← Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
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Foreign.
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Happy New Year and welcome to the first FinTech Insider episode of 2026. I'm Laura Watkins, Director of Media Marketing here at 11 FS. Before we look ahead, let's start with a challenge. I've asked my colleagues to something bold. Stake their reputations, embrace a bit of friendly ribbing, and lay down their most daring predictions for the future of fintech. To uncover the answers, I've assembled a SWAT team of my fellow 11s and fintech insiders, people who've spent all year scrutinizing the signals that hint at what's coming up in 2026. So let's dive in. First up, we're delighted to welcome back to the podcast David Brear, Group CEO at 11 of us. How are you doing, David?
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C
Yeah, pretty good. Full of festivities and, yeah, looking forward to an amazing year ahead.
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B
Awesome. And we are also joined by Russ Gallagher, head of consulting at eleven Affairs. How are you doing, Russ?
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D
Yeah, really well, Laura. Delighted to be here. Delighted to lay down another prediction that will inevitably be wrong. And I'll have to. Yeah. Suffer the consequences of that in next year's show. But we'll focus on. We'll focus on right now for now, shall we?
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B
Okay, well, we'll see whether you're right or wrong shortly. And last but not least, Kate Moody, customer strategy director at ElevenFest. Welcome to the show. Kate, you were not here on last year's prediction show. You were doing something very, very important in. But we are delighted to have you for this one. How are you doing?
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A
Yeah, I mean, I deliberately tried to time having my baby last year to avoid having to commit to doing predictions, so I've not managed to do that this year, sadly. So, yeah, I need to come and trash my career along with the rest of you. So looking forward to it. Happy New Year. That's okay.
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B
You get to weigh down on whether David Cross were right or wrong.
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A
Yeah, I'm going to be hugely judgmental in the first half and very quiet in the second, so. Okay.
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B
All right. Well, with that, we shall dive in. So we're going to start by taking a look back at our predictions from last year. It's always enlightening and some sometimes humbling to reflect on how the year has unfolded compared to what we anticipated. So here's what we did predict for 2025. We're going to start by looking back at your prediction. Ross, you said with consumer finances still squeezed and cash making a comeback, are we finally going to see digital money management tools that make a difference to people's Finances. Russ, can you dig into this one a little bit more kind of what you meant by it and how far have we come?
- [02:28]
D
Well, well, first of all, did you notice how I've structured that as a question? Does that get me off on a technicality? Not, not, not, not technically a prediction? No. Look, I think, you know, the reality is that we've seen for the last, the last number of years people's personal finances, household finances just getting increasingly decimated and all right, look, you know, you can argue that we've sort of brought inflation under control, at least in the UK down from the sort of peaks of around 11, 11%, but they're still double the bank of England average. So this, this problem hasn't gone away. You know, I think certainly when I've done the last few of these predictions shows, I think there's always a little bit of maybe over optimism or sort of idealism in, in, in, in my predictions in that I'm kind of saying like, look, this is a major problem and it's almost like a cold warms, like, come on, there's, there's things we can do here to really better serve and actually sort of help consumers tackle some of these really knotty issues. You know, obviously helping them better manage their finances, sort of pay cycle to cycle, whether that's a week, a couple of weeks, a month, and you know, give them the tools that they need to build better financial habits and behaviors, improve their financial position over time. It just seems so basic. But I think if I were to reflect on, you know, did we see this happen this year? I think I'd have to say, actually I'm, I'm probably pretty disappointed.
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B
Okay, what's your, what's your thoughts? We did have some growth of digital money management tools, but we equally had a rise of cash. What do you think? How close was Russ on this one?
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A
I mean, I think the, if I have a positive hat on, I think we are moving forward.
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C
You have a positive hat, Kate?
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B
I've never seen negative one that comes next.
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C
Yeah, I've seen that.
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A
I mean I have a very large head generally, so finding hats of positive or negative varieties is generally quite hard. But yeah, I think we are moving forwards. Right. Like we're not moving backwards. Like the abilities people have to manage and use their money in additional environment is generally improving and I think is proliferating across more and more platforms. So I suppose we now have a broader base across certainly the developed markets. Most digital banking platforms now have I suppose, what I would call a sort of A hygiene level of money management functionality. Like, we've seen lots of stealing of pride if we're being generous of functionality from some of the challenges. The challenges are now moving above and beyond that. But I don't think we've still fundamentally seen a shift to helping people to decide what to do with their money before they spend it. We're still seeing a lot of sort of retrospective analysis of money movement, retrospective prospective analysis of like, oh, whoops, you spent too much last month. Rather than things that are proactively helping people to shape and manage their money, we're still seeing people cobble together quite manual solutions, distributing their money across different accounts to try and create the structures that are helping them to stay on top of their finances. And that is true across the personal banking space. It's also true across SME banking. And even if you move into the world of wealth, people are kind of having to kind of really still cobble together their own systems, rather than having one single overarching system that's helping to really manage money in the way that people want to and to kind of really help people drive that efficiency. And we've still seen a lot of hesitation about this sort of advice, guidance boundary. We're starting to see as we kind of move into 2026, maybe some movement in the UK from the FCA to kind of maybe try and introduce a new halfway house. But it's sort of mainly focused on investments rather than everyday money movement in the first instance. So, again, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the uk, at least with this new FCA guidance. But I think there's been still a lot ahead of hesitance to give people quite steers about how they can be most efficient with their money. Because your bank's been burned in the past by straying. Yeah.
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B
David, what's your thoughts on that? Kind of, to Kate's point, like, a lot of money management tools tend to manage your money after the fact, like when it's already gone. Like, how do we. We kind of get ahead of that for people?
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C
Yeah. Hindsight being 20 20, here's what you shouldn't have done is not really. It's not really great advice, is it? That's not really advice. That's just. That's just having a go, isn't it? To be fair, you know, like, I feel very seen by those things as well. And even, even the bizarrely, even the. The sort of more modern day twists on those. Having just gone through Monzo's, you know, year in Review of my spend thing. Like basically just having to go at me for using delivery more frequently than most normal people, which I'm not sure is a badge of honor or like a cry for help, but I don't know. I'd, I'd love to. I think like Ross was sort of alluding to as a thing that he would like to happen. I'd definitely like this to happen, but I think probably all the signs are pointing towards it not happening. I'd sort of say things like cash usage going up would say to me that people are not finding real benefit in the digital solutions. And actually if you look at different, you know, demographics thinking, you know, we were chatting with Duran Dua from Project Nemo the other day. You know, caching being used increasingly within certain demographics are, is actually being shown to be because of trusted third parties doing budgeting for people because the digital services are not providing those capabilities. So for me, that's a bit of a flag, you know, so. And I think to Kate's point, you know, retrospective tooling doesn't really give you any context of why, what, or, you know, how you should be managing your money more, you know, more efficiently. I do agree with the regulation piece. As somebody who spent a lot of time sort of in the, the bit between the advice and the guidance for previous big banks that I've kind of worked with, then it is something that actually the regulator or the regulations don't help with because essentially it creates a sort of a sphere of panic between those two things. You know, you, you get such a massive smack on the wrist for, you know, giving people anything that leads to an outcome that was not for choosing. And that makes total sense, but it, it means actually all of the, the niceties of financial services that were kind of from yesteryear have dropped out because of people just being fine, the fear of being fined. So, so yeah, it's, it is a tough one. I'm with Ross. I'd love this to be the case. I'd love more things to happen in this space to help people really understand financial services. But, you know, on the plus side though, this year we did see it come into fruition that finally we're going to start to see within high schools, finance starting to be taught. So maybe what we've got to wait for is probably just six more generations of kids to, to come through school to be in a place where they get it and then, you know, they can make better decisions.
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B
Well, let's see. So, Russ, maybe it hasn't happened in terms of your prediction, but everyone tends to agree with the sentiment, so, you.
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Know, you're on the right track.
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D
Yeah, it hasn't happened, but it's. It's no less noble.
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B
Exactly. David, we're going to come to you next. Your prediction was wealth stuff is going to be big, nice and specific there. Do you want to tell us more?
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C
Yeah. That was me at my most elephant.
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B
I mean, that's pretty much what you said.
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C
Yeah. I feel like after many years of using Twitter when it was 120 characters, like, you know, brevity is now a skill set that I have. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think I would say that this is happening. I'd say maybe it's emerging, but maybe not emerged. But if you look at somebody like a monument monument and absolutely crushing it, you know, like the amount of savings accounts that have been opened and the amount of balances that they brought in, you know, if anybody wants to go and check out Ian Rand's podcast that he did with us, then, you know, full stop, that's probably true. But actually, if you also then, see, I kind of cheated on this one because I knew what we were going to be doing. So, like, actually, if you look at all the stuff that we're doing with 11FS holdings then, or if you look at what somebody like Anthony Thompson's doing with the Family Office bank, then, you know, there are plenty of people who have seen that this is probably the remaining, you know, big gap in the market. Unless, let's say actually every other part has been sold for and therefore, you know, let's do something for those poor rich people. More like, actually the things that the saying is always the future's already here. It's just not evenly distributed. Right. So actually, if the Monzos and the Starlings and the revoluts of the world are going for mass market private banking because it's allowing to digitize stuff that was otherwise given to high net worth, then actually the gap then is created by everyday retail banking getting better. So, yeah, I'd say there is advancements in this one, but I'd say it's an emerging trend trend rather than a emerged.
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B
Fair enough. But yeah, it's obviously, you know, it's on its way, shall we say, giving.
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C
It a bloody good go, aren't we? So.
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B
Yeah, exactly. And, and you know, we've been kind of, you know, looking at this for quite a while now. In episode 826, we kind of looked at that $84 trillion kind of wealth that's supposed to be passed on by, by baby boomers. Kate, what was your kind of take on this? Do you agree that the sort of movement towards wealth management is a sort of reaction to that kind of improvement in everyday banking?
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A
Yeah, I think so, absolutely. I mean I think this was, this is probably, I think my prediction back in 2024, I think I said that with too often. I was just too, too optimistic. Like it's taken a while. I think we've known that there's been again, I suppose we've had insider information that we've heard lots of fintechs and banks talking about this stuff for a long time plus been doing ourselves. So yeah, it's not a surprise that this year has seen more movement. And I'm always, still surprised whenever I do kind of customer interviews with people that fit into these categories. Obviously different definitions of wealth and different levels of wealth. But you speak to individuals that certainly have more money than I do. And I'm still always surprised when you still hear them talking about how much the likes, the likes of fintechs, you know, they will trot off, you know, seeing their kids using Monzo and Revolut and kind of comparing those directly to their own pretty crappy experiences they're having. But also, yeah, just other digital platforms, full stop, you know, the likes of Netflix and Spotify, all of these platforms are shaping the expectations of these individuals and they're pretty pissed off or have been pretty pissed off that it's taken such a long time and there's been this sort of the veneer of human service kind of covering the gaps. But I think even that is not enough anymore. So yeah, I think it'll be exciting to see what happens in, in this year. I guess maybe 2025 was the year of like the announcements. Maybe 2026 is a year of like actually starting to be able to get our hands on some of these offerings. I mean, not personally myself because I have very little money now that my daughter is going off to nursery. But yeah, so for people that have money, they'll get their hands on these experiences and maybe we'll be able to peer over their shoulders and have a look at how good they are.
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B
Get some journeys in polls. That's our whole look at them. Ross, what was your, your take on this? Is that the legacy banks sort of finally being challenged in this space?
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D
Yeah, well, I should say up front, I think if, if I got off on a technicality of being wrong on last year's prediction by phrasing it as a question, I think David's done the same by, by making it as vague as he possibly can. But, but you know, look, that said, I mean bringing it back I suppose to, to my prediction as well. I think, you know, Kate was right in the, I think on sort of like on some level, on the sort of consumer end of things, I think we have seen cumulatively some good steps in the right direction in terms of sort of real time push notifications on spend and sort of real time balance updates and drill downs on transactions and all of that sort of stuff. I think what we haven't seen is maybe that come together in sort of more of a joined up sort of holistic suite that kind of actually starts to give me some nudges and starts to shape my behavior and all of that sort of stuff. But I do agree with Kate that we've seen some progress. What's interesting about the wealth space though is, you know, the people who you're serving, their lives are so much more complex and there are so many different pain points that need to be addressed and solved for. And I think Kate touched on this as well. You know, what we've typically seen is no one provider has been able to solve for all of those pain points. And so you end up with this sort of like blend of lots of different providers and tools and solutions. None of them are talking to each other. And then you've got, you know, humans trying to operate in the middle of that as well and bring it together and as Kate said, kind of patch up the, you know, try and abstract away from the pain for the end users. So yeah, look, I think we are really actually now starting to see some traction and starting to build some real momentum in this space. But I do think there's still quite a way to go when it comes to you know, really, really solving for these things and delivering a, the sort of next generation of Service.
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B
Well, maybe 2026 is the year for it actually happening.
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C
Well, I was going to say weirdly the, like the, the complexity of the problems is so different but the solution is often quite the same. Do you know what I mean? I was chatting with a lady the other day and they're like, I think she was worth like 4 billion quid, which is kind of crazy. And it's like the commas are bigger but the problems are similar. Which is like they're solving them problems themselves. So like, you know, if you look at retail market, retail banking from a mass market perspective, then people are, you know, traversing sort of four or five different apps to like do it Themselves exactly the same. It's just the bank's got better calligraphy on their logo. Do you know what I mean? Like, so you're, you know, you're traversing fancier banks, but the problem is still being solved by yourself doing some work and the mental math around it, which is crazy. You know, like, it really is crazy. But. But yeah, I agree, Laura. I think this will be a, this will be a one for next year.
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B
So it's a rollover of a prediction. I like that.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, the lottery, like, didn't quite happen in 2025. So, like, let's just do that one again.
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A
Okay.
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B
And finally, just a quick look back on my own prediction from last year that 2025 will be the year of the IPO, but it won't look good for lo the time Starling, Revolut, Klarna, Zopa, OpenAI, Chime, and possibly Monzo and Stripe were all on the table for a 2025 IPO. Various things happened this year, not least sort of tariffs and things like that in the US that put people off. But we did get a couple of IPOs. Not least, we had Klarna and Equally Chime. But I think I'm going to say I was right on the. It won't look good for London. What do you guys think? Start with you, David.
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C
Yeah, I'd say the music of IPOs in London's not ideal. And I'd sort of say the ones that you've listed out, I think are all probably increasingly looking like US listings. It's not great. I know there are a lot of things happening in a lot of rooms right now with a lot of those organizations to try and change that, but it's really, really hard pressed to do anything about it. So. So yeah, I, I'd sort of say you, I'd say you sort of nailed this one, if I'm honest with you. Like, while the, while the, the actual companies that listed were probably not right then actually the, the sort of mood music part of it was absolutely spot on, which makes me realize I should just make my predictions much more vague than, than I did previously.
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B
More vague than wealth is going to be big.
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C
Shut up.
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B
Ross, what do you think?
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D
Yeah, I think. Take a bow. You know, I think you are in, in many ways you're spot on. I, I think it has been a really disappointing year for, for London. Yeah. Certainly when it comes to IPOs. And I think, look, you know, there's no sign necessarily that that trend is going to reverse anytime soon.
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C
It's a weird one that though, Ross, because actually on the London side, there's been a lot of positivity, isn't there? There's been, you know, we've sort of seen a lot of like the FCA and CFIT and these guys kind of all sort of getting the mojo back a little bit, but, but almost. I, I guess the IPO bit is like a, you know, it's like a summation of all of those things. And while there's green shoots and all the, you know, the, the London side of things and the governmental side of things and the backing for fintech, the things that go with it, then it's not overcoming all of the problems that we've had for the last eight years.
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D
I'm with you and I know we've talked about this on shows before, and I've been a little bit maybe more pessimistic than you on this. And I look, I agree, I think, absolutely, from a policy perspective, I think we're making moves and I think all of that will come home to roost. I think one of the biggest thing things that just keeps getting called out in this space is you just need more capital. And I think at the moment, you know, founders just aren't seeing the upside. And so, yeah, they're looking, they're looking across the pond at America. But I think another interesting, another interesting trend in this space that we've seen this year has been the Middle East. And, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna find more markets with more capital necessarily in the Middle East. Of course, Binance IPO went public in the Middle East. So, you know, that's a, that's a huge name and an interesting trend. And I think, again, one that as we sort of move forward into 2026, we should keep our eye on because I think there's real jostling for a position now in this space when it comes to IPOs in the middle east market.
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B
And there's so many more of those brands that were sort of on the cusp of IPO that haven't yet done it. But the question of where they're going to do it probably may not even have LOND in contention anymore. Kate, what do you think?
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A
Well, yeah, I guess that was going to be my, my only sort of challenge to your prediction, which I agree, like, it's, I think, definitely a really good prediction. Mostly right. In terms of it not looking good for London. We didn't see the worst case scenario last year.
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B
Right.
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A
Which would have been the Likes of Monzo and Revolut listing last year and not in London, like that would have been like really, really bad. Obviously it definitely feels like there is still intention, like I think most of those businesses would still like to list in London, but as we've discussed, just aren't seeing the right conditions. I actually went back to the interview that we did with the CEO of Zilch, Philip Bellamont. Obviously Zilch, I think maybe doesn't get mentioned quite as much as Monsoon Revolut, but another phenomenally successful UK fintech that is talking very openly about trying to ipo, I think has been working very closely with the UK government to try and kind of push for the things that he stated in our interview would be key to them. And I think the interesting point that he made was, I think he's described it as, he said that if you really want to do as a public business, you have to find a market that's going to understand the story, provide liquidity and get stakeholders of that country also supporting the growth that we want to see. And I think those kind of three pillars I think are quite interesting to think about. Obviously the liquidity point we've touched on stakeholders supporting growth, obviously that's government policy. We're seeing kind of moves and shakes in that space. Are they moving fastest? Maybe not. But I think the understanding the story part is key, actually. Do you have investors that are going to understand the value of that business, the trajectory of the business? And I think that's the part which will give London maybe a little bit longer to fix its problems. Not forever, but it gives it some Runway to fix its problems. Because I think taking these propositions to the Middle east, to New York and trying to explain precisely how this thing works and why it's sensible to invest in is going to be more work than it will do in this redundant context. So, yeah, I think it's definitely something to. I think 2026 will be an absolutely key year. Like I think if some stuff doesn't get sorted this year, like London is really, really screwed. But we're not completely screwed yet.
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B
Okay. A slight positive, I think, to end on. And so with that, we wrap up our 2025 prediction. Look back, but what's next? Find out after the break as we dive into our bold predictions for 2026.
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C
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D
What do you have to lose?
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C
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A
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B
Welcome back to FinTech Insider Insights. Before the break, we look back on our predictions from 2025. Now it's time to dig into what we think is going to happen this year. So David, what are you predicting for the year ahead?
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C
So I've sort of cheated, I'll be honest with you. And as, as generally I will have a go at doing and gone for two. So I'm like even small, like they're both quite specific. So I'm not spreading my bets quite as wildly as as you did Laura on, on your my first one was like digital riches. So we talk about digital riches all the time. It's the sort of shortcut for what we think a good digital product is, which is it's real time, intelligent, contextual, human extendable and social. For me, I think we're starting to see the seeds of those things really going mainstream. I'm particularly thinking about if you think the things like revolut street modes like actually there are amazing things now where you're like these things are only possible as services because people are using the context of how to provide services to people really, really effectively. So that's my first one. I think we're going to see more things in this year that are basically only now possible to deliver to people because of the advancements that we've had with technology, mobile phones and really using all of the context of those things in that, that guide. So do you want to talk about that one first or should I go into the second one as well?
- [25:36]
B
Yeah, no, let's dive into it. So Ross, what was kind of your take on this sort of AI sort of running the whole machine? Like how does that sort of play into that idea of like digital riches? And is this sort of, is this end game for digital riches or is there more nuance to it than that?
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D
Well, I think towing the 11 or first line and the idea that, you know, financial services is ever only 1% finished, I don't think we're ever quite in end game territory. But no, I like this and I understand the premise behind it and I agree with it. Right. I think, you know Riches is such an interesting concept. And I think when you start to unpack each one of those, like, what does it mean? I think the one that's always stood out for me as maybe being slightly counterintuitive, given that we're talking about sort of digital experiences, is the H is human. But, you know, what was always sort of then made sense to me is, well, if you can deliver something that is real time, if you can deliver something that is intelligent and that is contextual, it's going to be pretty human. And I think that's the really cool thing about this. You know, the C in terms of contextual, you know, the revolution. Street mode is a really good example. You know, that is taking these emerging technologies and applying them in a way that solves for a really acute problem. You know, we're seeing fraud pretty much the highest it's ever been.
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C
Right.
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D
You know, and in like on an industrial scale. And we've got this incredible spike in this incredible problem with phones being snatched out of people's hands on the streets of London. And that's something that has become such an issue in the last couple of years. And I think what's really cool is revolut have looked at that and okay, fine, you can argue that that goes outside the realms of traditional financial services in terms of the types of, the types of solution that they've offered. But they've gone, no, you know what, this is important. We're going to solve for this particular problem. And for me, that's understanding, you know, the context is taking those, those technologies and it's, it's using them to. Using them in a way that solves for really important customer problems, whether that's inside traditional financial services or outside traditional financial services. And yeah, I think we're going to see more of it. I really do. So I like this prediction.
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A
Nice.
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B
Kate, what's your take on this?
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A
Well, I mean, I'm still mainly just trying to get over my rage that David was allowed two predictions when I was told I could only have one. But I'll put that bitterness to one side. I feel a bit torn on this prediction because I suppose it's just the word mainstream. Right. So I think we've definitely seen. I think the platforms which are still truly capable of executing riches is still quite a specific field.
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B
Right.
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A
And that varies from market to market. But there's only a handful of players in each market which are, if we're honest, truly capable of delivering experiences which would meet our sort of riches benchmark. We know that lots of the kind of traditional banks are trying to reconfigure their internal structures to kind of connect together, like the data sources and all the sort of stuff, the platforms that would make these types of journeys possible, but they are still full on struggling a lot of the time. Right. So only a handful of people are going to be able to deliver these types of journeys. We know that those platforms are becoming more and more mainstream, more and more people are using them, but they're still not necessarily, with maybe the exception of the likes of Nubank in Brazil. Right. Who are crushing it. There are still markets where the vast majority of customers are still transacting on these legacy banks for at least part if not all of their day to day spending. And I was a bit taken aback almost. Actually towards the tail end of last year, I was doing a research project where I was actually interviewing lots of customers who were using kind of the paid platforms of the likes of N26 and bunk and Revolut. So fairly early adopters of some of these platforms. And I was surprised to Ross's point about the human element. I was still surprised how much it mattered to these people to have a sort of real world human fallback for their money. Actually, I spoke to a Revolut Ultra customer, one of the most invested, literally customers in the world in their digital fintech and even he was saying like I still have my traditional bank down the road and he lived in Austria, because I want to know that if something goes wrong with my money, I can physically drive there in my car and bang on the door until somebody fixes my problem for me. So I still think that human component is still key. And I think it'll be interesting to see whether the likes of things like Revoluts street functionality help to give customers more confidence that these digital banks can truly be verthwoven in these moments where things go wrong. But I still don't think we've scratched that itch for customers. Right. Like people still really want to know there is a human fallback.
- [30:53]
C
Yeah, I really like that point on the technology. I've been saying for a while now that the banks that have kind of come into the space, if you look at like a Monza or a Revolut inside, they're fundamentally different beasts. But externally, actually the products that they built very similar to traditional banks. And actually I think what we're going to see over the next couple of years, this is like a couple of year prediction. Now I think I've only ever made one of these a few times. Haven't I? The first one was when I was like somebody's going to buy Starling in three years time, I reckon. But I think the clock's still ticking on that one. But I think, I think on that one is I think we start to see the difference between what's on the inside making a difference to what's on the outside. So you are right, Kate. I think the ability for most organizations to do this becomes exposed because actually this sort of spaghetti of technology internal makes it really, really difficult to do. But for somebody like a Monzo, somebody like a Revolut, somebody like a Nubank, then actually it's just part of good building of product. So yeah, that gap, and by that probably the MPS gap or the customer satisfaction scores across the board become even more polarized. The, the traditional banks and the, the Neo banks.
- [32:09]
D
Can I, can I just pick up really quickly on that point? Because I think it's spot on. I think there's a lot of the big traditional banks who have kind of taken a big sigh of relief and kind of gone, oh, you know guys, yeah, like Monzo and Revolut, that was kind of scary. But actually now, you know, they're just banks and we know how to deal with banks and sure they've got a bit of market share but now this is really just a sort of a front end user design challenge. And I think think that is such a dangerous mindset to be in right now as a big bank because of everything that Kate and David have just described. You know, that sort of truly digital internal setup from like technology teams, culture, organization, all of those things. And then you start to put, you know, technologies like AI taking a real foothold and actually I think the potential for those guys to accelerate away and that's then before you even start to think about this sort of like AI native challenges that are going to come to market as well and sort of leapfrog. I think that's such an interesting point.
- [33:08]
B
And that kind of fully digital setup probably leads us nicely into your second prediction, David.
- [33:16]
C
Yeah, this one I think is really interesting because obviously, I mean here in the UK there's a lot of noise around digital identity. I really think quite clearly digital identity is going to be a new power play in the market. When you look at the noise on both sides of the fence with regards to people who are pro and I'm pro and people who are against it and are maybe building tinfoil hats and worrying about people listening to their phone calls at the same time, but it's like You've got to be crazy to not think this is a great advancement when it comes to people having control of their identity. Identity and people being in a situation where you actually put the power of those things into the individual's hands rather than a centralized body. But the devil is always in how you do it. So, you know, to be really clear, I am so pro digital identity if the users are put in control of their identity. I'm so con of it if it's some dystopian world where we're putting the government in charge of all of the things because, like, you know, don't always work out that well, does it? I think we tried it a few times with trains. We're giving it another go. Never worked out that well, you know. So I think the idea of identity being kind of like an underlying infrastructure piece for doing all of the things that we've always wanted to do in financial services is absolutely true. It's just whether we actually get to the world where we get what we want rather than what somebody else wants us to get.
- [34:49]
B
Kate, any thoughts on that? Is anyone sort of close to this already or is this sort of something that needs to be built from nothing?
- [34:57]
C
Well, I think it's. I mean, Labor. Labor are mandate in it, right? So, like, it's a. It's a. We're pretty close to it because it's going to be happening, but it's just. What.
- [35:04]
B
What is it gonna be happening?
- [35:06]
C
Well, what it happening means, you know what I mean? So.
- [35:09]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, they've. They've committed to it being in place by the end of the current parliament, which in UK political linguo, like, means what, 2029, I believe. Unless, like, our government collapses before then, which, you know, could happen. That's definitely not my prediction for next year, by the way. Like, this is not a politics show, but I mean, it's definitely happening in other parts of the world. Like, other parts of the world have been exploring this space already. So, you know, this isn't net new territory. There's lots of examples for the UK and other markets which might move in this direction as well, to kind of look at both, like, things that have worked well and things that haven't. So I think it's. Yeah, I think customers, there's just such a residual distrust. But I think it would be really important as part of the rollout for there to be a discussion about how this ID could be used in financial services for gain. We see a lot of underserving in financial services because banks aren't willing to take risks on certain customers because they profile a customer as having x or Y likely outcomes based on fairly outdated data sources. Much more positive outcome will be actually if we can profile and understand customers more accurately, and if we can actually understand people's propensity to kind of take and use credit responsibly or kind of make and manage investments with responsibilities, et cetera, all those types of things could fundamentally change how money is distributed within society and how people are able to access funds to fund things in their lives. So id, if it could help kind of challenge some of these outdated risk models, would be crazy exciting. But I'm not an expert at all, so I have literally no idea how that would happen. But I would love to see that happen if there was a form of ID that could help us actually lend responsibly and more broadly to people that currently aren't lent to.
- [37:04]
C
Yeah, I mean, I mean it at a much more primitive level than that. I don't mean primitive like caveman. I mean more like primitive like from a technological perspective. Because actually, when you start looking at, for all of the reasons that you said that digital riches is going to be difficult for people, then, you know, if you look at any bank around the world, digital identity is managed in gigantic monolithic slabs. So, you know, the idea that actually you could even just be able to very rigorously and consistently identify yourself for a digital service, you know, your own personal ID API, that would be a game changer for financial services, because if you could absolutely trust who you say you are, you are, then actually it changes the efficiencies in all of those systems, like false sweep. And then actually, beyond that, Kate, as you say, you start getting into, well, you know, how do I use my data for me? And actually, how do I create a system that can actually allow me to give access to it and revoke access to it, rather than giving access to all of it. You know, somebody who's run a business for a decade. I think I've literally got my passport in, like, paper format in thousands of people's offices, because that's how I've had to do it. And I'm like, I might as well just post it on the Internet at this stage. You know what I mean? So actually being able to revoke access to those things as well as provide them would give me a level of control over my data that actually just doesn't exist in the existing systems.
- [38:34]
B
Okay, well, let's see how that one stacks up in 2026. But, Russ, you are up next for your prediction. Do you want to tell us what it is?
- [38:45]
D
I think, I think investments are going to become a key customer battleground in a way that we haven't seen before next year. I think my, my slight caveat is I think, you know, I think we're at least going to see some real movement here in the uk. But yeah, that's my prediction.
- [39:08]
B
Okay. How kind of significant is the role in sort of regulation or policy and sort of shaping those behaviors? Or is it going to be something else besides that that kind of makes that a sort of key customer battleground?
- [39:24]
D
I think there's a couple of factors. I think policy and regulation is huge, right. I think when we look at investments and how investments have been positioned for a really long time, I think they've been a bit of a branding and a PR program problem. I think it's always been positioned in terms of risk and weirdly sort of like akin to like gambling. You know, all of the messages are the value of your investments might go down as well as up. And you know, the reality is that regulation around consumer protections and policy and all of that sort of stuff, that's kind of what providers had to lead with. And it's funny because that over time imprints on, you know, consumers psyche, I think. And so there's a, maybe a mistrust and a hesitation around investment products. There's absolutely a, you know, a sort of gap in sort of understanding around education and these things when it comes to investments. But I think actually maybe that's another thing that's starting to shift, right. I think think consumer confidence around some of these more complex or traditionally considered complex financial products I think is starting to grow, right. And I think, you know, there's, there's different, there's different types of investing, of course there's like the sort of ETFs and the mutual funds and the sort of like, you know, set and forget and that's all good on one end. And then of course there's you know, know, sort of crypto and maybe sort of like different asset classes. You know, if you look at something like chip, for example, you know, you've been able to invest in non traditional asset classes for quite a while, like you know, art and you know, we saw a massive uptick over the last couple of years, although it's tailed off a little bit recently in like barrels of whiskey and all of those types of things. So people seem a little bit more open to these types of things. But I think one of the Main drivers is the government. Right. You know, we've had massive, massive economic stagnation in this country for a really, really long time. UK economy has grown once out of the last seven months, which is I just think an absolutely staggering statistic. And of course the government are looking at every possible lever that they can pull to sort of drive some of that growth. One of those levers that was announced in the budget in November was they're going to reduce the amount of money that can be held in a cash ISA with the, I suppose, assumption that people will then put more of that money into stocks and shares and that in turn will sort of drive the growth of companies and sort of stimulate the growth in economy. So I think there are a number of driving forces that are sort of like pushing things in this direction. And so I think people are going to want a piece of that pie. You know, you've traditionally, this has kind of been the realm of, you know, the IGs, the Vanguards, the whoever else sort of very specific investment providers. I think we're going to see more movement among non traditional players in this space as we look ahead into 2026 and beyond. And I think potentially how that plays out is going to be quite interesting.
- [43:05]
B
Okay, I want to come to you on that sort of confidence in investing. As Russ said, it's improved sort of up to 39% from 33%. How much of a difference do you think that makes? What is that? What is driving that, do you think?
- [43:22]
A
I mean, we definitely, we saw a big uptick in, during the pandemic, right, in people signing up to investment platforms. I guess people had time. Maybe there's just more people that have had more opportunity to kind of like dabble a little bit. And you probably build confidence by, by dipping your toe in and kind of building incrementally.
- [43:38]
C
Football wasn't on people just looking for stuff to do, weren't they really?
- [43:42]
A
Yeah, just, just invest away. So I suppose, I think, and building confidence I think is key. But I completely agree with Ross about like, you know, obviously the macro factors here I think are really important. Like the government will steer people towards investing in the UK and also around the world. I think if you kind of step back even further, like I think the bigger thing here is that, you know, we have a globally aging population, but we also globally have a trend of, of governments not being able to cover the costs of aging from a sort of state level which is putting more responsibility back onto individuals to build their own financial reserves far later into their lives. Right. So I think that is the only way to really do that is to invest sensibly from an early point in your financial life. So I think we are going to see definitely an increase in investing. We will have to see an increase in investing in order for us not all to kind of of, you know, get to the age of 70 or 80 and not have any money, basically, given the way that, you know, state pension support is going. So, yeah, I think we'll see definitely an increase in investing. I'm interested to definitely see the impact of targeted support, which is this new FCA initiative focused around providing better investment. I was going to say advice, but it's not meant to be advice, is it? Somewhere between guidance and advice. But that's meant to be the idea that you can give people steers on how they might invest based on sort of common traits. So if you kind of fit into the profile of a cohort, someone like you would probably do these five things and it wouldn't be a disaster. Like, actually, how is that going to play out in a digital experience? And to come back to the previous conversation around, you know, digital riches, like, I think that could be where the likes of nubank Revolut Chime could like completely blow the competition out of the water because they could create some of these if they could take that new permission and really run with it in a way that traditional banks just don't have the data or the connectivity to. So, yeah, I think investments, yes. And better advice or guidance, however you bucket it to support those investments also. Yes.
- [45:54]
B
Does that equally tie in to your own prediction around big banks starting to take young people seriously again?
- [46:02]
A
Oh, I mean, I suppose, yeah. I hadn't really thought about it from the context of investing, but yeah, it's definitely one of my, like, things that I'd love to chat about is trying how can we help young people to invest. So I suppose, yeah, my, my prediction, I think my prediction, yeah, is that, yeah, young, big banks will start to take young people seriously again. I think for too long, incumbent traditional banks, and you pick your phrase of choice, have just taken it pretty much for granted that, you know, a novelty benefit, student rail card and a parental recommendation will set them up for like, their next generation of customers and they'll just trot in the door with pretty much no. And now we're, I am hearing personally firsthand, lots of banks really start to worry about their aging customer bases and really taking note of the youth offerings of you, Monzo, Revolut, et cetera. So I think 2026, I think, will be the year that big banks will try, but not necessarily succeed to reconnect with the next generation of consumers. Because again, I think maybe there's been a slightly blase attitude in the past about, you know, oh, it's just a spending card, but I think if you are the, if you are a big bank and you spend a ton of money on a promotional campaign with a Railcard or insert your benefit of choice, you open that account and then your customer just drops their student loan into that account, but then instantly shifts it straight out to a Monzo or Revolut card. And then when they go get their first job, job, they open their savings accounts with Monzo Revolut and when they open their investing accounts, they open those with Monzo Revolut. And when they get their mortgage, they get their mortgage with Monzo potentially through their new habito acquisition, which may or may not happen. Right. So I think we're starting to see the pennies drop that it really, really matters now that the experience you've been offering to these young customers has just been poor for such a long time. So, yeah, we'll see what happens. Happens.
- [48:00]
B
David, what's your take on that? What's some stats? By 2024, 50% of adults used a neobank or fintech and by the end of 2024, 71% of UK adults held their main debit card with a big six bank, which was actually down from 85% in 2020. So like, are the Fintechs kind of leading the charge on this, particularly in terms of young consumers? And can the big banks or fight back?
- [48:26]
C
Yeah, I mean, I'd say the stats definitely pointing towards that, aren't they? I think it both sort of combined agrees with what Kate was saying earlier on as well. Because actually, I mean, even, even when the big banks get this right, they kind of get it wrong. If you look at, you know, NatWest acquired Rooster money, didn't they? And we haven't really seen a great deal of progression there. You know, it's, it feels like the whole thing is like Credit Suisse and ubs. It's like there's going to be like soaring noises for five years and then there might be something coming out of the, the, the integrate integration transformation stuff will stop anything happening, which pretty much like kills the business, doesn't it? You know, so, so yeah, I think the, the technology needed to be able to provide great, you know, parent to kids, parent to youth, you know, graduation into a full current, like as Kate says, gone like friggin Midland bank got me for like 15 years because of a clipboard and a pen, you know, I mean like those days are, those days are definitely go. But touching. Just quickly back on what Ross was saying about investments though. I think the, I think the investment point I think is super interesting. We're going to sort of traverse two of these things at the same time here guys. Sorry. I think the investment thing's really interesting because it's like all good advice around investments is like don't be a day trader. It's not like it's not a good idea, it just doesn't work out very well for you. And then the cycle on the investment markets and not changing at all like so actually like we're still in the similar cycles that we've seen since the twenties in terms of the changes around the market and the fluctuations that you see. And the advice still is do an investment and then just forget about it for as long as you can until you actually need to desperately need that money. So what's increasing is like our level of access, the speed of access to the markets. But even then if you look at where somebody like a nutmeg, you know, had been and now is JP Morgan, whatever, like actually really that's buying into like four predetermined funds that people's, you know, risk tolerance, as you said earlier on Ross, is the sort of the predetermining factor of where you go and which one of those you get to. So, so we've got sort of two bits there, we've got the, you know, do I think that, you know, I, I should buy sneakers and they're an investment? Well, I'd never mix things that you do for investments with things that you do with pleasure. It's why buying into whiskey seems like a bad idea. I like drinking it like there's a good chance I might just drink my investment and that's a bad idea. You know, like it's like trainers, I'll never buy trainers first for, for investments because I want to wear them, you know what I mean? Like I would negate my investment really quickly, you know, so, so I think the see the sort of markets becoming increasingly easy to access and actually I mean we're seeing private markets access through fintechs as well. That's a whole different kettle of fish. But almost I feel like we're putting, there's a sort of similar narrative to what we see in the retail banking space as well, which is just giving people access to markets doesn't necessarily Democratize a whole market and therefore make it easier for people to do stuff if they've got no idea what they're doing, you know, and that's the. That's the challenge. Back to exactly as you guys were saying about the human bit is, I just think there's a really strong position for advisors still, but actually they're not disabled by their organization, they're enabled by it. And then actually, whether you want to invest in, you know, whiskey or Jordans or, you know, stocks or a fund or whatever, then actually being able to do that in a really efficient way, I think makes a great deal of sense. So, yeah, I, I agree with Ross's prediction, albeit it. You don't want to put, like, Formula one cars in the hands of people who've just passed the driving test. You know, like, there's got to be a level of onboarding that makes that. That powerful tool really useful to them, if that makes sense. That.
- [52:35]
D
That for me, is absolutely spot on. And I think that's ultimately what's going to determine who's successful in this space going forward and who's not. Right. Like, because it's. It's not just about, oh, here's an investment account and you can just start putting money into it. It's about helping me understand am I even set up financially? Am I ready to start investing? If I'm ready to start investing, then how much can I afford to invest? What's my risk appetite? It's being able to give me, like, it's back to the richest point and context and all of that sort of stuff up front. Yeah, I think that's absolutely spot on. And I, like, listen, sort of tying it back together. I, I also like Kate's prediction about, you know, you've got to start thinking about how you re engage with young people. Honestly. I mean, from my experience, you know, David, you mentioned your experience with Midland. Like, I signed up with Santander because they went, here's a picture of Jensen Button and we'll give you an overdraft. And so it was kind of like, you know, but I think if you tie it back to all. I think what's been a. What's been a recurring theme throughout this entire show. So it's, you know, what's the better consumer proposition? Like, what are the outcomes? All of that sort of stuff, rather than here's a recognizable sports person and a way to get into debt very quickly. So, yeah, I think the bar is really low. But, Kate, I think you're absolutely spa.
- [53:59]
B
So I want to Take you very quickly into one of my predictions, which actually is sort of slightly back into the Jensen button territory actually, so see what you think. But I think that the role of brand in financial services is going to be more important than ever in 2026 and what I mean by that is that companies will need to lean into their brand recognition as a key benefit. So it's no longer a nice to have for things like term sheets, raises, IPOs, partnerships, M& A or bringing more value when it comes to being bought out. So you know, we've seen Habitat this week go carless etc, but equally in a sort of AI heavy marketing landscape where authenticity is key, a strong brand is going to be harder to lose in the no. And we've already seen some green shoots of this in 2025. Aberdeen rebranded from Aberdeen without the vowels or Aberdeen or however you say it to be taken more seriously. Starling did a grown up rebrand with mixed results. As we discussed at After Dark, Nationwide bought Virgin Money but are as yet maintaining the Virgin Money name. And there were equally so many fintech and sports partnerships to try and create household names out of invisible infrastructure players. For example Airwallex sponsoring the F1 and literally last week as they got enormous valuation, the Airwallex CEO admitted that he needed to lean into their branding to make them more of a name to compete with Stripe and so on. Which is why they did the F1 thing in the first place. Sokin sponsored Man United Enfuse hired Birgit Skarstein who is a Paralympic gold medalist as a chief inspiration officer and as well as more consumer facing brands did sort of very similar things. Robinhood teamed up with occ, nice football team, Bitpanda with Arsenal, David Beckham, bank of America. You know there's just a a huge amount of investment in brand and I think looking ahead, 2026 is likely to be a year with inflation still rising, cost of living, a consolidation in the market is going to be rife in terms of smaller or less successful fintechs being hoovered up to take tech talent, customers, brand name or all of those things, fintech brands are going to be looking to establish themselves and authenticity is going to be essential. And coupled with that authenticity, as AI continues to flood sort of social networks and brands kind lean into AI for content creation, the line between what's real, what's fake, what's human, what's machine generated becomes blurred. And a term that I found online but I really like is like AI marketing slop could be everywhere and only those with Like a clear identity will stand out in that kind of just malaise online of just bad brand marketing. So that's my take, obviously with a very marketing focused hat on, but very interested very quickly as I know we're out of time, but just to get a few thoughts from you guys on that. David, what do you think?
- [56:55]
C
I think it's a really interesting one and I think it's a difficult thing to sort of understand why these people really do these things in the first place. Like, my experience in big banks is typically those brand sponsorships are basically because the CEO wants to do a thing and it's like the CEO likes Liverpool or the CEO likes the Olympics. And it's like, all right, we're going to drop £200 million because the CEO likes the Olympic, the Olympics. It's like, yeah, we're gonna do that. It's because essentially what they're trying to do is rub their old brand on a credible brand to hope some of it shines off, you know, so. But for when I start seeing like Revolut doing Formula One or Airwallocks doing Formula one or I'm like, does Nikolai just really like Formula one? Like, maybe he just really likes Formula one because, like, what is it that people see in those brand association things that make it make sense? I personally would spend more time on my own brand developing it and doing things and getting it known for those things than I would do trying to just associate myself with other brands in order to adopt some of the traits from their brands because their brand's never going to be yours, you know, whereas actually your one can be its own thing, you know, so. So I think there's. I can see why people hack to communities fees, but equally, I would equally say, you know, maybe think about doing the work as well.
- [58:20]
B
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that's what I mean by like, authenticity is key. If it's just totally inauthentic for you to slap your logo on, you know, a pre existing brand that and it doesn't really give you any gain from it, then, yeah, you haven't done the hard yards on like what your brand actually means and stands for and, you know, care for.
- [58:39]
C
No, but you've got lots of tickets to the Formula one. I think that's the, that's the lesson.
- [58:43]
B
Maybe that's true. Kate, quick word for me.
- [58:45]
A
You. Yeah, no, I think I completely. We've seen such a crazy rush of sponsorship announcements and stuff like that, as you rightly said last year, so I completely agree. I suppose we've just reached a point as well where there are just so many brands in the market across every single part basically of the financial services ecosystem within the fintech space. Right. So I think the Air Wallix CEO quote that you mentioned, I also like found that really interesting to read. It's definitely a brand where like, I feel like I understand, understand what they do but like, I couldn't necessarily tell you why they were different to loads of other payment partners in the, like, payment providers in that space. So I definitely think there is an important, really important role for brand to play in this next stage of fintech development because we've now got lots of quite, quite established players and it's going to be about, you know, as you say, who buys who, who survives, who kind of pushes the top. And brand is going to play, play such huge part of that. And customers need, customers are very lazy. Like I say that from a place of love. But you know, people, people only can remember a certain number of companies in their head, right? And if you are sat there deciding that 2026 is the year that you want to move into investments because investments are going to be big in 2026 as we've already decided then, like who are going to be the companies that you choose to go and look at. And part of that will be driven by, you know, Google or ChatGPT. But you know, brand recognition will be such a huge part of how you then fil and make your decisions. So a brand I think is going to be key.
- [60:20]
B
Ross, very, very quick final word from you.
- [60:22]
D
Quick final word. The kit, the Robin Hood niece kit is really, really beautiful and it properly stands out.
- [60:32]
B
Well, there you go, proving my point. But that's what it's all about. Right, that wraps up today's discussion. Thank you so much to you guys for joining me. Where can people find out more about you all or David?
- [60:44]
C
Yeah, always lurking on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out on there.
- [60:48]
B
Lovely, Russ.
- [60:49]
D
Yep. Likewise LinkedIn.
- [60:52]
B
Are we all just gonna say LinkedIn, Kate?
- [60:55]
A
I mean, I feel like I can't now. I mean, yes, I'm also on LinkedIn or you can drop me an email katelenfest.com or find me in the pub because I'm not doing dry January ever again because I did it once and it then became a global pandemic and all the bars closed. So I'm not gonna do that that again.
- [61:13]
C
I feel like you somehow caused it by doing that.
- [61:14]
A
I feel like I caused it. I feel like I caused it by doing dry January in 2020. It was the worst decision of my life.
- [61:20]
C
If I can't go to the pub, nobody can leave their house for four months.
- [61:23]
A
Zen Chance I broke into a Chinese lab and released a released Covid.
- [61:27]
C
Well, there's a prediction.
- [61:28]
A
I heard it here first.
- [61:31]
B
Goodness me.
- [61:32]
A
Wow.
- [61:32]
B
On that bombshell, you can find me Laura Watkins on LinkedIn or podcasts@11fs.com thank you so much for listening. If you'd like like what you've heard, follow our podcast and please join in the conversation. Give us your own predictions, find us on social media. Just search For Aluminifest or FinTech Insider or again, the email is podcasts@11fs.com. Thanks very much and goodbye.