1035. Insights: Six predictions that will reshape customer experience in financial services

0:00Retail investment in the UK is the lowest in the G7. According to the Bank of England, there is over£280 billion sitting in UK accounts earning no interest. Something has to change. Financial firms in the UK must look at making investing accessible, contextual and trusted through everyday platforms. That means bringing investment journeys to the point of need, alongside spending, saving and budgeting, and within platforms that already play a meaningful role in customers' lives. We dive into this and more in our latest report, Taking Advantage of the Embedding Investing Opportunity, produced in association with SECL.

0:42Download your copy today at alumnafest.com forward slash embedded hyphen investing.

1:03Hello, welcome to Fintech Insider Insights. I'm Ross Gallagher, Head of Consulting here at 11FS. As we all know, user experience is vital in fintech. It's an important part of what set apart brands like Monzo, Revolut, Nubank and up from incumbent banks in the first place. But as we enter 2026, financial services UX is entering a new phase. It's no longer just about making products easier to use. It's about designing experiences that help people feel confident, informed, and in control of increasingly complex financial decisions, particularly in the shadow of what is now a very uncertain time in the world.

1:39Today's episode is entirely forward-looking. We're sharing six predictions taken from our brand new 11FS Pulse report, diving into how we think user experience in financial services will evolve over the next year, based on the patterns we're seeing across product design, user research, and the wider industry. To help us do so, I have a great panel of guests featuring both the authors of the report, as well as a product leader from one of our favorite banking brands, who we've not only raved about in the report, but given a Pulse Star Award for their excellent onboarding journey. So first up, we have my 11FS colleague and 11FS Pulse Report author, Joe Colchester, head of product at 11FS Pulse.

2:18Joe, first of all, congrats on the release of the 11FS Pulse report. It's always very exciting. How did you find working on the report? Great to be here, Ross. Yeah, working on the report was a lot of fun, actually. It's always fun looking back, but also looking forward and trying to be bold about the predictions coming. And it's an exciting time to be reviewing the world of fintech and financial services. So yeah, it was very fun. We also had an additional section to this year's report where we would mark our last year's predictions, which kind of raised the stakes a little bit, holding ourselves a bit more accountable.

2:52So that was quite a fun element to it. Yeah, I love that. Who doesn't love a prediction? I think it's always easier when you're looking forward than looking back though or grading yourself. But no, really looking forward to getting into the detail of the report. So great to have you coach. Also joining us today, we have the second author of the report, Olivia Vasek, UX Research Analyst at 11FS Pulse. Olivia, great to have you on the show. Maybe you could just tell our listeners a little bit about your role specifically within 11FS Pulse. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Very nice to be here. So I'm a UX research analyst here at 11FS Pulse, where I work in understanding how digital banking products actually behave when people use them in the real world and how people experience them and also how we can maybe make them a bit better.

3:37Love that because it's such an important distinction, you know, how we think things are going to sort of work and how we think people are going to interact with them and then how people actually do when they're sort of out in the wild. So, yeah, looking forward to sort of diving in and thanks for coming on, Olivia, and sharing your expertise and your perspectives. And next up, we have a brilliant guest from a brand that UX, we never stop raving about. It's a very welcome return to the show for Evan Simmons, a principal product designer at Up. Evan, welcome back. It's great to have you. And thanks for joining us all the way from Australia.

4:10I dread to think what time it is there. but how are things going at Up? Yeah, really good, thank you. It's actually not too bad. It's about nine o 'clock here at the moment. It's been hot recently so it's nice to have a cool day today but Up is doing great. Yeah, we're pushing past 1.2 million customers at the moment. Many of them are younger Aussies, still the highest rating banking app in Australia. We have really high referral rates which is amazing and yeah, we've got an exciting milestone coming up with our join accounts, which we call 2UP. We're about to hit 100 ,000. So yeah, it's starting to see some real progress, I guess, in the multiplayer space that we've been focusing on.

4:54I think last time I was on, I was talking about Groups, which is our other multiplayer play, which had just launched. So yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. And like the approach that you guys take to design that sort of interactivity, I think is really, really cool. I mean, I mentioned at the top that you guys got a Pulse Star Award in the report for that sort of amazing onboarding experience. It was called a quote, beacon of inspiration for banks looking to prioritize simplicity, establish a distinct tone of voice and avoid drop-off. I mean, that's high praise. I'd love to sort of get your perspectives on, I suppose, how important that sort of onboarding journey is to up and maybe a sort of an ingredient to you guys' success.

5:36Yeah, of course. Well, first of all, thank you very much for the award. We're very honored to receive it. So, yeah, really appreciate that and the kind words too. Yeah, onboarding, it's like it's a critical part of, you know, the entire journey with customers. So, look, if we think about why it's the moment, it's really about the momentum that customers have when they're signing up. We know that that's the point where they have that highest motivation to, I guess, try and understand how, you know, the product promise is actually going to relate to helping them. So, yeah, we put a lot of energy into that.

6:16And I think one area, like I said before, we have a lot of referral. One area where we try and, I guess, really shine a little bit more in our sign-up experience is just being a bit more relatable to customers as well. We know that we're different from the traditional banks, like a lot of neo banks are, and we want to try and get some of that personality across. So, yeah, I guess you probably put it to two things. Like we try and focus very much on speed and efficiency. So making sure that like we really help customers sort of step through the flow quickly, get through the boring bits without really thinking about them and like natural language and, you know, making sure that really flows is important to us.

6:55But then on the other side of that, it's like those little moments where we can give them those little sort of dopamine hits of encouragement to keep going. So like when they get the account, you know, we have this little moment. We call it a little up year moment, which is just a little celebration that they're here and that they're going to receive something that's quite different. So yeah, it's a big part of our experience. We have a team almost totally dedicated to it now. So yeah. Really cool. I mean, that first impression is so important, isn't it? Absolutely. So, no, congrats. All right, well, look, that's our panel.

7:28So I guess listeners settle in. We're going to get into it. I think if you're a product nerd, and we assume that listening to this, you probably are, this one's going to be a good one. So in the first half, we're going to dive into three predictions that are going to directly change what users see, do, and feel. Our first prediction is that by 2027, the most meaningful shift in AI won't be better insights. it will be action. So rather than analyzing decisions or offering recommendations, AI agents will increasingly carry them out within defined parameters, triaging issues, reallocating funds, adjusting plans, or triggering preventative measures.

8:09Joe, I mean, it wouldn't be any sort of prediction show worth its wait if we weren't talking about AI. From a Pulse perspective, do you think we're already seeing teams move beyond AI insights more towards execution? Yeah, I think we are, but I think it's not gone very far. I think it could go a lot further. We're seeing some intelligent things like kind of suggesting things through prompts about smart decisions you can make. But what we're not seeing is extensive actions and steps to take kind of sophisticated decisions on users' behalf that they can sign off. I think that's what's coming next.

8:47I think it will be disappointing if that doesn't happen this year. So we've got a few examples where actions are being taken, but they're pretty slimmed down at this stage. I think that it's a cautionary approach and that's the right one. But I think that's definitely on the horizon. I think that'll be the most exciting thing to see out of AI this year. And Kulsh, I think one of the key things that stands out for me about the way that we've sort of teed this up is the bit about within defined parameters. You know, I think this isn't, we're not necessarily talking about you sort of just give, you give the AI complete control over every part of your life.

9:26You go to bed, you wake up the next morning and it's done all sorts of things, right? We're talking about, you know, within very strict controls. Yeah, exactly. I think those need to be set to begin with. So kind of authorizing the app to do that on your behalf, but then also sign off at the end. It's a very risky state where things are all happening autonomously without any authorization and then final sign off. I think those two things have to be clear. And I think that the best UX will come out of how that's most intelligently done in a kind of very easy way. Yeah, so Evan, seems a sort of natural point to sort of bring you in.

10:07I suppose from a design perspective, how do you start to think about creating some of those guardrails that let AI act while still making users feel sort of like they're informed, they're in control and can sort of, I suppose, push the pause button at any moment? Yeah, it's a really good question and something that, you know, we're really starting to think about a lot now too. I think it sort of starts with understanding, I guess, their goals are intense. So I don't think we can really let an agent sort of take on responsibility for the customer without first sort of starting with what they're trying to achieve.

10:42And we do that a lot with like saving. We have savings goals, savings like, you know, people, a lot of our customers are quite young and are looking for experiences like holidays and things like that. So there's certainly like areas that we can play in that I guess you could consider fairly low risk, which I think is a really smart way to approach it. I think there's sort of like some, maybe some tiers to autonomy. So, you know, if we're talking about a customer who, for instance, is saving for a trip to Japan next year, you know, they've got a date in mind, they've got a destination, you know, you can help them understand the costs involved.

11:22But something like that is like, you know, when we're very big on automation around paydays, so, you know, if we can see that there is surplus at the end of a pay cycle, they're the kind of perfect opportunities where we could be like, all right, well, that's a fairly low stakes thing to take some of that money and shift it towards that goal. Whereas something that's far higher stake, like moving money to external investment accounts or, you know, maybe a new contact, they're the kind of things where I think you have to put a lot more, I guess, customer control in place, if that makes sense, or, yeah, a lot more stages of...

11:59That idea of tiered controls definitely resonates, you know, and making sure, I like what you said about sort of really understanding that risk factor and making sure that that's obviously factored in in terms of how you design out those tierings. Olivia I'm really interested in you know how do we how do users if we think about sort of right now how do users feel about I suppose handing over some control over some actions when it comes to you know personal finances and money yeah I think people like the idea of AI taking friction away you know making things easier and smoother for them but just to echo what everybody else has that I think trust drops sharply and frustration raises when action happens without explanation or crucially the possibility to undo it.

12:51So users are generally able to accept really even drastic actions like automatically freezing cards or flagging suspicious transactions because they understand that this is done in their interest and on their behalf. But no one wants to be stuck in an AI loop from hell You know, when this action was taken mistakenly or something went wrong, you don't want to then be referred to another AI agent who doesn't understand the peculiarities of your own situation and cannot help you. So tight, visible boundaries, but also recourse for when things go wrong. I think these are the two crucial things. Yeah, I mean, they're such important points.

13:33And I suppose, Evan, just coming back to you really quickly on the point around design, you know what Olivia says about being caught in a sort of AI loop from hell, as much as we're focusing on sort of AI and the potential upsides when it comes to automation, all of those sorts of things, I suppose that has to be paired with some human support where there are those sort of, you know, high stress, high anxiety, sort of high impact moments. And yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's probably one of our strengths is we have invested a lot into that human support side of things. And we really sort of focus on that feeling very relatable and approachable.

14:13And so I guess if customers know that that support's there, like the hard problems are much easier for them to reach out to us. but yeah I mean also you need to visibility and the ability to just switch things off is obviously going to be quite crucial as well support is not always immediate we'd like it to be but yeah Love it, I mean this is the great thing about the Pulse report I suppose the format for the show is I think any one of these predictions we could talk about for the entire show so it may feel a little bit swift but I'm going to move us on to our next one So the next prediction from the report that we want to dive into is that investing will become a new battleground for banking apps.

14:58So in 2026, we're expecting investing to be sort of normalized inside everyday banking apps. You're blurring those lines between saving and investing through low friction guided experiences. Colch, look from a pulse perspective. Are we already starting to see some early sort of signals of things heading in this direction? Yeah, I think we are. I think Monzo were quite an early mover here and they've done very well in simplifying their product offering when it comes to investments. I mean, for example, Zopa, a recent entry into the market, they're offering investment off the get-go to, you know, suggesting that that's something that there's an appetite for.

15:38Chase UK further integrating Nutmeg. So I think that's a good example from the UK, but also further afield, I think Newbank are doing something similar as well where, yeah, they are integrating these investment products, often simplified, which is probably a good thing, and there's some momentum there. And there's momentum in terms of the product releases, but also I think the behavior around it. People finding actually they do have some surplus money, their interest rates might not be very good. There is encouragement, whether it's a policy from within a country about investing actually is being more encouraged.

16:16So I think there is momentum building as current accounts and banking apps start introducing these features. So I think that's something where, I think that that will be a new battleground. I think something to look out for though is that a lot of existing trading platforms, things like Trading212 and Robinhood, for example, they're starting to offer prepaid cards. So it's interesting that it's happening from both sides and often the perks from these trading platforms when it comes to current accounts can be, sorry, prepaid cards can be quite significant. So the race is coming from both sides, not just from banks, but also from trading platforms themselves to whenever customers.

16:59Yeah, super interesting. I've been kind of saying for a while, I think investments have a bit of a personal branding problem. All we've talked about for a really long time is the risks and the value of your investment might go down as well as up. But I feel like we're starting to shift away from that a little bit. Absolutely, the examples that you gave, you know, making investments options available in the sort of like the everyday sort of mobile banking experience. The Zobe example is a really good one where they're partnering with Invesco to make their funds available and sort of making it more accessible because it is a great tool for certain people to sort of grow their wealth, etc.

17:36Etc. Olivia, you know, from the user research that you've seen, what emotional barriers though still exist around investing? And I suppose, have you seen any good examples where brands are starting to try and counteract that? Yeah, I think the biggest emotional barriers are fear of loss, fear of getting it wrong, a sense that investing is something for other people. Culture plays a huge part of it, I I think that is often overlooked. You know, Americans overall are better than Europeans at investing. Western Europe is better than Eastern and Central Europe. So when you're designing these products, I think culture is something to keep in mind.

18:18I think many users still associate investing with high-risk insider knowledge, irreversible mistakes, you know, losing all of your money, quite drastic, like big things. so what works well is actually reframing investments as an extension and a continuation of saving better than you know a large leap into something completely unfamiliar so what works really well from the examples that we've seen is brands that focus on guidance really small steps plain language and progress over time rather than kind of performance obsession So features that normalize small, low stakes entry points and try to keep users engaged and really calm, right?

19:08To not dump those investments when the market takes a downturn and so on. So that really helps to reduce that anxiety and build confidence without pushing users faster than they're ready to go. Yeah, I love that. The cultural point is so interesting because, you know, so much of that is kind of inherent, isn't it? And almost like generational and the difference between the sort of different parts of the world and their sort of their mentality towards it is so interesting. Um, but totally understand what you're saying about those sort of maybe more like iterative sort of like behavioral design techniques, starting with a little bit sort of growing it over time, all of that sort of stuff.

19:47Um, Evan, are you guys seeing a sort of a growing demand from customers for investing and I suppose to sort of, to live alongside that sort of like that everyday money side of things. Yeah, definitely. I think we see like sort of to echo those points from Olivia, we see I guess passive investing is an extension on savings. So the way we've typically thought about it is, yeah, investing for young people is potentially either a scary thing or something that can almost borderline gambling at some points when I guess we think about crypto and other sort of assets like that that seem to bounce up and down so much that it becomes very speculative.

20:31So we think a lot about our customers and their financial well-being and thinking about how we help them, I guess, increase that knowledge and make better decisions without having to do too much of the hard work. We call it, you know, easy money, but I think where investing really fits nicely for our customers is in that sort of low risk ETF kind of part of the market. So if we can present that sort of thing to them in a way that is really easy to understand and to understand that it is low risk, then that's really important. But I think the other point is like there's a bit of a friction sort of paradox with investing And that is like we want to make it super easy for customers to get that money into that sort of passive investing.

21:21But if they're going to keep dipping in and taking it straight back out, then they're losing all of those gains. You know, it'll go to tax, etc. So if we can kind of really reduce that friction to zero when getting into the market, if that's like micro investing, but we can make it a lot harder for them or make them think a lot harder about taking that money out, then that's the kind of thing that we would prioritize. So, I mean, what that means in practice is probably, you know, more like creating a front end that doesn't talk to, like Olivia said, doesn't talk to like market changes. It looks to the long term.

21:56It tries to talk to that future you rather than the person who's investing today. And making sure that we're introducing at the right time as well. There's no point a customer investing if they haven't got that sort of savings buffer in the first place. So like, you know, making sure it fits is really important. Yeah. I think that's such an important point. You can't talk about investing in isolation. I think you need to know that you've got that emergency fund there that means that if for whatever reason you do need quick access to cash, then it's there and you're not pulling it out of investments and you sort of set up in a way to enable that sort of longer term sort of investment strategy that I think is really so important.

22:39And I think probably, you know, pairing that then alongside some of the stuff that Olivia was talking about around guidance and sort of education and helping build, helping people build those sort of, um, those, those better financial habits and behaviors and moving away from the more speculative end of it towards that sort of that, that longer term view. I'm going to move this on. So our final prediction is pensions remain the biggest untapped engagement opportunity. Now, we said in the report that pensions hold enormous value, but engagement remains incredibly low. We believe that only changes when providers shift from abstract balances to lifestyle-led progress and reassurance.

23:22Olivia, I'll come to you first on this one. And again, from your research, what do users sort of actually want to know about their pension? What do they care about? I think it's surprisingly simple. It's just, am I going to be okay? So, you know, people don't care about fund names, contribution mechanics, the squabblings over legislation and so on. It's more about whether their pension is going to support the kind of lifestyle and the life they imagine themselves to have. so really they want kind of reassurance clarity and progress that they can understand like you said in you know in in life cycle and in lifestyle terms rather than charts and progresses and so on yeah yeah so interesting i think you're spot on i think when it comes to it's so difficult almost to sort of like crack a lot of the language and the positioning around pensions because it does focus on things like the mechanics and portfolios and all of that sort of stuff rather than where does this get me to in retirement and is that going to enable a comfortable lifestyle?

24:30Um, coach, why do you think, you know, people don't tend to engage or seemingly don't tend to really think about or care very much about pensions relative to almost any other financial product? Yeah, I think it's one of the sort of most longstanding branding problems in financial services where you can't mention pensions without someone sighing quite deeply and wanting to move on really quickly. And I think it's got that branding problem because it's so long term. It's never been presented as something that's particularly interesting or worthwhile to dig into. It's so removed. And I think that is addressable by communicating it in the right way.

25:17And yeah, so it's got that, you know, it's not a problem right now, so I don't have to think about it. But actually, there's good product decisions to be made. There's a lot of guidance that should be there and people just put it at the back of their mind. And I think, I don't think we're going to see a lot of progress this year, but maybe there'll be a couple of trailblazers who kind of, who integrate it more interestingly, present the facts and the kind of decisions that people should be making in a more compelling way. That's more of a hope than an expectation. Yeah, I like that though. It's good to be optimistic when it comes to our predictions and sort of hope that we start to see some movement towards some real sort of financial, solving for some real financial problems.

26:02I don't know how many times or if we've ever really referenced Jimmy Carr on the show, but I saw a really good clip where, for anyone that doesn't know, he routinely gets sort of heckled at his show. people shout out random questions and they so the the sort of question that was shouted out was you know what what what what piece of advice would you give and he said well if you distill down the key messages from basically every self-help book that's ever been written and pretty much all of the major religions it boils down to um prioritize later so the whole thing is just like make a sacrifice and how that gets you in a better place um later on but i think understanding that as a concept but then you know sort of putting things in place that sort of counteract what is human nature which is i'm going to prioritize right now aren't necessarily the same thing um evan if you were designing a pension experience today oh yeah of course olivia come on in jump in on that um thank you sorry it's just um i think it's interesting because there's there are very difficult things to engage with for young people and older people for different reasons so it would nice to see some sort of you know emotional messaging around those because i think for younger generation there is a sense of financial nihilism it's the kind of like well i see the kind of lifestyle that my parents have unavailable to me and so what does it matter if i have a pension or not then you know i might as well spend this money or not care and for the older generation it's really a lot of anxiety about aging and uncertain future and you know your productive like your work life coming to an end um so it's it's it's such an overlooked product and it's interesting because we've managed to rebrand fitness right like 10 years ago nobody cared about fitness but now everybody understands that you need to lift and you need to like really take care of yourself so that you can um lead a nice healthy life until you're old age yeah and it started with such a simple concept like 10 ,000 steps and it kind of grows from there right but you're so right I mean um connecting with people particularly about lifestyle and retirement and those types of things on an emotional level because all of that is money is inherently emotional um but also then I suppose contextualizing it in the brutal realities of you know what the sort of financial future that different generations are facing into because they are entirely different um as you say I think those are incredible um incredible points does Does that sort of resonate, Evan, with you as well from a design perspective?

28:37Yeah, it's kind of interesting actually because we have quite a different environment in Australia. I don't think we can say this too often, but we're probably kind of world leaders in this one little niche. Love that. Congrats. So, Australia has superannuation as a compulsory thing linked to your salary. So you're getting paid 12 % of your salary every time you get paid into your super. So we've kind of removed a lot of the, I guess, the need to encourage people to start doing it because it's just happening automatically in the background. So the bigger problem or maybe the bigger opportunity is probably more around, it's very similar to investing really.