I former role. Many, many years ago, there was a. A lovely story of branches closing in rural parts of Britain and bank managers going from the nearby town just to kind of sit in the village hall for the day. And I had this lovely image of this branch manager just attending the local WI meeting and the scouts and the knitting circle to be part of the community and to have someone there to talk to. Sadly, no one probably talked to them, so they didn't keep it up. But you know, it's a nice idea. But I completely agree with your point around how people want to have somewhere to go as a reassurance point and those big life changing events. But actually if you're not kind of needing the reality of needing that leads to a kind of a lack of commercial rationale for having, Having it still there.

[A]

Yeah. And being able to connect with people. I, I understand the irony. We're all together in a room today for this to connect. But still you don't have to all be in the same place to do those things. Because actually I always kind of think the weird thing about branches is you talk to just the people who are in the branch. But actually if like the mortgages person's having the day off when you go in, you kind of bug it, you know, if you want to talk about mortgages, whereas if you want to talk about, talk to the best person on that. It shouldn't matter where they are based in the UK or further afield really. So. But yeah, well, well done, you lot. Look forward to hearing about your, your branch visits. All of you over the course of the. Feel like I'm judging you like real hard here, but we should have asked.

[B]

Them like as a third question, how many of them actually wanted to go to the branch first? Like had to go because some stupid process made them.

[A]

Okay, yeah, let's do that then. All right, stick the cards up again. So show us the mint one if you wanted to go and show me the black one if you were like, shit, I can't do this any other way. And I've got to give this bit of paper to this nice guy. Okay, there's more black ones now. Okay, so maybe it's edge case processes and feeling like you might screw up your mortgage if you don't go and get some safety net from somebody, then potentially.

[C]

Or it's a story about complaints.

[A]

Or it's a complaint. Yeah, that would be an interesting one. Complaining in person always feels more intense, doesn't it?

[C]

Much more satisfying.

[D]

But David, I do think we have one thing that we didn't touch upon on this topic and that's also financial inclusion. And even though we have the young audience here, there are elderly people.

[A]

I got it that time.

[D]

Yeah, thank you, thank you. I'm trying to learn. We have elderly people out there who are not yet comfortable or probably will never get comfortable with the digital and they will die out at some point, but I think there will be others not comfortable with it. So if we go 100% digital, the financial inclusion will be an issue, definitely.

[A]

You hear that, folks? You're going to die out.

[E]

One more comment. I think, Denise, interesting of you on this, right? Because what I find fascinating is how different this looks in different parts of the world. So one of my. I mean, I'm clearly a complete geek, so judge me on this. But one of my favorite games when I go to a different city around the world is find the traditional bank branch. If you go to, like any US city, it's trivial. Walk out of your hotel, there's three in front of you. It's like crazy. Whereas I went to Stockholm last month and I had to find work really hard. I found one in the whole of central Stockholm in three days. And so there are. I mean, Nordics does seem to have moved away a long way from branches, right? There's almost none left.

[D]

Yeah, no, that's true. And it is a discussion then for the how many are excluded and do not feel safe with their mortgage talks. Like there are things that they are not comfortable doing online and especially with so much scam going on.

[B]

So.

[D]

So everything they hear is that don't give your kind of credentials online, but then you will actually have to identify yourself. Because up in the Nordics we have digital credentials, but they are told not to be using them. And then when they want to access something, they are asked to use them and they are like, I'm not using them. But then they can't do anything. So.

[A]

Yeah, okay. I think we learned a lot there, probably including Richard's just a really boring guy to travel with over the weekend. Like, weirdest walking tour ever. That's all I'm going to say. But. All right, let's move on to the next story. This was one that was again picked up in a bunch of different places, but we got it from Finextra was Visa runs pilot trials of stablecoin payouts. Really hard sentence to say. I don't know if that was the alcohol or that was just like weird sort of diction to that one wasn't there. But I'll keep going.

[B]

I like how you've drawn more attention to it.

[A]

Yeah, if you're good, that's good.

[D]

All right.

[A]

Visa is running a pilot that lets businesses use Visa direct to send payments directly to people's stablecoin wallets rather than just to a card or a bank account. I guess recipients can opt to receive their payments in USD backed stablecoins like usdc, even if the business funds pay out in fiat. So Visa say the goal is to enable universal access to money in minutes, not days, particularly benefiting creators, gig workers and the global freelancers economy. Wider access is expected by the second half. 2026. Once more partners are actually onboarded to it. Okay, this is a, this is an interesting one. I guess everybody seems to be sort of talking about stable coins at the moment, either in good ways or terrible ways, I guess. But what do you rec. Like, who actually holds a stablecoin? Have you guys engaged in this? Maybe. Let's go mint green for yes, black for no. 3, 2, 1. All right. A lot more people engaged with it than I thought there would be. Which is, which is kind of interesting. It's probably about, I don't know, like 60% of the audience had engaged with it. Are you lying? There's a weird overlap that you're going in branches and you're all using stablecoins. Did you see the difference in color of the cards? Both of you, by the way. So would you actually be up for using stablecoins as a way to get paid faster though? Like, give me mint for yes and black for no. Okay, so every, most people, I feel like you're lying now. Like, I'm gonna come and talk to you all after this and try and find out who you are. But are you just putting up whatever side you like at this stage? But all right, what about you guys on the panel? Like, are you holding stablecoins, Kate? If I, if I was like, okay, we're gonna start paying 11Fs salaries in stable coins, would you be like, yeah, all right. Or are you like, I can't buy food for my kids?

[B]

I mean, I think if that was the only option, I think I would take payment in stablecoins over no pay at all. I'd have.

[C]

That's fair enough.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Quite, quite a hangry four year old, I think. I think in general, yeah, I think it's, it's unsurprising that we've seen stablecoins kind of come to the forefront. Obviously being paid quickly is really, really important, I think, especially for this kind of audience. So, you know, freelancers, gig economy workers, you know, people working across borders, across country, internationally. I mean, I'm trying mainly not to bring all of my bitterness about these wonderfully international lives that people about children get to live. But, you know, I can.

[A]

So bitter. Yes.

[B]

I'm really, really bitter. This is why they've given me two glasses of Wine. I only asked for one. I don't know why they give me two. But yeah, and I can completely understand why for those individuals being paid rapidly across borders with low friction, lower cost feels like the kind of way forwards given some of the kind of clunky rails that people have been used to using the kind of extortionate fees that people have been charged for moving money internationally. So I think if stablecoins can provide an opportunity to move money faster, then I can't see any reason why it wouldn't continue to grow.

[A]

I mean am I just, Richard, maybe coming here, am I just putting my like UK head on here? And I'm like faster payments are a thing, guys. Like is this a. Are we solving a problem for anybody here or is this just a problem in the us?

[E]

This is a question I do ask myself right as Alec quite a bit. And so I have some history in stablecoin like as an early investor in Dollar app in Latam, which has done kind of really well on a stablecoin plus kind of card proposition. But like so in the uk I don't see the problem to solve around domestic currency. Domestic payments, right. They kind of free and instant already, so it's kind of hard to compete with. But yeah, international payments clearly Swift is pretty terrible. I still remember I was doing an angel investment at a Swiss company and I had to send the payment like four times because each time they took a different amount of fee out to what they said during the correspondent trail. So I couldn't get the exact amount actually to the Swiss company in Switzerland. It has to be the exact amount. It can't be an overpayment or an underpayment. So that was kind of painful and it takes quite a while as well. So I think there's something quite broken about Swift that needs to be changed and Swift is itself trying to also innovate here. I guess there is also the use case like $app where also perhaps you've got some currency volatility and people prefer to hold not their own currency and hold dollars instead for stability. Totally see that use case and maybe there's a use case around sort of corporate treasury type activities with programmable money to try and automate some of that work that's done manually. But yeah, kind of things like digital pound. I really don't get the joke, I'm afraid.

[A]

Yeah, I mean like you say places where your currency is massively volatile and you're basically opting out of that to peg against the dollar makes a great deal of sense, doesn't it? Because then you're sort of reducing your risk or areas where you've got incredibly slow payment capability so your checkout is more effective to get the money. That makes sense to me, but I'm just struggling to see why here we would care.

[C]

Well, yeah, you're totally right. In the UK context, having that payment rail as a competitor to something like faster payments doesn't necessarily make sense. It's not an evolution of technology that's really helpful to us. But I do think it's a really good statement of intent around how we're starting to see digital. Digital channels and digital use cases actually proliferate a lot more. And if this is starting as one payment, where does this land in terms of international payments or into kind of high risk corridors that banks don't really want to be touching or into other areas like that, you know, kind of to your point, around kind of volatile currencies being able to kind of mitigate a lot of that is a really helpful and applicable use case. So why, why, why can't you just see this projecting forward over the next kind of few periods?

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting balance, isn't it? I mean, I, I put out recently that I thought digital identity was a good idea. I got called the Nazi. Like, like, like very angry people on DMs, like, if you want to. Like, like, honestly, like it was crazy. Like so the idea of digitizing my ID and all of the money, like I think people will go crazy because it's a weird polarization, isn't it? The crypto guys want everything digital and there's like, keep fiat and keep it paper and don't, you know, anonymize it as much as possible. And you know, trying to appease all of those different groups is really difficult.

[C]

I think someone's done a brilliant job with the marketing. Stable coin. It kind of says it on the tin that like actually, you know, you're backed by something and you've got that kind of like physical element in the back of your brain. So there's kind of, you know, so.

[A]

You can cash out like a really good fruit machine. That's what we're going for. Yeah. There's always the confidence you can cash out whenever you want. What do you think? Are you a big, big stablecoin gal?

[D]

No, I'm not. Surprisingly, I am surprised about the audience. And how many are really that positive to engage with stablecoin just because again, taking it to the UK context, I maybe don't understand. Are you Paying too much fees or like what's the use case? Why would you be engaging at this stage? Because I am very much compliance first and I actually believe in regulations. I think it is there to protect consumers. It's not that I'm against the technical rails to move money fast and I understand the needs and I understand the Visa trial that they are doing get it there fast. So there is a need for faster cross border payments but I also believe that there is need to keep it regulated, keep track of money laundering, understanding where money is coming from and where it's attached to. So I definitely believe it will be part of the future toolkit of payments. But I think we are maybe not as much of a needed within Europe, even though I agree with you, Swift is kind of awful and maybe they will adopt the technology from there and recreate a very stable and regulated network so that we also can feel protected when we use new technology.

[A]

Yeah, I think there's just a chance the audience might be thinking about leaving the UK as well. You know, you just, I understand you. Yeah. Pegging all of your savings to the dollar, like I see what you're doing now, that's probably a very sensible step. But like while in branch.

[E]

They're in a branch paying their savings to dollars.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Going into the branch trying to cash out your stable coins in the branch. Good luck with that one everybody. But yeah, the extremes are good. Yeah, I think it's here. I just, I struggle with the mainstream adoption of this for all of the points that we've kind of raised. Really. The other thing I'd say as well is like I know the bank of England have put out a paper for exploration and if, like, if I was a central bank I'd hate this. I mean like kind of if it's not directly pegged to the pound and actually I can see savings of the UK population leaking out into stablecoins. Like I sort of lose a little bit of control over control in the economy. Right.

[E]

So.

[A]

So I know some of the stuff that the, the government have put out is about limiting the amount of money that individuals can hold in there. And I presume they haven't said it's for that reason, but I just sort of presume it must be, you know, because any sort of loss of control from a central regulatory body sort of makes them irrelevant, doesn't it?

[E]

Yeah. And I guess, I mean I think that's worth. It's a massive way to go for UK to lose monetary sovereignty. But some of the smaller emerging markets where you might be seeing people holding stablecoin as sort of a hedge on the currency. That is I think quite a real thing and so quite interesting to see how these governments think about. Do they try and shut it down? Do they try and work with it? I think there's some really interesting questions there.

[A]

Cool. All right, Any last points on that from anybody who wants to. Are you converted? You're just going to go and pull your savings into stablecoins? Kate?

[B]

No, no, I was going to say when. What will it, what will the December payroll 11Fs look like?

[A]

You'll find out, won't you? Give it. Give it a couple of weeks. Yeah, stablecoins or any sort of payments will do, I guess at that stage, aren't they? But.

[C]

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[A]

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[C]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

All right, heading on with the next story that we picked up. We picked up from FinTech3Futures Revolut partners with booking.com to expand travel payments offering. So Revolut and booking.com have formed a global payments partnership. I should say for everybody else is like the second half of the show, it's usually about two beers in so the reading becomes really shit. Just so you know. So. So if it's a bit more slurry and a bit more broken, then my bad. Okay, stop drawing attention to it, David. I know, I feel really weird. Anyway, about 9 million Revolut users have previously booked on booking.com making this a strong overlap and logical fit for both companies. The integration redirects users from booking.com to the Revolut app at checkout, where they can then pay securely using biometric authentication and supports multiple currencies. Customers who pay via Revolut pay on booking.com will earn extra Revolution points. Okay, that makes sense. So where users can now get 10x rev points on those purchase. This is starting to feel like an ad now. Like it's not an advert. Guys, what do you reckon? I mean it's an interesting one, isn't it? Two very big businesses here, revolut and booking.com maybe on the audience, like, who's going to benefit most from this, do you reckon? Let's go with Neil Mint for Revolut and charcoal for booking.com 3, 2, 1 People with the Mint ones up working for Revolut by any chance, or. Yeah, some of them in the audience, I'm sure. Interesting. I mean, I guess I'm a sucker for points, though, maybe. Coming back to you guys, would you buy. If you had a Revolut account, would you use it more because of having these things? So, like, are you a sucker for points too? Because I'll do anything to get Amex points. I'll be honest with you. Like. Yeah, yeah, pretty much everybody will do everything for points, which is. Which is fair. I think as British people, we were conditioned that points make prizes when we. With national TV for most of it, but. All right, Kate, what do you reckon? Big partnership between these two big businesses, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, you can definitely see the logic behind it. We've seen Revolut really double down on that kind of traveler consumer segment, you know, people that are moving, being international. So when you kind of look at the tiers that they've introduced, the kind of paid plans, a massive focus on foreign exchange, travel insurance, lounge access. So kind of really trying to zone in on that customer who either does travel or kind of thinks that they are going to travel, even if life actually conspires against them. So I can really see why from a kind of, just from that pure customer focus perspective, this makes sense.

[A]

I think with full booking.com, i mean, Revolut's a weird one, right, because you sort of lose context. You know, you see numbers coming out of customers for Monzo's and Starlings. But, like, you know, to put that in Context, Revolut got 65 million users worldwide.

[B]

Yeah, Tasty.

[A]

That's a fucking lot of customers, isn't it? Like, they're 135 million active mobile users in 2024 alone. That's crazy. Crazy, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. And I think, you know, in the travel space, it makes so much sense because my, you know, my Instagram is like, constantly dominated by influencers who are giving you tips about how you can, if you book things on a VPN and sort of claim you're in, I don't know, Turkey, you can get flights for half the price. So if you can use VPN, you use your NordVPN. Again, this is going to sound like an advert for Revolut, right? But you use your NORDVPN that's included in your Revolut membership to go on and buy your.

[A]

Sound like an advert.

[B]

Buy your holiday in your. When you're in your Turkish currency that you've already got in your Revolut account that you've exchanged for free and then you get X number of rev. They're kind of just creating this ecosystem where it just makes sense to do more and more and more within Revolut. So, yeah, it just seems really. And I suppose for context, yeah, I was saying to the guys backstage, until quite recently, I had a really irrational. I think hate is too strong a word. I just really didn't like Revolut. Like, I had this weird British sensibility of like, they're just too aggressive and they're, you know, they're not polite and they're not queuing properly and all that sort of stuff. And I've kind of got past that now.

[A]

Like, she is quite Victorian sometimes, but.

[B]

You know, I think I've moved past that now and you can just see that they're doing thing after thing which is just completely changing the game and financial services and this is just really exciting to see.

[A]

Yeah, it seems. It's interesting, isn't it? You know, full circle on started as, you know, enabling travel and making it super easy and now making it more cost effective as well. You know, it's an interesting loop. But two giant businesses partnering, that's. That's a big thing in itself because it's hard.

[C]

And for this type of partnership, the integration is quite involved. So it would have taken both sides quite a lot of time and effort to be able to put this in place. Particularly for booking.com if we pick Revolut and had that as a payment rail through its processes. And it sounds very much like it's global as well. So it'll have been all across different iterations of its website. So that in itself is kind of a cause for celebration in the story. But for me, this is all about the loyalty points. It's just about ensuring that you're kind of keeping the customer, the Revolut customer, within that same ecosystem throughout and doing that with a 10x on your points.

[A]

Yeah, it feels like something that, I mean, Richard, you've worked in different markets, but this is type of thing, that Asian market you sort of come to expect a little bit, as in, you know, big points provider partnering with financial services brand to do things, you know, but less so here, you know, is this new or is it just new to here?

[E]

Yeah. So personally I think we're probably slightly over talking this. I am actually still hold Revolut shares so don't want to. I don't want to big Revolut up but I mean essentially Revolut launched kind of the payment acceptance business a few years ago and they've added a payment system method for booking.com they've been [e-mail] for a while.

[A]

Right.

[E]

The stays integration in Revolut is I think booking.com as well. So it makes a lot of sense. Right. And I guess plays to the kind of on us thing where you kind of try and avoid the rails that charge you fees and just do it kind of on us and so yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I guess way back when I was a Revolut, right. They had really high share in Ireland or Malta back then and I'm sure it's even higher and really high in other countries as well. And you kind of get in a taxi in Dublin, you could revolute the money to the taxi driver. Right, Same thing. You're just avoiding the other rails and it's on us to save some fees. But essentially it's just a payment acceptance method really. I think we may be over bigging the partnership.

[A]

Yeah, I guess anything where you can get money back in your pocket at that scale for something and I think that's always an interesting thing, these sort of membership point setups. I mean like I say I'll do anything for AmEx points, quite frankly, like anything just. Just to make it weird for everybody. So. So if you've got some like I'll take them but because essentially I can translate them into like anything I want to. You know, my Amazon addiction can be satisfied through just making that choice, you know. But what do you think though? Do you think people, people will change their behavior in order to benefit from this or do you think it's predominantly people just doing what they were going to be doing anyway.

[D]

That's me.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Thank you. I do think that those who chase points will.

[A]

It's a detection, guys.

[D]

Exactly. So if you haven't been booking with booking before and now you see that you get 10x if you put that transaction and it's the same amount of money, of course you are going to change your behavior and go with booking. So. And I actually believe that what you said there about, I mean for Revolut it's an amazing customer acquisition. Yes. They have 65 million. But booking have, what did you say, 130 million? It's many millions in between. And how long does it take before they have 130? So it's a great customer acquisition power for them and for booking the millions of millions of transactions that they are processing. So if they can get percentage of that on us and kind of cut the fee, I think it's an amazing saving for them. So I think they are like both sides probably have very strong reasons for embedding this. And I mean for consumers it's great. And this is where embedded payments will be going. So I think it's win, win, win for everyone within the ecosystem. But I also think that those that are not Revolut fans, like I have used the booking. I never thought about using Revolut. I'm not going to start to use Revolut, but I'm not chasing points either. So maybe I'm not the target group.

[E]

Yeah, I do think though I don't know about the customer acquisition thing because I'm sure people here have gone through the same thing where you're going on a merchant site, you're buying something and then you get often you have to fill in a bunch of details about yourself and then you get presented with some payment methods and you've now got 15 different buttons to press and one of those is Revolut Pay. Great. But you've not kind of chosen Revolut before you got to that point. Actually what really pisses me off about those sites is the fact that they should expose the one click checkout earlier. So like Apple Pay, right, you can, you can fully check out with your details delivery address up front. They generally force you for a form to actually take the details to them as a merchant before you get to the payment selection method. So I think there's still quite a bit to work through there as to it's all basically about the data, right? And who owns that data as to where they expose the button for the payout. So I still think there's quite a bit to work through on most merchants there.

[A]

John. Weirdly, that's true. I'm finding that I'm using Apple Pay because I can't be asked to fill in my details rather than the payment mechanism, which is weird, isn't it? You know, but sorry, Kate.

[B]

Well, I was going to say I do think travel is a really interesting moment from a customer perspective though, because when I interview customers there is so much apathy about changing anything in your financial life. But there are Relatively few moments in the average year where someone will sit down and make a kind of really, really considered financial purchase. And I think probably booking a big trip or a big holiday is probably one of those moments when customers are planning that purchase in advance. They're probably talking it through with their partner, discussing with their friends. It's much more of a moment to buy something. And I think people probably are seeing the same Instagram shit I'm seeing, which is, here's the five smartest ways to save 50 quid on your holiday. So I do think, yes, I agree there's maybe a risk of overhyping this, but I do think for someone like Revolut, who is, I assume, constantly just trying to, one, win more customers and two, when they've got sort of dormant or less active customers, give them an incentive to come back into the app, use the app more. I think zoning in on that moment of purchase for a holiday or for a trip makes a ton of sense. Both kind of for the extra degree of focus and planning that goes in, but also for the social nature of it as well.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You're booking a trip for yourself or you're booking with family members. If you find out that you can get X points back, that you can then cash in on something else, you probably tell your friends, you tell your family. So I think it's. To me, it just seems like a really smart moment. I'm sure they've had to invest heavily in this, right? They're going to be taking a hit on giving this level of benefit and I personally think it's quite smart.

[A]

Any other last thoughts from anybody on this one?

[C]

Forgetbooking.com and revolut, topcashback hotels.com that's where it's at. That's where. That's where the savings are.

[A]

Nice. I'm just happy that if Richard, if we have to do that weird weekend and Stockholm to find the branches, I'm going to get points for booking it now, aren't I? At least so.

[E]

Exactly. Tex, what can you complain about there?

[A]

No, no complaints anymore at all. All right, so that does wrap up probably pretty much most of the news that we've managed to find. But what we're going to do to wrap up tonight's show is something a bit very special. Usually we do like a weird and finally story, but this time it's going to be a segment. So tonight has always been about you, our listeners, and with the festive season just around the corner, we thought we it would be fun to put a Bit of a festive twist on things. It's gonna get weird, guys. Bring out Santa. No, we're not really going to do that. So we've asked you what you'd like to put on your FinTech wish list for Christmas. I'm definitely not going to be calling myself Santa Claus, but in this box right here, I have props. It's really hard to hold an iPad, pick up a box and hold the mic at the same time. But. So what we're going to be doing with this box is we've got a few things that a few of you have asked and what we'll be doing is basically asking you to vote for them, whether you think they should be on the FinTech wish list or shouldn't be on the FinTech wishlist. You got me. Right, so apparently I've got to actually unroad these things and pick one out. So this might get a bit weird. So let's see what we've got. Right, so we have. And you guys are going to have to vote on this to say whether it should go on the FinTech wish list or not. So we've got keeping the current EU data protection AI out. This is one that came in from Leanne Georgiez. Definitely killed your surname if you're here. My bad. What do you reckon a show of. Give me the neon mint if you think it should go on the fintech wishlist or red one. I mean, EU data protection Leanne. Bit of a fucking hardcore one to go with to start with, wasn't it? But I suppose I did pick it out. But what do you reckon? On the wish list or not on the wish list? Put your hands up. Three, two, one. Okay, so apparently most of the audience think then, that the EU Data protection and AI act should be kept. You fuckers have never read that. Why are you pretending like this audience lies so terribly, doesn't they? What do you reckon, Kate? Are we thinking that that is one that we should keep and therefore, you know, let's all regale of tales of the. Was it the EU data protection and AI app, or not?

[B]

I'm just going to be trying to get my son to put that on his Christmas list because I don't think that one will cost me anything. So I think. I think that'll be. That's my strategy.

[A]

What do you reckon? Is everybody else just loving that data and AI act and want to, you know, make sure it stays in. In our jurisdiction?

[E]

I've been wondering when we get a Brexit dividend, so maybe not Having this act in the UK is the Brexit dividend. Given the. I'm guessing because of the question, it's pretty shit. But I've not personally studied it, so I can't really say.

[A]

Yeah, it's got a bad beat back to it. But what do you reckon? Keep it.

[D]

Keep it. Yeah, yeah, I'm with the audience.

[C]

Yeah, keep it. Christmas is a time for giving, and most of the audience wanted it.

[A]

It's usually Baileys that put me to sleep across Christmas. Never mind. Never mind. The EU and Data Protection Act. All right, the next one up is. Okay, this is. This is a fun one for Nikolai Starunsky to have a change of heart and revolute to IPO in the uk. It's a bit awkward, isn't it? What do you reckon? Does everybody want that to happen here, or would you happily change that one? There was no name on that one, but apparently it was from Rachel Reeves, apparently. Which sounds about right, doesn't it, really? So what do you reckon? The revolut. Ipoing here or somewhere else or a bit of a mix of it?

[C]

Well, we got to keep wishing for that. I think the kind of patriotic. Patriotic room there of like, you know, kind of keep it in the UK is. Is exactly where it's needed. We don't need that office in Canary Wharf left empty after they ship over to New York.

[A]

It's hard in it because there's a lot of money in the US so I can get it. Like the IPOs elsewhere and markets here are difficult going rich.

[E]

Yeah. Nick is a very rational guy. Having worked for him, it's fair to say that the London market needs a lot more kind of growth stocks, growth investor interest. I did. I think I did see. Maybe Christmas came early. Didn't last month Revolution say they were considering a dual listing of London and New York?

[A]

Yeah, there was. There was sort of rumors of it was in there was in it, but it wasn't confirmed. I mean, that would be interesting because there's not many. There's not many businesses that. That do that as their first listing, is there? So, yeah, would be. Would be super interesting. It feels like there must be lots of back rooms. I reckon number 11 Downing Street's being used for negotiations on all, like IPO here, pay some taxes, and then a few other things as well. Right.

[C]

So there's always a lot of rumors about dual listings, but there's so much effort and time and cost that goes in with that dual listing. And for your point around how not many people do that as their first time around. I'm sure that's a hedge betting strategy and a PR strategy rather than anything else. Sure.

[A]

Well, time will tell, but I think we're going to keep that one on the list then. All right, let's see what else we've got then. All right. All right, so for banking platforms to be boringly secure and reliable and for people to sleep soundly knowing that hard earned money is protected, diversified and easy to manage. So basically, stop talking about sexy technology like stablecoins everybody and just make tech platforms boringly secure. That was Mike Witten. If you're about, what do you reckon? Show of hands, give me Neon Mint. If you want your banking platforms boring, if you don't and you really want risk in your world, then give me the black one. Megan Kaywood putting out the black one who wants her tech platforms unsecure. But yeah, I mean, interesting one most people put up for actually the tech systems being painfully boring. And that kind of makes sense, but, you know, few people wanting some excitement in their life, I guess. You know, I think that one's valid, right?

[C]

You know, is it not too much.

[B]

To ask for both?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Damn it. Mike. Mike. Seems like he set us up there, didn't it? But. But yeah. All right, let's have a look. All right, so we have the pensions industry to move faster from David Henderson. All right, yeah, that's probably a fair one. David, do you mean get your pension sooner and retire or do you mean, do you mean like their pensions dashboard to get their ass in gear and all of those things? Let's go with that. He means the industry rather than just his retirement. But show me Neon Mint. Do you think the pensions industry needs to move quicker? Yeah, this one's pretty unanimous, right? It's a big thing in everybody's life, isn't it? Like, when do I get to press the button and not have to do this crap anymore? Right, so go on, Rich.

[E]

Yeah, I just want to add an extra spin to this topic because I'm definitely very Neon Mint on this one. But it's clear the whole sort of mansion house compact, the desire to see pension funds invest more in growth assets, maybe have more than 4% of equities held in the UK. My God, would you like to see that move faster? Yes.

[A]

Yeah, well, I was going to say, if people started IPO in here, we'd have more assets to invest in, won't we?

[E]

So I'll call Nick afterwards.

[A]

I'll drop a WhatsApp, see what happens. Yeah, what do you guys reckon? Pensions. So we need a bit of an accelerant on this sort of innovative side of things from a pensions perspective.

[C]

Well, I mean, we talked earlier about kind of the stability and people wanting to have that kind of physical presence within branches, et cetera. So you transfer that to pensions and you want to have a very, very stable pension position. Right. Doesn't mean it can't have sexy UX and stuff around it. And that's where you want to see the acceleration, I think.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, Kate, we've seen, you know, friends at pensionbee are doing amazingly well and expanding out geographies. You know, pensions are doing things, but maybe not the industry. You've got providers doing it, haven't you?

[B]

Yeah, but I mean, I've got a pension B account, so, like, I went through the experience, like, it's definitely an improvement, but there's still like so much clunky stuff which I don't think is their fault. Right. Like, they're doing the best with a really shit hand. So, yeah, I still can't get my head around why it isn't easier to find pensions. Why is it so hard to find pensions? It just seems crazy to me that we've not managed to make progress on something so important, especially given if a state is backing away from state pension provision. There's so much emphasis put on individual responsibility in here. We're making it so hard for individual people to kind of find and manage and grow that money. So, yeah, definitely. Hard vote. Yes. To speed up for me.

[A]

Yeah. It's a funny space where we want innovation, isn't it? Sadly for my sins, before banking worked in insurance and pensions. I don't think people understand what these things are, really. They think it's a thing for old people and nobody's got an idea of what annuities are. So it's a hard market to be innovative, isn't it?

[D]

But I think you could come on a case study to Finland on this one because here we are forerunners and I think it's. I have no complaints. I think it's easy to understand and. Yeah, so you should send some folks over to the Nordics to see how you can do it better. So welcome.

[E]

And play hunt the branch while you're there. Yeah, great game.

[D]

You will find them easier in Helsinki than Stockholm, though, so.

[E]

So, yeah, I'm coming tomorrow and we're.

[B]

Gonna book it on Revolut.

[A]

Well, we've come full circle, haven't we? I'll be honest with you, the sad reality that none of us are gonna be able to retire anytime soon is a. It's a tough way to end the show, I'm not gonna lie. But I guess that that's where we've ended ourselves. Quite a depressing setup. You'll be trundling into your branches to pick up your pension like, you know, what world are we going for anyway? All right, guys, sadly, that is all we have time for tonight. But if you want to head over to the social channels for all of the things, we'll be revealing some more of your fintech wishes. Apparently there's a lot more of them. And whether you agree with our wish list or not, I hope every single one of you sees your fintech wishes come true. That's so cheesy in it.

[E]

My bad, guys.

[A]

And with that note, we will be calling a wrap for tonight's FinTech Insider News. Massive thank you to my co host Kate. Give her a round of applause. And to all of the other panelists, to Tom, Denise, Richard. And the sponsors Infuse HSBC Innovation Banking UK and Formats. And the biggest thank you to you guys. Thank you very much for all for coming. This has been FinTech Insider News. Goodbye.