Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:40:15 · Maia Bittner
[00:40:15] S3: Yeah. I think... You know? And I'm I'm optimistic for them supporting these conversations around money. You know, one of the... There's a lot of Reddit, subreddits about money that I think due to good moderation are actually incredibly valuable assets. I really like the FIRE subreddit, which stands for financial independence retire early. And so it does have this it does have this sort of status component where people are flaunting, but what they're flaunting is how little they're spending so that they can have financial independence and retire early. So that's what's high status in that community, which I think is cool. And that's what... So people are sharing hacks for how to save money and how to live on less and how to save more, which I just think is, like, really, really wholesome and really fun to see. They do recommend specific financial products sometimes, but it's usually, like, large ETFs or Vanguard index funds. That is the trend in that community, and I don't think they're, you know, getting kickbacks or anything from those referrals. And so it's kind of not... It's not on the influence or fraud side. With acorns, I haven't seen... Have they moved into the direction thereof when people do retire? And I think they're really focused on young people. Isn't that right? And I do think when people retire, they have specific financial needs. And I'm curious to see if Acorns is always gonna stay for young people and supporting them with the community side and with young children and supporting families, or if they're gonna move in the other direction of life as well and support people who are entering retirement and trying to balance their Social Security payments and being vulnerable to fraud and scams that target the elderly because I think that's an interesting space as well.
00:42:26 · Laura Watkins, Pav Gill
[00:42:26] S0: Yeah. I think that's such a great point. They've been focusing on their acquisitions to date on the... Or or, you know, the ones that we've mentioned in reference to this story. Anyway, on the younger generations, it'll be interesting to see if they either buy something or or or develop their own platform in that direction, Pav. [00:42:43] S1: I think just as we were all discussing this, it just kinda struck me what the bigger play might be, which could be obvious, I don't know, which is as a US saving and investing business, I think if you're trying to if you're trying to innovate and study trends and build products to to be fit for those trends, right, and service them, I think 1,600,000 users is the best kind of dataset you can get in order to develop your products and innovate. So I think that's... That would be probably, if I wouldn't... To make a wild guess, the underlying purpose of the acquisition. So using AI potentially, since we're on that topic, to analyze what's happening, what's what people are discussing, what their habits are, and then using those analytics to develop or innovate products that would be suitable or or apt to to service that kind of base. [00:43:39] S0: That's so interesting. Like, a 1,600,000 person focus group almost. Yeah. Maya, look excited by that prospect. What do you think?
00:43:39 · Laura Watkins, Maia Bittner
[00:43:39] S0: That's so interesting. Like, a 1,600,000 person focus group almost. Yeah. Maya, look excited by that prospect. What do you think? [00:43:47] S3: I'd... I mean, yes. It's it's very interesting. I I do also think from Fringe's perspective, I think they've built something that has created a ton of value. But, unfortunately, for them, that specific shape of business where you've built education and community is often really, really difficult to monetize effectively. There's only so many opportunities to either charge people directly, but, again, you're... Like, your customer is people who are young and trying to improve their finances, so there's probably a cap on how much you could charge them directly. Or doing referrals out to financial products and of which gets hairy. And so I wonder if one of the most valuable things about them is not just their customers, but as Paul was saying, their data and that this is really a partnership that makes a lot of sense for both companies.
00:44:36 · Laura Watkins
[00:44:36] S0: Well, we will we will see. But, yeah, I think there's, yeah, definitely value. And and, you know, congrats to to Acorns on this acquisition because it seems very, very savvy from what we've from what we've discussed this afternoon. On that note, we're just gonna take another quick pause back very shortly. Okay. Now for a quick look at the story we didn't have time to cover in full today, and that is that Google resolves cloud outage affecting UK banks and websites. This was on BBC and many other places. Google has resolved a major outage at its London data center complex, which disrupted banking services, businesses and public services across The UK on Tuesday. The disruption was linked to a power related incident in Google Cloud's Europe West 2 region. Revolut, Lloyd's and HSBC were among the banks reporting service disruptions with customers experiencing problems accessing accounts and making payments. Other affected services included Royal Mail, DPD and platform used for remote court hearings. The incident comes exactly one year after a major AWS outage, raising questions about the financial sector's reliance on a handful of cloud providers. This one is really interesting. Firstly, because the first time I heard about this one is because headlines initially went out purely about Revolut having an outage. Before it was announced, it was a much wider Google Cloud issue. But for me as a marketer is quite interesting as the brands affected carried more weight and responsibility of being down before anyone isolated the bigger issue with their host. And secondly, this is a result of what Jas Shah called on LinkedIn, the inevitable consequence of major banking apps moving to the cloud. Connectivity and uptime is great, but shit happens, which is completely true. And brands just can't afford to be on two cloud platforms at once just in case. So there is a possibility we might see a little bit more of this as brands continue to lean on single sources of failure such as Google Cloud and AWS. And obviously, there's something in the water in this particular week in October if the same happened to AWS exactly last year. But looking forward, a, the public might be slightly less spooked the next time. And b, perhaps brands can get better at managing their own comms around it.
00:46:49 · Laura Watkins
Revolut's own messaging drew particular scrutiny for being vague and unhelpful, which is a surefire way for customers to think the issue is worse than it is and for trust in that brand to erode. So let's see what learnings are taken forward from this one. And now I'm going to move us into our and finally section for today. The wildlife winners set to appear on The UK banknotes have been revealed. This story on the BBC. Bank of England has revealed the four animals set to feature on its redesigned banknotes. The winners are the Atlantic Puffin, the Barn Owl, the Buff tailed Bumblebee and the European Hedgehog. Yeah, this is a very British story, apologies. But more than 2,500,000 votes were cast by nearly 480,000 people with the bumblebee emerging as the most popular choice. And the people were voting of which animals will replace historical figures on our banknotes. And the figures currently are Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner, and Alan Turing. The bank says the redesign is primarily about improving banknote security with the new notes expected to take several years to develop and roll out. And it's not yet been decided which animal will appear on each of the denominations of currency, $510.20, and £50 notes. So we've got four British animals heading on to our banknotes. But before we decide which one deserves the £50, I wanna test how well all of you understand British money. So I'm gonna give you a few British slang terms for money and you have to guess how much they're worth. Are you guys up for that? Alright. Here we go. So if I offered you a pony, how much money is that? Anyone want to hazard a guess?
00:48:23 · Pav Gill, Maia Bittner, Laura Watkins, Vijay Konduru
[00:48:23] S1: £25. [00:48:25] S3: Any other guesses? 50p. 50. [00:48:28] S0: Pav is correct. 25 is correct. Is the is the... £25 is a pony. [00:48:33] S3: How... Bob, how did you know? How did you know? [00:48:36] S1: My mom's side of the family, mostly from The UK. [00:48:40] S3: Ah, see? He's got a secret edge. Okay. Keep going. Give us another question. Okay. [00:48:45] S0: How much is a score? [00:48:47] S2: $20? £20? [00:48:48] S3: Right. I guess 20. [00:48:49] S0: 20 is correct. [00:48:50] S3: Yep. See, you don't know, but we know this because four score and Exactly. Seven years ago or whatever. Everyone knows that score means 20. [00:49:00] S0: Yeah. Even though we [00:49:01] S3: use it in no other context. If [00:49:03] S0: I was to give you a monkey, how much money would you have? [00:49:06] S1: Am I allowed to say it? [00:49:07] S2: None because the monkey would take it all. Negative. Five pounds? [00:49:13] S0: He would gone 5. Maya? 100. Pav? [00:49:16] S1: 500. [00:49:17] S0: Correct. Uh-huh. A monkey is a lot more valuable than a pony. I don't really know how this system works. And finally, how much is a grand? [00:49:27] S2: A thousand pounds. [00:49:29] S0: Yep. A grand is a thousand pounds. There is your crash course in British slang terms for money. Well done. What do you guys think of putting wildlife on banknotes? Any preferences of which one gets the highest accolade of 50? [00:49:46] S2: Can we pick our own animal? [00:49:47] S0: Yes, please. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a British animal either. What animal would you put?