Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:55:39 · Kate Moody
[00:55:39] S2: Yeah. Our next story comes from the BBC, but again covered in lots of different places, and that is the FCA, the Financial Conduct Authority in The UK, is to lift the cap on bankers bonuses in The UK. From the October 31, the cap on banker bonuses in The UK will be lifted, allowing financial institutions to once again offer unlimited incentives. The cap was introduced in 2014 by the EU, following a public backlash after the two thousand and eight financial crisis. The government hoped the new rules will support businesses to lower their fixed costs and compete more with The US and Asia. However, the move is not unanimously welcomed by the industry as the cap on bonuses has led to an overall increase in basic salaries. We're running a poll on LinkedIn to hear your thoughts as it stands at the point of recording. 58% of respondents do not think the cap should be lifted, but 42% agree with the FCA. Nice spicy one, I'm sure to put in this section. I can see both sides of this one. Obviously it's a very nuanced decision. I think I'm probably going to risk being unpopular and say I'm at the moment in favor of the 42%. I think bringing a cap in made total sense in the aftermath of 2008, given the damage that the banking sector had created in the wider sort of global economy. But it feels like one of those things that looks good on paper, but it doesn't change the reality that financial services is a highly remunerated sector. So if that money isn't coming from bonuses, you know, it's going to come from basic salary. And I think actually probably the more important thing is to look at, you know, how are those bonuses decided and what are the metrics that drive them? You know, historically, I think one of the biggest issues in the financial services sector has been that incentives are aligned to things which are not aligned to what customers want. So actually, you know, if we see a return to bonuses, but bonuses are driven by good positive customer outcomes in line with what we're seeing in The UK around consumer duty, I think that could be a much better system than just having bankers paid high basic salaries that have no connection to the good that they're creating in society. So yeah, caveated, maybe this could be a good thing, but looking forward to seeing how it rolls out.
00:57:38 · Benjamin Ensor, Kate Moody
[00:57:38] S0: I'm in the 58%. [00:57:41] S2: We can fight about it later.
00:57:43 · Benjamin Ensor
[00:57:43] S0: Alright. And our last quick story is that The UAE's central bank has launched an instant payments platform called Arnie. The new payments platform has been launched by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates and its subsidiary Al Etihad Payments. Launched as a mobile app, it empowers its customers with instant and secure payments with an added QR code feature. Eight banks have already signed up to integrate Ania Launch, and the Central Bank of the UAE has ambitions to roll this out to tens of thousands of merchants over the coming months. I think it's fantastic news. We've seen instant payments being rolled out all around the world. It just makes things so much better for consumers and merchants indeed as we were talking about earlier in this episode. Every time money is slowed down, that's costing consumers. It's potentially putting some people at risk. If this enables people to get bills paid faster, fantastic. And The UAE has a big problem actually with late payment by billers causing lots of stress for small businesses and so on. So bringing in instant payments to move money faster through the system is gonna be great news for The UAE's economy. So well done to the central bank there. Sorry, that sounds very patronizing. That's gonna be fantastic news for people in The UAE is what I meant. Okay, Well, now it's time for the and finally section of the show, which is a look at something more offbeat from the news this week. So an attempted WhatsApp scam has gone viral after a man befriends the aspiring criminal. Bored WhatsApp user Chetty Aaron was surprised when someone posing as an HR professional attempted to get his personal information for a fake job vacancy. I have money, but I want love, jokes Chetty as he engages the scammer in a lengthy conversation. The aspiring criminal eventually gave up, but the encounter went viral after Chetty shared the dialogue on social media. We ran our own poll on LinkedIn and 7% of respondents admitted to being scammed on WhatsApp, of which nearly two thirds confessed to being a financial services professional. So have any of you either fallen for or come across a sort of WhatsApp or other social media scam, or have you ever been contacted by a scammer? Who wants to go first?
00:59:57 · Kate Moody, Pranav Sood, Benjamin Ensor, Jeremy Balkin
[00:59:57] S2: I've definitely had people, like, reach out to me on WhatsApp or Telegram, you know, who I suspect do not have good intentions. You know, you kind of get that first message being like, you know, trying to initiate a conversation. So I think definitely, I mean, I hope I haven't actually fallen foul, but I can totally see it's definitely a channel where if you're not on your guard, then it's easy for you to be contacted by people with you... Where you've not reached out yourself. So... Yeah. [01:00:24] S3: I I have a 94 year old Indian granny, and so I have a very direct link to Indian WhatsApp. And so periodically, my my granny will forward me things where she's completely convinced that David Attenborough is now selling CBD oil or or something something equally ridiculous. She's she's yet to... She's... And I must make clear if anyone listening to this podcast, David Attenborough is not selling CBD oils, but my my granny is is is my conduit into that world. Luckily, not not fallen for any yet, but, they are they are getting more and more persistent. [01:00:56] S0: Jeremy, any any comparable experiences? [01:00:59] S4: I mean, I speak to my 91 year old granny via WhatsApp back in Australia every Saturday at 8AM New York time, but so far no scams yet. But I will say though, just wait till AI becomes ubiquitous and the scammers use AI as their preferred tool, it's gonna be a very ugly world. So just, that's maybe a whole podcast in of itself to discuss and explore in the future.
01:00:59 · Jeremy Balkin, Kate Moody, Benjamin Ensor
[01:00:59] S4: I mean, I speak to my 91 year old granny via WhatsApp back in Australia every Saturday at 8AM New York time, but so far no scams yet. But I will say though, just wait till AI becomes ubiquitous and the scammers use AI as their preferred tool, it's gonna be a very ugly world. So just, that's maybe a whole podcast in of itself to discuss and explore in the future. [01:01:22] S2: Yes, indeed. Well, someone pointed this out to me as well, just by the fact that we are doing this podcast recording our voices, you know, even before AI becomes a thing, it's totally possible for somebody to... I probably shouldn't be saying this because it's just putting the ideas in people's head, but, like, it's totally possible now to take mine and Benjamin's voices, who've probably said pretty much every configuration of words ever, and chop it and change it into adverse things. [01:01:45] S4: You're lucky, Kate. People actually understand your accent as opposed to mine, so I've got that benefit for the time being. But yeah, it's true. It's absolutely correct. [01:01:53] S0: I'm sure none of our listeners are scammers, but I can see that a scammer might go and find the recording. Until relatively recently we had a landline in our house until it got struck by lightning, which put an end to it. But we used to get enormous... We got more and more scam calls coming through that. So without regulation, there's going be a real problem. Were scammers always lazy? Like this one clearly is just a bit amateur Or are they actually just becoming frighteningly professional?
01:01:53 · Benjamin Ensor, Kate Moody
[01:01:53] S0: I'm sure none of our listeners are scammers, but I can see that a scammer might go and find the recording. Until relatively recently we had a landline in our house until it got struck by lightning, which put an end to it. But we used to get enormous... We got more and more scam calls coming through that. So without regulation, there's going be a real problem. Were scammers always lazy? Like this one clearly is just a bit amateur Or are they actually just becoming frighteningly professional? [01:02:27] S2: I remember, like, when again, going back to the world of, like, the landline phone. I remember as a kid, time we would get, like, spam phone calls, I went through a period of time, probably just because I'm a very boring and belligerent person of just trying to see how long I could keep them on the phone for. And so some of them were actually very committed. Some of them would stay on the phone for very long, know, as a 14 year old with no money to give them or nothing to, you know, if you just kept asking questions or delaying, like some of them would stay on the phone for a very long time. So my categorization of scammers would be that quite a of them are actually very persistent. So yeah, I'm not sure any of them are going to reach out and sue us for describing them as lazy, but maybe I don't know if they have an industry body, maybe they might reach out and complain.