1054. News: Jamie Dimon raises the alarm, Barclays brings back branches, NatWest and Sainsbury's join forces

24:00Laura Watkins:No, it's probably more about you need the bricks and mortar to get things done, but you're not actually that bothered about the individual who does it for you. You know, it's not about relationship building, it's about getting things done. But I guess to your point around not being able to like always understand what's being said, a lot of the time in-person activities also then push you back online. So like, can I, you know, oh, did you know you can do this on our website or go over there in that corner and use that screen or that iPad or whatever. Like, you know, it's not always adding the human to it.

24:35Laura Watkins:So I think if that's their, what they're stating is their mission, they're going to have to, you know, try and work hard to prove that. Ollie, bringing you in on this around that kind of, the quote was that innovative businesses love the human touch um how much do you agree or disagree um with that quote and how does that kind of speak to the the digital first push that we've seen over the last 10 to 15 years yeah i mean it goes without saying that there are some times in life where you you do want to have that that human interaction the classic examples are like business loans or certain mortgage applications.

25:16There's that kind of face-to-face element where I think that whether it's a bank branch or it's a human, I don't know what form it comes in, but certainly there's a desire for that moment. You know, we've seen banks try to reinvent the bank branch several times now. Coffee shops, they've done like, you know, pop-up things, all sorts of experiments. I'm, I guess I'm optimistic that they're talking about opening more high street branches. I think that's positive. I think there's financial services that need that physical touchpoint in certain places. At the same time, I didn't see any numbers about what that means, what that looked like.

25:54You know, more is sort of a direction. It's not a destination. So I'd be curious to see what that... More is more than one, right?

26:01Laura Watkins:Yeah. It could be the flagship coffee shop. That could be what he talks about. I mean, it's good that he's putting a flag in the sand and saying, direction of travel, we want to invest and figure this stuff out. You know, the conversation around bank branches has rattled on for many years in the UK. And I think it's so interesting because we have on one hand, you know, pure technologists who are so passionate about the future of digital finance and what that can unlock. But then there is just the reality of those 11 million people, Sarah, as you mentioned, who need more than that. They need more than just digital.

26:38And at the moment, those people, a lot of them will be giving friends and family access to their financial services in order to help them do stuff that they don't know how to do. Probably in breach of the T's and C's of the banks that they bank with, but just because they need help and they need the kind of help that doesn't currently exist. There's no way for me to let my partner access my bank to help me do stuff at the moment. And there really should be. So, yeah, I think direction of travel is good. I'd love to see some numbers attached to it. Absolutely.

27:08Laura Watkins:I mean, on that numbers point, we mentioned at the top that Chase has committed to opening 160 branches as part of their U.S. expansion. So they have actually gone out with a number, whether they achieve that is TBC, but that's what we've said. And they're specifically targeting low income and rural areas. um how do you kind of feel about that is is that sort of what is needed because i think kind of to ollie's point about direction of travel and lack of numbers is like we don't need necessarily one on every corner in london exactly more where banking services have been taken away completely from these communities where there's no bank on the high street of any brand um and is that something that's sort of reflected in what you're seeing and and how you know valuable do you think this shift could be?

27:58So in Canada, it's a very layered conversation. I actually pulled some data comparing Canada to the UK, Australia, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden. And we're actually the country that had the least number of bank branch closing, just minus 9 % between 2012 and 2022. And that's the latest data that we have. And I see here that the UK is minus 44%. So I can or like the Netherlands minus 45 percent, the U.S. minus 16 percent in those 10 years. So it can show you here that Canadians really still want their bank branches, especially in rural areas and certain territories and provinces where a lot of indigenous communities live.

28:38So far, Canadian banks have not expressed an interest in closing down branches. They still apparently see value to them. But what they do say is that while you're waiting in line to talk to a bank agent or a rep, you're automatically also being put on hold with an AI agent or using your app and kind of streamlining that process in two different ways. The human touch, if you want to use it, and the non-human AI touch, if you also want to use it. I think Canada so far is still pretty conservative in going full technology, full remote people, and that shows in the numbers. Is that going to change maybe in the big cities where public transportation is pretty available?

29:23But as you know, Canada is a very big country, a very remote country and very cold. So for people to go from one place to another in certain territories and provinces, it can be quite difficult. So, yeah, that's what I think was happening for Canada right now. Fantastic.

29:39Laura Watkins:And Sarah, kind of to Shima's point about being sort of funneled when you're on hold or, you know, speak to the AI agent, stay on hold, speak to a human, etc. Part of what Vin Maru was talking about in this particular Barclays example is the frustration of being stuck in a chatbot. Does a physical branch like solve for that or should they just sort out their chatbots? Is he accidentally like calling out his own products? Yeah, I mean, that links back a little bit to what I think I was probably inarticulately trying to express is that what do people want the branch for? And is it just because they can't get anybody on the end of the phone?

30:19Because that's a human touch as well. Now, I can understand the difference between being directed to a chatbot or the worst one in my head is the, did you know that you can do all these services on our website? Yes, yes, I did. And if I have to listen to this on hold for 20 minutes when I get through, I'm not going to be very pleasant to speak to. But yeah, no, I think it really gets down to what banks need to do is work out what customers are struggling with and help them do it. And if the way to do that is to open new branches, because it absolutely is to do with depositing cash, or as Ali says, more people want business loans and that requires, you know, a more personal face-to-face interaction, then yeah, go ahead, open new branches.

31:00But if what it is is actually I don't need to meet you in person and actually it would be a lot easier if I could do it from my desk at home if you would just pick up the phone and if the person at the other end of the phone could help me. And that's really where we've seen some banks investing in AI, but where they really should be investing more is how do you make those people at the end of the phone more helpful? How can they answer more complex questions? How can they be honest? How can you tie up your systems at the back end so you don't get passed from person to person and have to restate your details every single time?

31:31How can they make security checks less onerous but also more robust at the same time? So, yeah, it all comes down to what you need help with and what isn't working and then what is the best solution for the maximum number of people in my mind. Definitely.

31:47Laura Watkins:And I think to the point you made there around like phone still being a human touch is so important because you don't need a whole building for the human touch if you can get the phone element right. first if that is you know look at your data where are you getting footfall so to speak if that is phone calls um you know can you just uh you know get people to the answers that they need via that service rather than having to bring bricks and mortar back because you know equally that is a huge cost undertaking for um for these these banks as well um so just to jump in um it's so interesting because when i i think about like retail and how omnichannel in retail has been like the buzzword for however long now.

32:31But I think retail has this really clear understanding that consumers want to interact with retailers in different ways. And they need to make sure that the experience is as good as it can be in every format, whether that's on the phone, on the website, or click and collect being the kind of classic example where people want to have an interaction that bridges two of these kind of formats. Maybe you want to have a phone call and then physically go and do something and I think banks and I again this memo gives me optimism maybe he's thinking about this differently banks need to be thinking about that like maybe I start off on the phone but then I want to have a meeting and I want to book that and go and see someone and not have to restart the conversation but actually to follow up in person again I think I think banking in this branch format is just very behind on from everything else we see on the high street yeah

33:24Laura Watkins:Yeah, I completely agree. Like bringing back that sort of human connection all the way through the experience, bringing back a customer service that retail gets right. And, you know, that is a criticism that's often leveled at banks in any form, whether it's chatbots, phone, in the branches, that the service is sort of lacking. And, you know, as David often says, like this is financial services, but sometimes we forget the services part. On that note, we are out of time on this one. So I'm just going to take a quick pause back very shortly. Over 40 ,000 businesses across Europe trust Plio to manage their spending.

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34:34Laura Watkins:Before we get back to the news, I just wanted to tell you about our latest Insight Show. We're taking a look at the shift towards agentic payments, asking what happens to trust and liability when we stop making payments and start delegating decisions to machines. That's available in the feed today, so be sure to give it a listen after you finish this show. Back to the news. And our next story is that NatWest and Sainsbury's have announced a new partnership. So following NatWest's acquisition of Sainsbury's Bank's core business in 2025, the two giants have announced a long-term strategic partnership.

35:08Laura Watkins:NatWest will now power Sainsbury's financial products, including a new Nectar credit card savings and loans integrated directly into the Sainsbury's digital experience and this is NatWest's third major embedded finance play following similar deals with the AA and Saga. So Sarah coming to you first for years for retailers sort of supermarkets for want of a word like Tesco's and Sainsbury's tried to be banks since recent times they've sort of sold out and are now being run at the back end by incumbents such as NatWest. Is the sort of era of the supermarket bank over? What does that actually mean in terms of being powered by NatWest here?

35:54I think it's interesting on this particular example that it's jointly branded because we've seen sort of other supermarkets books be bought by incumbent banks, you know, the Tesco RBS partnership. Yeah, for a long time, you didn't know that RBS was what powered Tesco, for example. So I think it's interesting that it's a joint brand. And I think it's interesting they've gone out there with two sort of separate sets of products, if you like. So you've got what you call a very classic product, which is a Nectar NatWest credit card, not saying that at speed, which you will get a credit card and it will say, you know, Nectar and NatWest on it.

36:32And you will get nectar points off the back of it. And that's a model that I think most people can get their head around. I think what's interesting is the sort of, if you like, secondary product, which is this, it's NatWest Boxed, which is the embedded banking product, which is the idea that they're going to be offering loans and savings accounts through Sainsbury's digital channels. I'm not quite sure what they mean by digital channels. I don't know if that's going to be in the app or, because if you go on the Sainsbury's website, which I did a quick look earlier, it just says at the top, very clearly, all financial products are now, you know, run by NatWest, your account will be, you know, changed over.

37:05So I think in terms of kind of the history of, you know, retailers, banks or supermarket banks, I don't think the idea of people saying I'm banking with Sainsbury's is going to go away because the Sainsbury's brand hasn't gone away. I think for those of us who understand the back end, perhaps it's becoming a little bit more nuanced. But I don't think for the average person on the street, they're going to go out there and say, oh, I bank with NatWest now, they're still going to go that Sainsbury's is my bank. This one's just a bit more complicated as well because Sainsbury's is the supermarket, Nectar is the loyalty brand, and NatWest is the bank.

37:38So you've actually got three brands at play here, which is going to be another thing to see how they handle whose logo and which brand is most dominant on all the financial services products, I think.

37:50Laura Watkins:Yeah, it's interesting. They have really like hammed up the sort of Nectar partnership so the sort of loyalty rewards points system for international listeners who may be less familiar in the UK Nectar has over 18 million members which is a decent wedge of the UK population and you know that's sort of can be used as a currency to pay for shopping etc you know particularly at the moment sort of cost of living as we talked about so Oli what's your take on this Is this more of like a data play by NatWest in terms of that visibility on the Nectar side actually, maybe giving you more interesting data than just the sort of Sainsbury's banking data?

38:37Laura Watkins:Because it adds a little further element that you wouldn't get just by buying the banking book alone. Yeah, potentially. I mean, what fascinates me about this story, and this is a bit of a geeky thing, but I love following the evolution of the supermarkets in the UK. And as they, over the years, have tried in different ways to kind of like reach different aspects of our lives. You know, I can, again, for the international listeners, I can go to Tesco and I can get a Tesco mobile service. I can get a Tesco bank account. I can get Tesco travel insurance. I can get all of these kind of products. The Tesco near me even has a co-working space where I can pay a monthly membership and co-work in the Tesco.

39:18They have their own cafe. They have all this stuff. Mike just has a Domino's. Yeah.

39:25But it's amazing to me. I mean, I remember in, actually, it used to be even bigger because in the mid-2010s, Tesco tried to launch its own tablet. I went to the launch in like 2013, 2014, and they were like, Tesco's going to be a tech company as well as a supermarket and all this sort of stuff. that died a death. But the ambition, I think, for these institutions to become much more than just a place you go to get food is fascinating. Now, some of these experiments have worked and some obviously haven't. I think with finance, we've really got to the point now where I think all of them accept that they shouldn't be trying to do this themselves.

40:02They should be relying on third parties. And actually, they should be passing more and more of the onus onto those third parties, because as we've said previously on, you know, financial services, it's a service. It requires a lot of elements that a supermarket won't necessarily be very good at, whether that is the customer service element, whether that is, you know, the kind of financial advice selling these financial products. You know, an institution like Netwest is a lot more geared up for doing that. But yeah, I just count it as the latest kind of twist and turn in that journey of where supermarkets are in our lives.

40:36Laura Watkins:definitely and where that sort of embedded finance side is going sorry um no i was just going to make a joke and say that like your grocery shopping experience sounds much more exciting than ours here in canada well they even the most recent um television advert for tesco which is you know one of the really big ones here actually focuses on this they say does anybody need anything from tesco and the first person says snacks and somebody else says oh what a low price holiday and somebody else says and can you get me a mobile phone and that's the whole I talk about TV ads whenever I come on here.

41:09But anyway, that's the whole premise. That's how they're selling themselves. They're not selling themselves as like lower price groceries. They're selling themselves as like a one-stop shop, almost like super app if we want to compare them to the likes of Revolut, which Revolut will be very offended by.

41:24Laura Watkins:Well, I kind of actually do want to build on that sort of train of thought. So like, you know, the supermarket is becoming the super app, so to speak. And NatWest is sort of embedding themselves in that super app rather than building their own sort of maybe revolute style. So, Shaima, from your perspective, A, is this something that's being replicated internationally? And does that also mean that the sort of actual banking part of banking is becoming more invisible and sort of put inside somebody else's brand? The only case that I can think of here in Canada is, so the Canadian financial system is pretty congested.

42:04It's a bit of an oligopoly. We have six big banks that kind of are holding 97, 93 to 97 percent of the market share. So it's really hard for a challenger bank to kind of challenge this established institution. So we do have one. It's called EQ Bank Financial. And they kind of struck a deal for people who don't know with PC Financial, who is part of Loblaw. Loblaw is a grocery chain company. It's one of three in Canada. And PC Financial is their financial services arm. And now this challenger bank, in order to, I get touch more people, I get more market share, is kind of going towards getting data and getting clients from this very well-established grocery chain that is Loblaw.

42:44So that's the only case that we have here so far. And I think it's kind of the little players here in Canada is kind of their way to, I guess, stand up to the big guys and try to get as many customers as possible because people here tend to be very loyal to their grocery chain. And especially Loblaw is known to be a little bit on the less pricier side. And with the cost of living and everything happening in the world. Everything is being more and more expensive. And it was kind of a breakthrough collaboration or merger that happened in the country in December. So yeah, that's what's happening over here in the North.

43:21Laura Watkins:Sarah, you were kind of nodding along as Shima was talking. What's your kind of take on that like kind of loyalty play in terms of sort of banking with your supermarket, for want of a a better phrase, particularly when it comes to that sort of reward system, loyalty, kind of cost of living environment, etc. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I mean, I don't know if the stat is still accurate, but you're more likely to get divorced than you are to change your bank account. That was the stat that was used for a long time here in the UK. I don't know if it works across the pond, but I think the sentiment probably translates.

43:58I would like to know how true that still is, given how much everyone is feeling the pinch and how whether that's driving people to shop around more for whatever it is, including their bank. So I know, you know, some of the banks that are trying to encourage switching will say, you know, we'll give you 5 % cash back for the first year if you come to us, or we'll give you, you know, a lump sum of£200 if you come to us. And that could make a big difference to some people, particularly at the moment. And I do wonder if there's a draw of, to go back to the point you made earlier, Whereas the points you're getting are nectar points and you think, brilliant, well, I already shop in Sainsbury's or Sainsbury's is part of a group, you know, Argos, Habitat, whatever it is.

44:37I already use that brand. I already like that brand. So great. I'll switch my credit card to them because then it compounds the points I already have. So I think there's definitely interesting to see if there's an aspect of that. I don't know how many credit card customers actually don't know if Sainsbury's already has a credit card. Sorry, I didn't do my research deeply there enough. So I don't know if this new credit card is an entirely new product or if they're going to be encouraging people to switch from kind of an existing Sainsbury's credit card to a new credit card. The other thing, of course, is with a credit card, you can have as many as you want, sort of, you know, within the realms of possibility.

45:10So do people then go down this rule of getting the NatWest one for certain shopping and, you know, I don't know, Halifax one for a different one and an Amex for a third? How organized are people? I don't think that many people are that organized or that many people have the headspace to remember which card to use for which, you know, which account. So I think the loyalty play will be interesting. I think what's also going to be interesting is just how good is the deal you get with using the NatWest credit card? How many extra points do I get? How is the additional cash back? Is it better than what I've got at the moment?

45:42Because I think at the moment, a lot of consumers are looking into that in much more detail than they have done historically. And they're actually working out. You know, if I use these, these points are more valuable to me because the thing that's most important to me right now is feeding my family. And therefore, it's the weekly shop or money or fuel or, you know, all those sort of things the supermarket tend to offer.

46:02Laura Watkins:People are paying much more attention to the small print and not just the headlines and figuring out what works best for them, which I'm going to use as a segue into our next story, which is that Chime has launched Chime Prime Premium Banking. the story in the papers. Chime has launched Chime Prime, a premium membership tier with no monthly fee. Instead of a subscription, it is unlocked by members who receive at least$3 ,000 in monthly direct deposits. Benefits include 5 % cashback on a chosen category, groceries, travel, etc. 3.75 % APY on savings, a premium metal onyx card, if that's your thing, and luxury travel perks like Priority Pass.

46:49Laura Watkins:Chime has also boosted its entry-level Chime Plus to 2 % cashback. So, Alia, kind of coming to you first, are they based on the kind of loyalty conversation we were just saying, we were just talking about in the previous story and talking about how, you know, people are maybe paying a little bit more attention to what they get for being loyal? What's your take on this one? This is kind of loyalty and perks based on how much you're sticking in your bank account, which equates to a degree to how much you get paid. Yeah, I think this is really smart. And I'm surprised that maybe other people have done this before.

47:28But, you know, we've seen other challenger banks in the UK, at least, going down the paid subscription model to try and embed that loyalty. Whether it's Monzo or Revolut, you know, they get you to try and sign up because you get all these benefits. and it means you become a sticky customer and you're more likely to become a kind of a primary bank account holder with them. I think this is another really clever way of going down that path, you know, by guaranteeing that kind of monthly deposit usage, it means you're much more likely to switch to them as your primary bank account, which I think is great.

48:02And I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, Revolut or others look at this and go, oh, we should have another tier that's a little bit lower which actually we use this model because it's kind of easy to do and we don't have to we can put a few features in there and just lock it behind a monthly payment thing because that's what you know that's what all the banks want to do they want to get you to fully switch to them and not to use them as that kind of secondary account um and this is it sounds to

48:30Laura Watkins:me like a great model of doing it yeah it's interesting because it's you know you have to have at least three thousand dollars coming in every month which isn't necessarily forcing you to put your salary into Chime and make it your primary account, but depending on how much you earn, maybe it is. So they also get that kind of monthly data on how much you're putting in your account, which you don't get in quite the same way if you're the like quote-unquote fun money account, if you're people's sort of secondary bank account. So Chime has 14.5 million customers, which is 12.8 % of all new U.S. checkings accounts in 2025.

49:09Laura Watkins:Q4 went to Chime. So they're making a decent play in the US space, particularly for that kind of neobanks. Sarah, what's your take on this in terms of them maybe trying to like grow up a little bit perhaps in this space? Yeah, I think what they're trying to do is attract far more affluent customers because a lot of those accounts, if you look at the breakdown of who Chime's customers are, an awful lot of them are gig workers, what we'd call, you know, here in the UK, they don't have a salary, they don't have a contract without regular hours in it, for example. And I think they have their MyPay product, isn't it, which is like earned wage access or early access to your wages, right?

49:53That's not something that somebody on a regular salary generally needs. That's generally something that people who are struggling to make ends meet. So I think that gives away kind of a bit more insight into who their customer base is. And I did some digging for numbers and I found some from Cornerstone Advisors. And it says that half of Chime customers earn less than$35 ,000 a year and just 15 % earn more than$75 ,000 a year. By contrast, half of Bank of America customers earn$75 ,000 a year or more. So I think what Chime is doing here is making a play for more affluent customers to whom they can sell a wider range of services.

50:35and therefore it's worth them taking a bit of a loss if that's what they're going to do on this kind of giving away a 5 % interchange,

50:43Laura Watkins:a 5 % cashback rate for no money in exchange. Because if you look at the way that, as Ali said, the UK banks do it, the Revoluts and Monzos, they make a killing on those paid accounts because by the time you've got all the contracts signed up for priority parts of the insurance, you're basically every pound you're making from that subscription fee or 90 % of it is going into your pocket because you've already signed those deals to distribute a product. So that paid model is proven. And if you look at either of those banks' annual results, you'll see just how much money they make and what percentage of their annual profit that is from their subscription accounts.

51:19Obviously, we've just said, this is going out a bit from a completely different angle. So my take on it is this is very much a, we want to be seen as more upmarket. We want more affluent customers. They're going to have more regular income and we can sell them more products.

51:31Laura Watkins:Absolutely. And Shima, would you agree with that? You know, they've sort of launched this metal card, etc. It's feeling a little bit Amex in terms of the proposition and obviously all the perks and the loyalty that go with that. You know, what's your take on this one? I wouldn't compare it to the Amex, that's for sure. I get the sentiment, but I think... So I completely agree with Ollie and Sarah from what they've been describing. I get it that Chime was first catering to, I guess, a segment of the population that was kind of underbanked. And that's what their value proposition is to them. But that segment can also be quite risky for any company to put all their eggs in one basket.

52:15So it's very normal for them to kind of try to diversify, kind of tap on this like a little bit wealthier portion of the population. Their launch of like their new metal cards and all that. that if they can do the right marketing around it, like Amex did, I mean, people get an Amex or a Chase Sapphire. It's mostly for the status or sometimes for the, I guess, for the very good marketing that these companies have made around these cards. It's not even about the card and what you can get out of it. It's mostly like, hey, I have an Amex. So if can Chime do that with their metal cards, then yeah, it's going to work really well for them.

52:53Laura Watkins:And Oli, you were kind of commenting earlier in terms of like, perks are earned through behavior rather than actually paid for in terms of I've signed up to a subscription. As you were saying, that's sort of a differentiator. Do you think we'll see kind of more products behaving in that way rather than something you have to sign up to and get a subscription and pay X amount per month and so on? Do you think that could be a differentiator in this space. Yeah, I mean, I think to Sarah's point there, they're clearly trying to change their customer mix and the behavior of some of their customers. And I think a lot of challenger banks around the world found this challenge, which is they grew very, very quickly early on, but they didn't end up with the kind of profitable customers that they actually want now.

53:49And they're asking, how do we change this mix? Some of them doing it through switching, some of them are doing it through premium subscriptions. I think this is another avenue to go down. And as I said before, I would be amazed if we don't see other banks looking at this and saying, we want to make a change. Maybe$3 ,000 a month isn't our number. Maybe the number is different, but this is another level we can pull to kind of incentivize a change in our customer base to get us to that more profitable, more established destination we want to get to. So, yeah, I'm sure we're going to see more of this.

54:25Laura Watkins:Definitely, because they're, you know, they're spreading themselves quite wide now in terms of that, you know, that earned wage access, gig economy, and then sort of looking towards the more affluent. They're obviously spread betting on bringing in a lot of different kind of demographics in terms of what people are paid. Sarah, is there a risk? And also, it's a model that we've seen in premium banking, in the kind of premium banking segment for a long time. We've seen the kind of like 100, 150 ,000 pounds or dollar deposits per annum needed for whatever it's HSBC premium banking or whoever else.

55:04We've seen that for a long time. And it's an established kind of way of working. I think this is them doing it with a different demographic, with a different sort of strata in the lineup, which that's the bit that I think I find really interesting.

55:17Laura Watkins:Yeah, definitely. Because I think, you know, whatever they were doing up until now has obviously worked. If they're getting a decent amount of the U.S. new customers quarter on quarter, like, you know, the customer acquisition is working for that kind of maybe lower income bracket. is this, Sarah, do you think this is like quite a big swing to try and like, you know, broaden their demographics? And like, do you think it'll work? Like as in, you know, are the higher income brackets looking for this? Or to sort of China's point, are they happy with their, you know, platinum, Amex, whatever it is, like, you know, the status symbols that indicate more just visually than what's going on behind them?

56:00Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's the point about, attracting customers, opening new accounts, that goes to Oli's point, are they using it as their primary account or are they opening this for access to a specific benefit? There is a huge amount of conversation about Chime's issue with fraudulent account openings as well. And so, I don't know if that figure takes that into account or not. There's been an awful lot of stuff in the news in the US, certainly, and not so much recently, but certainly historically about people opening accounts, shuffling money from one to the other and then closing both those accounts and the money never actually existed, for example.

56:35So, you know, I think the customer acquisition is one thing, how sticky are those customers? To all these points, will this make them sticky? I don't know if this will make them sticky or I don't know necessarily which demographic it's going for either. So I think to China's point, I don't think they're going for the people who have the Amex and the Chase Sapphires and the HSB premiums. They certainly want to move a step up from the gig workers. They want people with a regular salary who are going to get regular penny and kind of the equivalent of what we'd call direct deposits. direct debits in the UK.

57:04So kind of like having that regular outflow, which means you've got a regular inflow. It depends how sticky this will make customers and how much it makes them kind of use Chime as their primary bank. To me, it will depend on how long they can keep up these perks. Because once you've given somebody something, it's very, very hard to take it away. So how long can they keep it up? How much money will it lose them? And if they do take it away, will they have offered enough benefits to customers to not then go, fine, we'll just go back to the bank account we were using previously? Because that's the other thing.

57:39People may open new bank accounts and switch, you know, their primary account, but they very rarely close the old account. So there's always an option of keeping the one in the background to go back to. So it'd be really interesting to see if I don't know who Chime's main competitor in the US is. They've got so many blinking banks, I wouldn't even want to start guessing. that if somebody's done that analysis, like it'd be, and because in the UK, we get these figures every year of account switching, which come out centrally and they're kind of completely neutral. So you can see who's doing best.

58:09And that's obviously, you know, interesting for us data nerds, but it's obviously also interesting for the bank to see, oh my God, HSBC has lost X number of customers and Starling's gained X. That means logically that some of them will have switched around. So it'd be really interesting to see if there's any data out there for how many customers Chime gains versus what their equivalent or what their peer banks lose.

58:32Laura Watkins:Absolutely. We will keep an eye out for that data and equally how this story progresses. But on that note, we're just going to take another quick pause back shortly. K-pop Demon Hunter's Saja Boys breakfast meal and Huntrix meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side.

59:11And participate in McDonald's while supplies last.

59:15Laura Watkins:Okay, now for a quick look at a story we don't have time to cover in full. This is Moneypoint enters the Kenyan market with acquisition of Sumac Microfinance Bank. This story in AFP. Nigerian powerhouse Moneypoint Inc. has officially entered the East African market, having acquired a 78 % majority stake in Sumac Microfinance Bank. By acquiring an existing bank, Moneypoint gets immediate lending and deposit-taking powers in Kenya, bypassing years of regulatory paperwork. They are going after Kenya's 7.4 million MSME market. This sector drives 40 % of Kenya's GDP. Expect them to deploy their all-in-one platform, combining banking, payments, and credit to replace the fragmented tools Kenyan businesses currently use.

1:00:03Laura Watkins:This builds on their recent acquisitions of Order Africa in the restaurant tech space and Bankom Europe for a UK EU license. Moneypoint is now processing over$250 billion in annual transaction value. And on this particular acquisition, this is a very savvy ploy for MoneyPoint to help them enter the third or fourth arguably biggest fintech market in Africa, their home market Nigeria being the biggest. Kenya is obviously well known for smartphone penetration and reliance on telcos to support financial inclusion and financial services progress generally. However, it does mean that the landscape for SMEs and MSMEs is particularly disjointed.

1:00:41Laura Watkins:So MoneyPoint are making a big statement entering this market through that acquisition with Sumac Bank with a more seamless offering that immediately solves for a lot of points that merchants and MSMEs face and offering them more tools and opportunities to boot. And it also says a lot for MoneyPoint's international ambitions, and it will be interesting to see how much traction they get as a result. And we will certainly be keeping an eye on it. And now I'm going to move us on to our final section and finally for today. Plex's$500 ,000 survival retreat goes full Fyre Fest. So this story has been picked up everywhere and is doing the rounds, but it features tech company Plex spent a half a million dollars to fly 120 remote employees to Honduras for a survivor-themed bonding retreat.

1:01:26Laura Watkins:And the goal was team building and light competition, but the reality was a medical and logistical disaster that makes the White Lotus look like a spa day. CEO Keith Valerie planned to act as a host-like figure, similar to Survivor's Jeff Probst, I'm not actually sure how to say his name, but spent the entire week instead in his room on an IV drip after eating a bad salad, which is not a great start, but it gets worse. The first challenge involved lifting a lid and eating what was underneath and one exec said that they had to eat a dead tarantula. Not good. At least it was dead, I suppose. But anyway, they hired a Navy SEAL to run drills in 100-degree heat with employees who had to army crawl through fire anthills until they passed out from exhaustion.

1:02:14Laura Watkins:And this retreat also featured guard towers with machine guns, failing electricity, and no running water. And to top it off, a porcupine fell through the ceiling of a senior engineer's bedroom in the middle of the night. And most tragically, CEO Keith Valerie could then literally hear his employees screaming from his sickbed. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack in this. I'm sure all of us have been on sort of off-sites and sort of organized fun that we don't necessarily want to be on. but I can't say I've been on anything as bad as this. But Oli, what was your take on this? Normally, kind of company offsites don't come close to this horror show.

1:02:56No, I love the effort that has gone in. Like, not just the financial effort, but clearly someone has spent a lot of time. I mean, I suspect the CEO was maybe a fan of Survivor, but a lot of effort has gone into this. I did read the article and saw that it was, it was actually in 2017 this was a few years ago um again when when rates were a bit lower and maybe cash was a bit bit easier to burn on on things like this but yeah this definitely tops the tops the cake for i mean there's burning cash right and then there's just torturing your staff right

1:03:31Laura Watkins:i mean sarah have you never been so glad to be freelance and independent when you read this yeah i mean i tell you i've done endured some horrendous team building activities in my time but none of them involve tarantulas or machine guns. I just, part of me, part of my question is, now my geography is terrible, so please nobody take offense at this. Why Honduras? Because I've just looked up the UK government website, which is for foreign travel advice, and it just says no travel can be guaranteed safe to Honduras. So why that as a location is a question I have. Now maybe there's bits of Honduras, I don't know.

1:04:06I also just, I don't, I mean, And if Olly's right, this is, you know, 10 years ago, so maybe it's the height of bro culture and like torturing your staff proved you were like a chief bro. I'm struggling to get my head around the idea of why anybody thought this was a good idea, aside from the food poisoning and the 100-degree heat and the showers not working in the resort. Like before all of that, who thinks, you know what I'll do? To your point, Laura, I'll torture my staff, like literally, physically. Secondly, if these are US employees, is that company still going or have they been sued into non-existence?

1:04:44They are still going. It's a media streaming server tool, which I'm a fan of. I had no idea that they did stuff like this on their away days. Oh, is it like a Roku stick? Yeah, it's a bit like that. But yeah, why Honduras? I wonder if that's the only place they could get away with a lot of this. in this stuff.

1:05:08Laura Watkins:I think, yeah, the why is the most pertinent question to this, I think. I mean, like how does eating tarantulas and doing kind of, you know, what was it, sort of Navy SEAL training actually help you get better at your job, particularly if your job is sort of software engineering and so on. You know, software engineering versus sort of intense sort of Navy SEAL training don't often go hand in hand. So yeah, the why is the bit that fascinates me most. Shaila, what was your thoughts on this? I mean, it's just a big parody of what we think of being loyal to the company and hustle culture and just really taking everything.

1:05:51It's just a physical personification of what you think like a lot of people in different like very high pressure jobs and high pressure companies are going through. I mean, obviously not the tarantulas and the machine guns and not like no running water. But I think it is just hilarious that some CEO took that hustle culture really literally and wanted his, I guess, employees to go through it to show, I guess, their loyalty to the company or something like that. That's definitely changing. If I can speak for all the Gen Z listeners out there is like there is no such thing as that level of loyalty to any company, especially when you can sue them, as Sarah said, out of oblivion.

1:06:30So, yeah.

1:06:31Laura Watkins:Yeah, we'd love to know if it was optional attendance to this thing, you know. I point back, refuse to do sports days when I've been at organisations. You know, I won't even play rounders, so there's no way I would have committed to this. Although there was a rounders game that got out of hand at 11FS where like someone accidentally hit a pass at Barley, so probably, you know, you were right to sit that one out. I wasn't involved, I wasn't involved before the rumours start. But yeah, Ollie, best or worst, organized fun you've been part of? Did it involve tarantulas? Oh, it did not involve tarantulas or heatstroke or any of those other horrible things.

1:07:11You know, give me good Wi-Fi and a nice hotel and a couple of meeting rooms and I'm happy. None of this. My only thing is, I wonder if they told the staff what they were getting into because I think if the company said ticket to Honduras for the team building offsite, you'd be like yeah that sounds okay um if they skip the detail like gloss over the detail a little bit until you get there but i think that's how they sold it yeah i think you're completely

1:07:37Laura Watkins:right come to honduras for a week it'll be fun and then they just didn't tell them anything else uh i think that's so true um and i'm gonna wrap the show there thank you so much uh to all of you for for joining me today where can people find out a little bit more about you your companies and what you've got going on uh maybe start with you ollie for all things money 2020 yeah Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Oliver Smith, or find money2020.com. Come and have a look at the Europe page, have a look at our agenda, which went live today. All of our speakers, all of our sessions, and hopefully see lots of you in Amsterdam this June.

1:08:12Fantastic. Thank you, Sarah. You can find me on LinkedIn at Sarah Kachansky, or you can find me in Amsterdam at Money 2020 in June. Fantastic. And Shira? You can also find me on LinkedIn, or you can read me at thelogic.co. We have an app that you can download available everywhere. You can read us online through our website, thelogic.co. And yeah, we have a bunch of newsletters. And if you're interested in Canada and Canada-US relations, we've got you covered. Fantastic. Thank you.

1:08:40Laura Watkins:And you can find me, Laura Watkins, on LinkedIn or 11fs.com or this very podcast. And so that wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's show. if you like what you've heard, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform of choice. And if you really like it, please do feel free to share it around, share it with a colleague or friend. And if you want to join the conversation, find us on social media, just search for 11FS or Fintech Insider on basically any platform and we'll probably pop up or email podcasts at 11FS.com. Thanks again and goodbye.