991. News: Klarna’s big loan moves, Monzo’s mobile expansion & Robinhood’s AI investing launch

26:24You look at the difference between US or European super apps, I think they face different challenges than Asian ones do when you look at WeChat being the ultimate example of a super app. We have different consumer habits. We have different data privacy laws. We have different established vertical competitors. Right. You're like, there's nothing that clears a straight path for anyone to become a super app the same way it does when you look at it in some of the Asian offerings. And it's this very alluring thing for companies to go and try to tackle. Of course, I want more mind share, wallet share, daily active use cases or active users.

27:10I just don't know that Western consumers are prone to accepting that. Yeah, I think, and what's interesting is because it's all kind of happening now, I think we'll see pretty soon. I think we'll see within the next year or two whether these things stick, whether we are going to be using X, formerly known as Twitter, as a bank in any way, or whether we're going to be paying our buddies on that in any kind of scale. I think it's all kind of happening. Okay, on that note, we're just going to take a quick pause here and back shortly.

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29:08this out at the beginning of the podcast. We're like 990 something, which is just such a crazy, just such a crazy thing. So it'll be a big celebration. Tickets are available now. Head to 11FS.com slash After Dark to secure yours. We'll also put a link in the description below. All right. Now back to the news. And this one is from Finextra. Robinhood UK rolls out AI investing assistant to decode market movements. Robinhood UK has launched Digests by Robinhood Cortex, an AI-powered assistant that explains stock price movements in plain English. The tool analyzes news, analyst reports, technical indicators, and internal trading data to generate real-time digestible insights.

29:47It is now available for free to all UK users following positive feedback in the US when 95 % of users found it helpful and easy to understand. The feature appears on individual stock pages and is designed to educate users, not offer financial advice. The rollout is part of Robinhood's strategy to democratize investing by making market insights more accessible to everyday investors. So I think we had Robinhood on a previous news item a few months ago talking about this launch in the US. I mean, Jason, I want to come to you first. How is the market receiving the kind of AI stuff that Robinhood have been doing?

30:27I know it's like they're going big into it, right? Absolutely. I mean, I think it's one of those things where the stat speaks for itself, right? 95 % of people find it helpful, right? It has a very positive reception, right? I think the same has been true for most AI tooling around sort of democratizing investing knowledge, right? You know, this is a complex topic that has seemed off limits to most people in most walks of life. Robinhood as a platform and some of the other platforms as they democratize the ability to invest also needs to democratize the education around it. And that's I think that's where you get to the satisfaction rate.

31:06The question then becomes is 95 % satisfaction, 95 % sort of usefulness in terms of generating returns? Or is it sort of this facade of this? I find this helpful. I find it educating because I didn't have it previously. And it's not actually really helping me make better financial decisions or investing decisions, right? I think I'd love to see the data from Robinhood on that. I don't know that any of us have actually gotten to see that yet. Yeah, 100%. It's probably very early days. Chantel, what do you think about this? I mean, in the UK, it's very crowded, right? The robo-advising investment app marketplace, I don't know really what to call it.

31:49It's called it WealthTech, right? It's very, very crowded and everybody's talking about AI. Are you seeing this as becoming like a big new battleground to differentiate? I think we just need to get more comfortable with the fact that AI is bleeding into pretty much every element of financial services. And it's only going to be natural that this is another place that it does. I definitely wanted to try and have a look at this, you know, and you're like, I'd like to visualize it, but I couldn't find anyone that was using it at the moment. But to me, it sounds it's almost like a content product. It's, you know, it's supposed to be advisory rather than um it's not going to go and make any kind of um strategic investments for you um i do like the kind of sound of it i guess that the my big question is what is what is the analyst research that they're using because 90 of the proper analyst research is gated right and it's paid for so what what public information are they able to access that is genuinely going to be helpful in this case um that i'd love to know i guess the other thing as well is I'm a very boring investor I just sort of chuck everything in a index fund I hope for the best try not to look at it for a couple of years like that's that's good enough for me whereas this feels like this is this will be really helpful if you're into like stock picking so I think if that's the way that you like to invest then then super useful but then I don't know I'm very risk averse I'm like is that the is that the best way to invest it's up to up to people to make that choice for themselves really but um yeah I'd love to know what information they're using.

33:17But yeah, again, I'd love to see it. I mean, ultimately, I think we're going to see even more of these. So you can either kind of roll your eyes and say another job for AI that it shouldn't be doing or get on board and see if it works. Yeah, we're seeing so many fintechs launch these out. I mean, very recently, we had Starling talking about their new AI banking tool, which is also operating and that kind of, you know, guidance, we're just going to give you better insight into your money and, you know, use kind of transactional data not to tell you what to do, but to kind of guide you. And it sort of sounds that that's where AI sort of is.

33:57And Nina, I want to come to you because transactional data, in some senses, payments data, is just such an important source of truth for what you could use to layer some AI-based stuff on top of it. I mean, are you guys at Peach thinking about something like this or are you using generative AI in any kind of interesting way? Very actively looking at deploying AI on various fronts for our business. Firstly, obviously combating fraud. In addition to the traditional fraud combating mechanisms, we have deployed some very interesting metrics and applications generated by artificial intelligence for that purpose.

34:41However, with PCI, the protection of your card information and the actual end user, a lot of the data we're seeing is fairly anonymous. You can work with an IP address and deploy AI to prevent on an IP address or match an IP address to a geography to a merchant, right? So this is an unlikely scenario, add additional authentication. However, with the protection of card information, it's fairly, almost, I want to say, impossible to, on our instance even, to actually access that and to get the end user to identify it's a John, Sarah or Harry transacting and they are the fraudster. So yes, by design, that is a massive, massive success as we've seen in deploying AI.

35:29And it feels so new still. I mean, it's a very, very exciting space where you can literally build or do, it feels like almost anything. as soon as you gain insights as to a new trend. Because as soon as you design for combating fraud and insights or intel in terms of modus operandi, you're already, I want to say, times behind already. So I think that most definitely helps us in combating, identifying, and preventing fraud as a first step. Yeah, it's interesting because it comes back to what is the source of the data and how can we trust it was a point, Chantel, that you were making about, you know, what is actually underpinning all of this, which I think is just so fascinating.

36:14I mean, Jason, if you look at the kind of the US market more widely, I mean, are you seeing any examples of a Gentic? Is that happening yet, where a thing is being launched by a fintech to do something rather than just summarize information or like give me some insights? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes, with mixed results. I mean, I went to AI4 in Vegas last week. And if I heard the word agentic 20 ,000 times, that'd be an understatement. You're right. You know, I think the other word I heard on top of it, you know, that immediately followed agentic across use cases, right? Whether it was finance, fintech, you know, enterprise workflows, whatever it might be was outcomes, No one really can show that they're getting consistent outcomes that are truly impacting the way that people, either consumer behavior or enterprise behavior.

37:17and we're starting to see that right you know this stochastic nature of gen ai the stochastic nature or i'm going to call it almost like multi-stochastic nature of agents makes it really hard when they're not appropriately guard railed or they don't have right to use bowling bumpers as the analogy right you know it's hard to wrangle them to do truly useful things consistently or at least truly autonomous, high-level, useful things consistently. And I think when we look at, I actually think Robinhood or investing is an interesting use case for this because it's not, maybe you could call it a research agent, but what it really is, it's not going to go and make those investing decisions for you.

38:12It's going to try to give you the information. Now, the question in my mind is, how much of it is going to really impact because of the way that AI sounds really confident when it gives you most answers? It's how much of it is going to impact how people actually go and make those investing decisions when it's, I'm going to put in big air quotes, not financial advice, is sort of yet to be seen. the lasting impact of how this impacts sort of a behavioral finance element, I don't think we know yet. It's so interesting because as a day trader or a casual investor, let's say, what I would be keen to see is like, give me the answer.

38:55Tell me, what is that thing I should buy? How am I going to make the money? Give that to me. And I suppose that is not a thing it can really do. And so, unless it does have access to some of those amazing insights. But it's going to make you feel like you can. Yeah. Is almost the, I'm going to call it the problem. I think we saw this in the US, right? The SEC is having a really hard time coming up with good guidance around AI and good regulations around the role that AI can play in financial advice or investing decisions. Yeah. It's a difficult one. All right. Cool. We're going to move on to the next news item, and this one is from Finextra.

39:38Peach Payments introduces real-time clearance payouts. Peach Payments has introduced real-time clearance RTC payouts for all merchants on this platform, enabling near-instant disbursement funds. Recipients can typically access funds in under 90 seconds, whether topped up via settlement funds or ETF at approximately half the usual transaction fee. The solution includes automated reconciliation, float top-ups, batch payments, and CSV uploads in both API and UI access, reducing manual intervention and easing failed payment handling. The feature is ideal for businesses needing fast distribution like gig platforms, payroll providers, insurers for claims, and those managing refunds, commissions, salaries, and bonuses.

40:18So, Anin, of course, we're going to come to you on this. Maybe just for our global audience, maybe just start by painting a picture of the situation in South Africa for real-time payments and how what you're doing is changing it. Thanks. So for South Africa, it's a very costly payment method. The traditional bank-to-bank payment method for real-time clearing is very costly. It goes anything from 35 Rand up to 150 Rand typically. And each bank can charge what they want. So we've become so accustomed to having that high fees associated to a payment that, you know, it's been high time for us to develop a product and a rail that are not dependent on those interbank real-time clearing rails.

41:07So the benefit of this for us, I think it's been way overdue and the public is so ready and the payees, the payers are so ready for it on both ends. I think with Peaches new payouts model, the costs are obviously minimal. It's less than 1 % typically of what the traditional real-time clearing payment method would cost. So most definitely it changes the landscape significantly in deploying this. And I guess it makes a huge difference. I mean, if I can get paid out as a gig worker in, I think it's like 90 seconds or something, it's incredibly, incredibly fast. That for me is going to make a material difference to my business.

41:49I no longer need to figure out where I'm going to fund my cash flow from if I'm just going to get paid immediately. of course and I think the one big thing if you think about wage workers the traditional ways of paying used to be if you you have to select a product like same day value SDV as they call it and then it comes at a significant cost to the employer to make sure that everyone receives their salaries or their wages at the exact same time albeit two or three in the morning when that interbank exchange has occurred so so with this payment method you no longer have to pay an additional fee to ensure that everybody receives their funds at the same time, albeit within 90 seconds.

42:31So we like to call it near real time, but in actual fact, it's as real time as it gets. So it's definitely very exciting. And the fact that the fees have been cut so significantly is a mammoth step ahead in the right direction for us as an economy and as a payments landscape and architecture in general. It's amazing. Jason, I want to come to you because I think that in the US and certainly globally, payouts, real-time payments, it's just such a huge theme. There's so much innovation going in that to try to cut that time. I mean, I know, for example, if you're a merchant on Amazon, you still have to wait days, I think, before you get paid out.

43:14So are you seeing this just grow as a sector? It's a huge investment theme as well, right? There's lots of VC money pouring into trying to solve this problem. There's a ton of VC money flowing into payments generally, and specifically merchant payouts and platforms that are enabling that have seen a big boost this year, along with some of the other resurgent areas in fintech. I mean, I think it comes to a very simple underlying thesis, which is people either for their daily lives as individuals or for running a business want access to their money as soon as possible. right you know it's a very easy thing the faster you can get to it and the promise of making that money more available and more transparently available is always going to drive you know sort of the future of fintech forward right you know 90 seconds is you know again about as real time as it could possibly get but when you think about you know things like peer-to-peer payments and you know, how you use Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, whatever it might be, you know, there's always going to be the allure of getting you closer and closer to, okay, money moves and I can use it for something.

44:34Yeah, absolutely. But we just recorded a podcast on Stablecoin. That's another thing that everybody's talking about to try to reduce those settlement delays internationally. Chantal, I want to come to you on this one. I mean, are you seeing more and more fintechs in the UK set up to try to solve these problems? Yeah, I think it's hard, isn't it? Sometimes I don't know if I'm a particularly good example of a consumer because I tend to operate with companies that do faster payment services. Everything's very, very quick. If something takes more than half an hour to clear in my bank, I'm panicking because that's not normal to me.

45:12But I know that there are a lot of people that don't have the luxury of being able to operate with those kind of services. I do think instant payouts is, we've got it in the notes here actually, things like insurance, refunds, things like that where companies really like to drag their heels in terms of kind of giving you your money back that was so quick to fly out of your account when you were making the purchase. And there are some really cool things going on in there. I think Eden Red Payment Solutions launched their virtual card for insurance payments probably about a year ago now. sort of instant insurance payouts, which would be a game changer.

45:47Obviously, I'm not really sure how much the insurance companies want to make those payments instantly, but I think they are coming under more pressure from their regulators to move that money a little bit quicker, at least in the UK. So I think there's a huge amount of opportunity. It's great for the consumer. I guess there'll be a bit of a first mover kind of moment to see which of the big retailers, insurers, like who are the people that go, we're going to put our line in the sand and we're going to be the first people to go, yes, we'll give you your money back the minute that you put this request in or something.

46:17Because ultimately, it kind of gives them less time to review, less time to debate or dispute. But it's good for customers. It's such an important point. I mean, you're right, in the UK, faster payments, we all get paid very quickly, that's fine. But the insurance area is such a huge, and you're right, it is still very slow, still very clunky on the claim side. So that's very interesting. Anina, I want to come back to you just to talk about the fintech scene in South Africa more generally. I mean, we have a stat here, I think, that's very interesting. So in 2023, South Africa's fintech market was valued at roughly$7 billion.

46:52It's projected to nearly double by 2033 at about a 7 % CAGA. I mean, what is happening in South Africa that is spurring this phenomenal growth? Is it leapfrogging? What's happening there? because it's remarkable. It most definitely is. And I think it's an amazing time to be alive and in fintech. It's massively exciting. As you rightfully noted, the speed of our evolution, our development and our innovation in this space is insane. And you'll never catch up. As soon as you start something, someone else has already launched it. So I think as fintechs, as a community, we feel a lot of, I wouldn't say pressure, but a lot of...

47:38clarity in terms of stick to your guns, finish what you started, get it out in the market as soon as possible. It doesn't have to be perfect, just get it out. And I think that is something valuable we as a community are doing and that benefits the end consumer and our merchant and our general trade base, especially for e-commerce, but also at point of sale. One would think that point of sales now, you know, you've done all you can, but there's a lot of innovation on that front also coming through quick and fast. So I think it's, if we look back at this phase in terms of South Africa and history and the payments evolution and what's happened, we'll most definitely recognize, I'd say, the past five and the potential next five years is something remarkable that has happened.

48:26I don't think we'll ever equal this speed again, but it is remarkable. But also, very, very important to note, it's not without the support of our South African Reserve Bank and all the players in the industry. It's a collective effort. And it's collective pressure from all ends in pushing that innovation, pushing and supporting the same narrative, joining hands and saying, as an industry, this is the right thing to do. So we've had Vision 2025 from our Reserve Bank as an example, strong supported by all the players in the industry. and collectively they've consulted and collectively we've moved forward in getting these, I almost want to say, groundbreaking and revolutionary products out there to benefit our economy and our consumers.

49:10Yeah, it's amazing. And I think we've seen how in other countries, you know, getting the payment rail right and modernized is just so important to, you know, also economic growth. You look at countries like India and Brazil, for example, it's just staggering. Like in Brazil, you look at New Bank's valuation, it's just incredible. It's like upwards and to the right constantly. So, you know, it's amazing to see and want to watch how things go. Great. On that note, we're just going to take a quick pause here and back shortly.

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50:07Okay, now for a quick look at one more newsworthy story this week that we don't have time to cover in full, but we think you will find just as interesting. And this one is from Vinextra. Starling extends business banking suite with Ember Acquisition. Starling Bank has agreed to acquire Ember, a UK-based accounting and tax software provider for under 10 million pounds. Ember's tools, including bookkeeping, invoicing, and tax compliance, will be fully integrated into Starling's business banking app by the end of 2025 to support small businesses ahead of the UK's making tax digital mandate in April 2026.

50:38Starling currently serves around 500 ,000 small and medium sized enterprises. The integration aims to streamline tax reporting and financial management for sole traders, landlords, and other impacted users. Ember's platform previously available to customers of HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and Revolut will become exclusive to Starling Bank customers starting in 2026. This is Starling's first acquisition since its purchase of fleet mortgages in 2021, signaling its continued approach as a natural fintech consolidator to enrich its SME offering and further differentiate itself. One thing that's interesting about this is at 11FS, we see that globally, the SME banking market is growing massively.

51:19Anything associated with accounting tools or expense management, virtual cards, you know, like tax sweeping, tax management are just such incredible wedges to drive into a market. And you see a lot of these fintechs really, really pushing and driving to become a bank. And so I think it's great to see Starling say that, okay, we need to expand our suite of services in order to expand our moat and expand the revenue lines that we can get. I think on the other side, on the flip side of this, I'm kind of surprised that in some ways they've waited so long. I mean, I think Starling is a challenger bank.

51:51I think like one of the stories about them in some ways is that the pace of innovation hasn't kept up with Monzo and Revolut and some of those features that are coming out there. So it's a great thing, but to be its first acquisition since 2021, you know, maybe it's a little bit slow. So I think there's something interesting there as well. Okay, and finally, now time for something a little bit lighter to finish this week's new show. And this one is also from Finextra. Zopa marketing stunt invites consumers to bite into biscuit. I think that is the weirdest headline I've ever had to read out in the show, I have to say.

52:25Zopa Bank has conducted an eye-catching marketing campaign by driving a giant box of 10 ,240 biscuits through central London. The number of biscuits are equivalent in value to the£256 customers can earn in a year from cashback and interest by switching to Zopa's biscuit account. Launched publicly in June 2025 after a beta phase, the account has already attracted around 100 ,000 customers. And actually, I remember interviewing someone from Zopa just as it was launched and talking about biscuits. It was quite a cool conversation. Benefits include 2 % cashback on bills, 2 % interest on balances, and 7.1 % AER on deposits up to£300 monthly.

53:10So what does everyone think about this? I'm very disappointed they didn't seem to be giving out free biscuits. They must have been giving out free biscuits. Chantal, what do you think about it? Did you see this truck going through central London? I didn't, no. It's such a shame because I think the photo they've got on the article is they've parked it right outside Santander, right? Because they've timed this to go out with the closure of Santander's 123 account, which was previously one of the best savings accounts that you could get. So great visual. If you do it just for that photo, then I think then I totally understand it's harder to pull off a PR stunt than many people think.

53:45But I think very fun. And I think what an amazing slew of benefits. Part of me wonders how long they'll be able to keep that up for. It must be an introductory offer. Yeah. But you never know. I don't want to say that if it's not true. But I think really fun. And we don't get enough stunts in PR. I remember we did one with Wise where we brewed a beer to match the average exchange rate for different countries. and then sent it out to journalists. And one of them exploded in a journalist's kitchen. Oh my God. So that was a really good day for me. But these things are hard to execute. So I always love to see a stunt.

54:26It's a good effort. You should always try and do them if you can. Speaking of which, just opening it up to the floor, what is the strangest or most out there fintech campaign, or banking in general, any of you have ever seen? Any ideas? I mean, I'm not personally watching TV all the time, so I don't know. I'm trying to think of good gorilla ones that I've seen out in the world. I actually don't know that the TV-centered ones are really the best stunts. The stunts are the ones that happen and then go viral because of it. Yeah. It's going to take a second to come up with something good. Well, there's Snoop Dogg and Klarna, right?

55:07The Snoop Dogg one's a classic. It's harder to do them these days because there's so much risk in getting it wrong. But I think if I can toot my old horn, I think the wise, nothing to hide, kind of stripping down the founders and sending them through the streets to talk about the lack of fees, FX kind of stuff, that was always good fun. But again, we're talking 10 years ago now. What, literally stripping them down? Yeah. Have you not seen it, David? We'll have to send it to you. That's amazing. I didn't know about that. So what, like completely naked, almost naked? Like what's the line here? Not completely, no.

55:40No, no, had to be PR-able. But we're talking underwear. And I think there was a couple of hundred people. I can't take credit for this. It was before I joined. But yeah, sort of running down Wall Street, nothing to hide, no FX fees, full transparency. You know, that was transfer-wise, right? Before we came wise. But yeah, good fun. I don't think we'd get away with doing that today, to be honest. No, probably not. But that's a very, very cool one. All right. And on that note, that wraps up today's FinTech Insider News. Thank you so much to today's guests. And where can people find out a little bit more about you and your companies?

56:15Anin? You guys can go on to peachpayments.com and you can find all our information there. You're welcome to reach out. Amazing. And Jason? You can go to cbinsights.com to find out more about CB Insights and all of our offerings. And then if you want to keep up to date on the latest insights going on in the startup world across a very broad set of topics, including fintech. I'm very active posting on LinkedIn. So you can follow me there. Amazing. And Chantal? Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn at Chantal Swagston. And if you want to learn a little bit more about The Herd and what we're doing to improve gender diversity in fintech media, you can find us on the-herd.co.uk.

56:55Amazing. Very cool. And as for me, you can find me on LinkedIn. And thank you so much for listening to today's Fintech Insider. 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 what you've heard, why not share the podcast with a colleague or friend? As always, if you want to join the conversation, find us on social media. Just search for 11FS, Fintech Insider, or email podcasts at 11FS.com. Thanks very much, and goodbye.

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