1056. News: AI is everywhere: FCA's open finance roadmap, Google’s Global AI, and the Lloyds' boardroom

30:16That's going to break the process if it's like that. I think the AI angle is interesting here. Because I noticed they were talking about sort of AI-driven insights, AI-driven personalization. You're making a really interesting point, Xander, about how sometimes people have overlapping insurance coverage, whether they realize it or not, because they've got a couple of different policies in a couple of different places. Maybe they've got one through their employer. Maybe they've got one through their bank account. Absolutely. Things, policies they've bought, maybe policies their partner have bought.

30:42May, do you think there's an opportunity there of Visa and Nest actually telling people you're covered twice for this risk or covered twice for that risk? I'm not quite sure what they're driving at with that. Yeah. Well, actually, maybe it comes back to the open finance point that we were talking earlier on, actually, where actually you do need a dashboard which says, hey, you know, you're already double covered here, so don't bother with it. But I think at the heart of it, this must be clearly driving customer engagement. And I would say Visa probably has the more established customer moat. And this must be around driving or providing further value to their end consumers in a way that probably drives further cross-sell opportunities between the insurance component to the visa customers.

31:40And I think the payments point is really interesting because, you know, some people kind of think about payments as being sort of the operational financial moat because, you know, at the heart of it, we're all transactions orientated. And that's probably the area where the customer engagement is the strongest and the most apparent. Raman, last thought to you. Do you think something like this potentially makes Visa more attractive than, let's say, MasterCard or other card issuers who are available to sort of banks across Europe? I was thinking, so like, this has a lot of data about what customers are buying.

32:25Yeah, so where is it buying? And the AI agent can summarize all this information. And this information definitely is a question about GDPR and sharing information between companies. But if a customer allows to share this information. based on this analysis a lot of patterns can be created and specialized products can be offered to customers and I believe probably visa could because in addition to these payment services a bank will be offered with additional services to sell insurance to a customer and learn this So this is quite an interesting offer and quite an interesting collaboration. Yeah, I agree.

33:21I think it is really, really interesting. I think how it's executed and how they deliver it is going to be crucial, but it is indeed really interesting. Okay, well, we will just take a quick pause here, and we will be back very shortly.

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34:20If you're listening in the UK, we'd love your support. Help us take home Consultancy of the Year for a sixth time by heading to 11FS.com slash vote and giving us a rating. Right, back to the news. The new AI-powered Google Finance is expanding to more than 100 countries, according to Google's blog. Google is expanding its AI-powered version of Google Finance to 100 countries or more, bringing conversational financial research, AI-generated insights from earnings calls, and advanced charting tools to a global audience. The platform lets users ask open-ended financial questions and receive structured, AI-generated answers with supporting sources, alongside real-time market data, news, and sophisticated analytics.

35:07It also integrates emerging data sources like prediction markets, offering probabilistic views on macroeconomic outcomes such as inflation and interest rates. So Google is turning finance into a conversation. You can ask questions, get answers. Alexander, do you think this is democratizing investing? Is this sort of opening up investing to people all around the world? or is it replacing sort of independent thinking with AI-generated groupthink? Yeah, I think it can be a bit of both, to be honest. So on the one hand, I think it will definitely lower the barrier and make financial information more accessible to people who maybe wouldn't go through, you know, balance sheets or earning calls or look at multiples and all those kind of things, right?

36:08So it's definitely more accessible. But I think the trade-off is that a lot of people will take the information they receive at absolute face value and that it's 100 % true. And that can be a little bit of a challenge. So, because that reduces independent thinking, right? People will not cross-reference, make sure this is right. They'll just, you know, and I see this, or we all probably see this all the time when we, people use AI, right? And, but, you know, ChatGPT said this to me, but maybe that information wasn't 100 % accurate. Maybe you should have cross-referenced it, right? So that I think is always a little bit the downside that it will reduce independent thinking.

36:57and yeah, that can be problematic. On top of that, there's probably some regulatory issues with the whole thing as well. Yeah, that struck me as well of, you know, Google sort of pushing into an area like this. In fact, when I first saw Google Finance, I thought this was going to be broader than investing, but I mean, that's a little bit unfair because you've got to start somewhere and investing is, of course, a big part of finance. But May, what do you think about that point that Alexander's just made? Is this something regulators might be thinking, well, hang on a minute. Is this good? If Google Finance and AI is sort of making investing recommendations to customers.

37:40I mean, clearly it's happening already, right, all over the place. But is this a good thing for consumers? You know, when I read it, like my brain was just exploding. So many different views all came in at the same time. I say, firstly, improving financial literacy and improving financial accessibility is first and foremost good. and Google clearly has broken down barriers in other areas, right, to be able to get access to lots of different products and there's been a good network, I guess, or marketplace for allowing consumers to be able to access products and vice versa. So there's a distribution element and there's an accessibility and a literacy and a democratization element there, which they've been renowned for doing so.

38:39So I think good there. However, you know, there has been so much press around, you know, fake news, promoting products where someone else has incentivized Google to promote it. So, you know, it's a, I would say, a well-trodden path around consumer products that I think that they are entering into. And then, you know, there's competition around that. So I think if I were the regulator, then, you know, I would be looking at that well-trodden path that they have taken around news, consumer products and things like that, and be looking at this with eyes wide open. You know, clearly Google, you know, they are an extremely smart organization.

39:25They will have gone down that well-trodden path. And so, you know, I think that, oh, I would hope that they too are going into this eyes wide open. but to your point around should we be worried about recommendations and things like that, yes absolutely and that's true for AI right I think the danger with AI is that it's super slick, super easy for people who are growing up in this native environment I think expecting them to think critically that's not a muscle memory that I think some of us showing our age are probably more adept at. So this whole thing is a multifaceted issue that we're not going to be able to solve on this call.

40:14But it's super interesting, super topical. What was your take, Raman? What did you think of this? I'm going to start from a low level. So when we launched our web app, we were using Google Translate to make our web app from the very beginning in different languages. And I remember, like we had this Excel spreadsheet and we had, you know, like for different languages, we have different translation and we, you know, like write some interpreters, you know, to help us with different languages. but later when AI started, so right now everything is translated with AI. So we have right now probably 20 languages in our app and so that will be in the native languages in which you are in this language.

41:07So I think from this perspective, this is good because a person would understand like everything yeah so it's not like we're asking for example when our QAC communicating with the client we're also using Google Gemini yeah so and all the questions are asked in the language of a person yeah so they clearly understand what they're asked about yeah and this is like very good communication so in this perspective I see this as a very good like more because again you know definitely people like lazy they they they they trust the eyes they trust gpt or gemini yeah for the uh advices from from but from other perspective they have access to all the information yeah so you can check it additionally and um more to this when you have all the like information in your native language yeah so i mean like you have other tools, yeah, so understand this information better and may make your investment decision more carefully, yeah, and there's more like facts based on what you're well, good understanding of.

42:23Yeah, so there's some real positives as well as some challenges. Alexandra, I suppose the sort of the other big one that sticks out, we sort of touched on this a bit already is Google goes here from providing information towards providing advice just because of the way that people will frame their questions and people will say, well, what should I do and so on. And that, of course, has always been highly regulated in most countries around the world. Financial advice is regulated. And media companies have always had a little bit of a free pass of, well, you can put a stock tip in a newspaper 20 years ago or whatever.

42:55But suddenly when chatbots and AI engines are becoming sort of answer engines for everything, Google becomes a financial advisor here, right? But isn't regulated as one. They do, 100%. So when people start asking, let's say, open-ended questions, right, and they get structured answers that end up with an absolute tip in what they should invest in, that's financial advice. I think it goes, yeah, it's, well, right now, I guess it's a gray area because it's an AI and it's not a person and it hasn't been regulated. but it is something that I think the regulator will watch very closely. And there probably are some regulatory challenges coming that way.

43:46And I agree, this is financial advice. And around the world, this is regulated vertically.

43:59May, maybe final question for you. is this bad news for all of the existing sort of financial markets, media? I mean, maybe not Bloomberg or maybe Bloomberg, but all of the sort of Yahoo finances, all of the CBS market watches, all of the other sources of information about stock markets across 100 different countries. To Raman's great point, this is available in hundreds of languages, well, not hundreds, certainly dozens of languages. is this is quite a big threat to all sorts of established financial information businesses, right? Potentially. I think it depends what kind of data Google has access to.

44:43So, you know, a lot of sort of quality distributions, you know, the data is sometimes captive to subscription and to paywalls. So, you know, depending on whether or not those websites or those distributors have proprietary data that consumers still value, that Google are not able to access, then there is still potentially a moat there. For the maybe sort of the more sophisticated investors who have already got tools that they like, but maybe there's going to be a younger generation that are going to be much harder to get. Very interesting. Well, we're out of time on that AI story, but we've got another AI story coming straight up, which is that Lloyd's Banking Group in the UK is putting an AI agent in the boardroom, apparently.

45:38So Lloyd's Banking Group has introduced an AI-powered board bot into its boardroom, marking what is believed to be the first for a FTSE 100 company. The system is designed to analyze large volumes of complex confidential information, support meeting preparation, and offer insights, ultimately aiming to improve the quality of strategic decision-making. The bank says the technology can help reduce human bias by bringing a broader, more data-driven perspective into discussions at a time when board-level decisions are becoming increasingly complex and high stakes. The move also forms part of Lloyd's wider ambition to position itself as the UK's biggest fintech, with the group already attributing tens of millions in value to its use of AI.

46:26Raman, I mean, everybody else is using AI. Why shouldn't the board? Do you see any issues with this? Is this just PR? Is this genuine? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of PR here. Yeah, so... like first of all you need a proper structured database yeah for this agent to be able to analyze this information and like I hardly believe you know like they would be able so quickly to transform their database to allow agent you know to do to do all this analysis in the database Yeah. So this is like crucial. Yeah. Because like, unless you have proper database, like whatever AI agent you run, it would not have enough information.

47:20Yeah. To make analysis. So this is the first point. The next point, definitely like we're using it. Yeah. Already. And we make decisions about like what fees to be implemented, you know, how to communicate with clients and so on. So this is like, but AI should be considered like, you know, a group of very smart juniors. Yeah. So like kind of junior analyst, which just finished their MBA or whatever university. And they're very smart and very quick. Yeah. So within like seconds and minutes, they would create whatever report, make whatever analysis, but they don't have business experience. Yeah, so like you need just to review this report and more to this AI from time to time, it's still like model, it's it may make mistakes.

48:18Yeah, so kind of mistreat some information. Yeah, and you need to look at this information like to understand is it like, you know, is it a fact or just, you know, some kind of mispresentation or so. So I believe in this case, definitely they will do. They need to invest a lot in this, yeah. But it's not like, you know, some tool which like help automatically. So a lot of things need to be done. And this information should be carefully considered before making any decision. Alexander, we're used to being astounded by what AI can do. Is this too soon? I mean, do you agree with Ramon that actually probably the decisions a board has to take are just too multidimensional for a very smart junior?

49:13Yes, yes and no. I think putting that voice, the AI, into a board meeting can be of help if the data behind it is well structured. And, you know, often you sit in meetings and you have a question that might be to somebody that is in a completely different time zone or that, you know, couldn't get you that information that quickly because they would have to look into some tool Confluence or Jira or whatever. And if that AI has access to that, you could ask that AI that question. You could have that information immediately, right? So considering the amount of money that Lloyds has probably spent on AI, they have integrated that and that AI has access to it.

49:58So it can provide you information, valuable information to that board very quickly. If it is used for that, yes, it should be used for decision making itself, of course, because ultimately the board is still accountable for the decision it makes. So it should review everything and it should verify everything. But for the discussion during board meetings, for creating minute notes, for providing valuable insights or for analyzing even some decisions that they are making and cross-referencing them with outside data, it can be very useful, I think. Even ChatGPT can be useful for that when you're sitting in a meeting.

50:35right? So if the internal data of the company is fed to that bot, that could be even much more, well, even more useful. So yeah, I think it's not too early. I really like that point you make about getting information from a business unit that maybe isn't represented in the room or getting a quick answer to a question that you perhaps can't get otherwise, or at least a draft answer. What did you think, mate? Did you think this is real? I like it yeah no I like it in fact we've met board intelligence a while back when they were a start up as well and I sit in the shoes of being you know a director you know getting board papers you know seven days in advance but still very dense board papers you know and if you're a member that's been brought in because you're a NED who comes from outside the sector, sometimes, you know, you're brought in there to not have groupthink, but bring outside views.

51:46But sometimes it can be a little bit tricky to be able to navigate, you know, what is important in a dense report, right? And sometimes that, from a director's perspective, you know, you get like, I don't know, like a 200-page risk report and they sort of, you know, delegate responsibility to you because it's as read, right? And that can be unfair from a fiduciary perspective to a director, especially if you're on a retail-facing shareholder board. And so having a tool that can help you derive insights into what's important, I think that can be helpful. also that can sort of tie in stuff that's been discussed before in other board meetings, you know, last quarter, prior quarter, that equally can be helpful.

52:44And if you're a new board member that has come in without past knowledge of previous decisions, you know, having something that's a tool that's insightful that can pull in relevant information from past decisions, I think that can be quite helpful as well. So at the heart of it, I think it's around being a tool that's providing insights. However, I think board members still have to be, like we've discussed during this podcast, they still mustn't forget that they need to be critical thinkers. And they shouldn't just delegate responsibility to the insights that have been provided to them. Got it.

53:27So we've got a pretty strong consensus across the three of you that this can be useful, provided it's got access to the right information and provided that it's just augmenting the board members and helping directors take better decisions, get better insights, review past decisions, review information, and so on, provided they're not delegating decisions to it. This can be a really powerful tool. Okay. All right. Well, on that note, we'll take a quick pause here and be back very shortly.

54:00Okay, now a quick look at a story we don't have time to cover in full, which is that Credit B has reached unicorn status with$280 million Series E funding round. So Indian digital lending platform Credit B has raised$280 million in a Series E round, reaching a$1.5 billion valuation and becoming the first fintech unicorn of India's 2027 financial year. Founded in 2016, so a decade ago, the company has scaled rapidly, enabling more than 60 million loans and serving more than 18 million customers with strong traction beyond major cities in tier two and tier three markets in India. The new funding will be used to expand its lending book and invest further in AI-driven risk assessment and personalization.

54:48With$1.5 billion in assets under management and potential initial public offering plans ahead, Credit B reflects the growing maturity of India's digital lending market and the continued push towards financial inclusion. So congratulations to the team at Credit B. It's a huge opportunity all around the world for better digital lending to people who are sometimes excluded, people who can't easily get access to finance when they need it. Credit B's model is very interesting. Lots of lending to sort of young professionals, startup businesses, and so on. And so far, you know, it's a profitable business, so long as the default rates remain low.

55:30Very, very interesting. We've seen so many successful digital lenders in other markets in the world. And of course, India is the world's most populous country. So, you know, if you're going to invest in a digital lender, It's a pretty good market to go for. So congratulations to the team there. Always exciting to see FinTechs doing really, really well. And since we're talking about India, our next story is about cricket. So our story is that cricket fans have been encouraged to work from the stands in the best home office in the country by the Oval Cricket Ground in the UK. So if working from home isn't quite cutting it, how about working from the cricket?

56:12So Surrey County Cricket Club is inviting fans to swap their kitchen table for stands at the Oval, pitching it as the best home office in the country. The cricket club has installed desks in some of the 27 ,000 seats, upgraded the Wi-Fi, and made sure there's easy access to food, drinks, and a pretty decent view of the live cricket. It's also a clever nod to how work has changed. remote and hybrid working means the office can now pretty much be anywhere, and venues like the Oval are clearly thinking, why not here? Productivity might take a slight hit if there's a wicket falling or a six flying into the stands.

56:48But Surrey seems fairly relaxed about that, even joking on social media that they won't tell your boss.

56:58I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not. Maybe let's start on a lighthearted note. What would the dream workplace be for each of you.

57:12Alexander, would working from a sports venue be a dream for you or just a massive distraction? I think for me, it would be a massive distraction. I am unsure how I would manage all my video calls that I have in a day while I'm in the stands. I think there's a little too much background noise for people to understand what I am saying or for me to understand what they are saying, even when wearing noise-canceling headphones in a stadium environment. So, yeah, a stadium, be it cricket or any other sport, I think is not the right place for me. I am actually quite comfortable in the work environment that I am.

57:50I work from home. I work in the office. This hybrid work is absolutely fine for me. I don't need a stadium on top of that. May, what do you think? Do you love the idea of working from somewhere sort of remote, like a sports venue? Or is this a bit of a nightmare? Yeah, I personally wouldn't. But I could see where it could possibly work. It was kind of cool. We were invited to a demo day once for sports tech startups. And they did that at Lourdes. And it was super fun. So actually, I could see potentially if you were a sports tech startup and you were based down in, sorry, Cricket Club, then actually that could be quite a good way to capture some consumer footprint and get new customers.

58:47And potentially, if there are other like-minded startups around you, then that could be quite a nice way of networking. So, you know how you've always got like ping pong tables at WeWork, then, you know, maybe this could be another way to sort of do something fun with some of your peers. I don't know. Ramon, what do you think? Is this the future of work or is this just a stadium trying to fill empty seats? I think I would agree here with both with Alexander and Emily. Because like from one side, probably cricket, it's a very good place to organize a meeting. Yeah, so it would be like nice icebreaker for people just, you know, to talk to each other.

59:28Yeah. And so it's a nice place to organize a meeting with an investor or partner or customer, like potential customer. from a Zaza point of view, for me personally, because of a lot of calls and, you know, like meetings and, you know, with like employees, customers, partners. So I very often look for a place, you know, where no access to internet, you know, to focus on something. Yeah. And like from time to time, I just organize like Friday without any calls. Yeah. At home or like working on weekend. So when I think to focus on something, to write something and to provide something, it depends.

1:00:11What about if it was basketball? I understand basketball is huge in Lithuania. It would be super noisy, but you know, it's a very good place to have a common target with your potential client. And if you have the same team and if this team wins, you definitely would have a very good contract. It's an unfair comparison though. Basketball is a lot, lot shorter than cricket, isn't it? It is. Yeah, because I can imagine that Zoom call that someone's on watching the cricket is going to infuriate all of the cricket fans. I would say in Lisbon sometimes when it's like big, say some important matches, yes, all the offices sitting in front of the TV and watching basketballs and you cannot do anything.

1:01:08Work definitely stops in many offices when there are certain games going on. That's certainly true all around the world, isn't it? All right. Well, thank you so much to the three of you for joining me today. You've been absolutely fantastic. Where can people find out a little bit more about you and your companies? Alexander, where can people find out a little bit more about you and a little bit more about eMerchantPay? I think the best place to find out a little bit about me is on LinkedIn. So you can just search me up and type in my name, Alexander Bevay. I'm the only one that is on there with that name, which is an advantage.

1:01:50And yeah, on eMerchantPay, it's best just to visit our website, eMerchantPay.com and find out what we do and all the product offerings we have there. Thank you. May, where can people find out a little bit more about you and about Anthemis? Sure. May Lim again on LinkedIn and our website for Anthemis is Anthemis.com. But actually, for the Common AI platform, we're on CommonAI.org. And if you're a startup looking to join the platform, please do go to the website. Thank you. And Raman, where can people find out more about you and more about My2U? About me on LinkedIn. Yeah, about MyTU also on LinkedIn.

1:02:36And definitely on our site, yeah, mytut.com. Yeah, or like in Google Play or Apple Store. You can download our app and become our customer. Fabulous. All right. Well, that wraps up today's episode. Thank you all so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, please do share the podcast with a colleague or a friend or write a recommendation for us. If you want to join the conversation, seek us out on social media. Just search for 11FS or FinTech Insider or email us at podcasts at 11FS.com. Thank you again so much to my three guests and thank you all of you for listening and goodbye.