For our seventh episode, we're delighted to be joined by Theodora Lau, author of "Beyond Good: How Technology is Leading a Purpose-driven revolution", for a discussion around the "S" in ESG; or: "financial inclusion".

Many of the most successful digital banks in the world are about the economics of financial inclusion, such as WeBank and MYbank in China, Nubank in Brazil, Digibank in India, Current and Chime in the US.

Further, as fintech funding declines, financial inclusion continues to perform well, with investors pouring money into many markets where mobile penetration is high, but bank population low, especially LatAm, because financial inclusion is big business.

Yet closer to home financial inclusion often takes the form of highly segmented new digital banks like Daylight, for the LGBT community, banks in the US for black Americans, or Hispanic communities, and even anti-woke banks.

Most of these have already failed, but there’s still real opportunity for incumbent banks to cherry pick those most “killer” features which can unearth a whole new customer segment.

Our conversation covers where those opportunities are most real (i.e. commercially), and where they are more likely about identity politics and virtue signalling.

For our sixth and final episode of the year, we take a look toward 2024 industry predictions and trends, with a focus on three key themes: the quest for profitability, financial inclusion, and yes, you guessed it, Gen AI.

We start with Doug Blakey, editor of Retail Banker International (RBI), for five minutes of scene setting, then get to our expert panel: Leda Glyptis, author of Bankers Like Us, and Chief Client Officer at 10X; Theodora Lau, author of Beyond Good, and Mayur Vichare, Director of Strategy and Value Consulting at Backbase.

Conversation runs to just over 40 mins, and goes great with a large glass of mulled wine. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

For our fifth episode, we’re delighted to welcome Gavin Littlejohn, founder of Money Dashboard, an early PFM in the UK, in 2006, and CEO until 2015, before going on to play a key part in the open banking negotiations in the UK, and advise many countries on similar initiatives worldwide since.

The conversation is part retrospective on how open banking came about and part current state assessment, with fascinating insight from someone who had a front row seat through it all, covering how difficult it was running a direct to consumer fintech proposition back in 2006, how big banks behaved during the initial open banking negotiations, and what other countries can now learn from the UK/European experience.   

Time stamps as follows:

01:20 - Gavin sums up his experience as CEO of Money Dashboard and the barriers to entry he experienced at that time

04:00 – Gavin talks about the subsequent role he played in the open banking negotiations in the UK, and the two key strands of that

07:15 – Gavin comments on how the big banks behaved during the initial open banking negotiations  

10:14 – Gavin comments on some of the implementation details of open banking in the UK that changed the shape and form of what the UK fintech community expected  

16:15 – Gavin comments on why he thinks banks missed initial implementation deadlines and why it continues

20:15 – Gavin comments on which banks went on the longest journey to deliver value from open banking to their customers

22:15 – Gavin comments on who are the biggest beneficiaries of open banking - banks, consumers or new entrants - based on last five years

25:46 – Gavin comments on current adoption numbers in the UK, and whether that’s above, below, or on expectation

28:50 – Gavin comments on Account Information services versus Payments, and where the real opportunity is

32:00 – Gavin opines on how the rest of world looked at the UK case, and what could be improved.

32:50 – Gavin comments on prospects for open finance worldwide based on conversations he’s had

36:40 – Gavin comments on who he thinks has delivered the best open banking, why and how

39:00 – Gavin comments on whether next gen open banking will deliver disruptive new business models or primarily help incumbent banks improve existing operations