999. News: Plaid pays JP Morgan, HALA's record breaking raise, and Thunes speeds up Saudi payments

31:14before we get back to the news we've got a quick favor to ask fintech insider is about to hit a huge milestone, our 1000th episode dropping this Thursday. To celebrate, we'd love to hear from you. What's been your favorite FinTech Insider moment so far? You can share it with us by emailing podcast at learnfest.com or by using the link in the show notes. And now back to the news. Okay, our next story is taken from FinTech Finance News, and that is Anthemis and Cambridge AI Venture Partners launched Common AI, a strategic collaboration to supercharge the UK and European AI market. Anthemis and Cambridge AI Venture Partners, CAIVP, it's quite a long acronym, have launched Common AI, a first of its kind engineering computing platform paired with a dedicated investment fund.

32:00The initiative is designed to transform the AI landscape in the UK and Europe, removing common bottlenecks in AI for early stage startups and enterprises, access to compute, IP and technical expertise. The initiative combines a non-profit engineering organization, Common AI CIC, developing shared AI international property, Common AI Compute Limited, providing affordable GPU compute access, as well as access to a digital commons repository of foundational AI resources. For fintech companies, this means lower barriers to innovation and faster deployment of AI solutions, including in regulated sectors, such as financial services.

32:36May, I'm going to come to you first. I mean, full disclosure, I'm absolutely not as expert in AI as I definitely should be. There were quite a lot of things in that intro that I'm not sure I fully understood. For our listeners, maybe, who are not AI experts, can you talk us through, yeah, what is the real thing driving this? What is it you're hoping to accomplish? It sounds very exciting. Yeah. Yeah, it is really exciting. Something that we've been working on in stealth mode. Really excited that we've announced it. And AI is super topical at the moment, in the context especially of what's been going on this week with Trump coming to the UK.

33:14So, I mean, to your question, what's the thinking behind this? Let's take a step back and think about where the UK and Europe is. So the big picture is that, you know, the US is outspending everybody in AI. It's absolutely unbelievable the amount of resources, capital, talent, infrastructure that they have. And it just doesn't appear sustainable or that, you know, anyone else can kind of catch up with them. On the other hand, with China, they're acting in a very coordinated way. They're very coordinated in amongst the system there, but arguably in a less transparent way. So you've basically got, you know, us in the middle, literally between the US and China.

34:10And really, we, the UK and Europe, need to come up with a viable alternative if we are to compete effectively with them. But most importantly, which is really topical, is how do we then do it and in a way that protects and preserves our technological sovereignty, which is a term that's been bandied about a lot by Peter Carl when he was Secretary of State for Decent and now is Business and Trade. So essentially, you know, what we've been trying to do is provide a solution to that. And we've built the Common AI Platform, which very much aligns to the UK industrial strategy. And essentially, we're doing it in a really collaborative way.

34:57So exactly how are we going to do this? As you said at the beginning, you reeled off all of the different names. and I know it does sound quite confusing, but at the heart of this, on the platform, we have three different pillars. So the first pillar is the Common AI CIC. The CIC is a community interest company, which creates shared IP, know-how, but most importantly, brings together an ecosystem of what we call members to the platform. And it's a really broad church of members. We're trying to make this as collaborative and as inclusive as possible. So it's a broad church in the sense that it includes startups, academics, researchers, but also SMEs and large institutions as well.

35:46The second pillar is the compute business, Common AI Compute Co., which is what you referred to at the beginning, which is really just to provide our members affordable access to compute power, which is really at the moment a real scarce resource if you think about NVIDIA chips and data centers. And the third pillar is the investment management partnerships. So we as co-founders, Anthemus, we're partnering with the Common AI Platform to bring, as an investment manager, capital to the AI startups to help fund them at scale. And those three parts, we think, working together in tandem in a collaborative and inclusive way, we think will lower the barriers, provide our members with all of the essential toolkit that they need to compete effectively with the big techs.

36:41And we kind of think about it as if we provide them with all of the toolkit, these startups can almost act like robo-exoskeletons to augment their capability that they almost become like virtual big techs. I love the idea of an exoskeleton. Who wouldn't want an exoskeleton? and that sounds great. Yeah, I guess I'd love to understand who are the fintechs that you would ideally love to listen to this to and reach out? Who is it that you think will most benefit from what it is you're building? Yeah, sure. I mean, it's broader actually than fintech. I know we have the heritage of being fintech investors, but actually, if you think about AI, AI, in my view, is in a sector.

37:22It's something that enables different verticals of which one is fintech, but AI should be the enabler for other sectors, be it healthcare, be it energy, defence or dual use. So this platform should appeal to all startups operating within those verticals and it should be about enabling them in the most efficient way. Yeah, absolutely. Ahmad, can you get your perspective? How interesting is it to see an investment, an investor and an AI platform teaming up in this way? Well, I think this matters for, if I want to go back to Maypoint, which is basically if we look at startups, okay. So basically this matters because for startups, it's reducing the cost and the friction.

38:19If you look at it, compute resources such as cloud infrastructure, GPUs, okay. They are expensive and accessing them reliably can be a barrier for early AI startups. So shared infrastructures help to reduce capital and operational costs. If you look at it from another perspective, which is the time factor and everyone want to reduce the time to go to market, right? So it's a faster time to market because what you have, you have shared resourcing, you have engineering help, monitoring, the time between the ideation and prototype deployment, it helps to shrink, right? So less duplications of effort, startup teams do not have to build the genetic infrastructure.

39:16So it's allowing focus more and more in domain and in specific innovations. So yeah, I think it's great to see this happen. Dave, obviously you're in a, I could describe Foundry OS as a startup, I don't know, but you are in a sort of in build mode, right? So can you sort of see how this sort of offering could help? Absolutely. And particularly in the fintech space, because one of the big challenges is, you know, you look at what the big tech providers, the cloud providers are offering from an AI perspective. It's very generic and it's very open, which is very difficult in a regulated space. You have to be very private about your data.

39:59You have to be taking the very expensive offerings to be able to lock your world away that just isn't affordable to the startups. It's okay if you're a massive bank and you can build your own data center and your own computer and those things. Trying to do that in the cloud is really expensive, really hard. And I think it's a barrier to a lot of regulated startups to actually really innovate in AI because of the limitations of what the big tech providers are giving. You can't start with the easy, cheap options in there if it's regulated data and it's customer data in the requirements of what comes from people like the FCA.

40:45So things like this, I think, as initiatives will really help. I know it's broad and for me, AI is utility now. It's there for everyone and every industry, but particularly in the financial services space, I think this is quite an important big win for particularly startup stage people to be able to innovate and do some really different things. And much as, you know, we at Foundry OS, we rely on the big tech providers for our cloud infrastructure and things like that. But you don't want to be locking everything into that world and actually having options to take best of breed. You know, 11FS, we've always talked about, you know, using, you know, schools of fish from a technology perspective to take the best of breed capability rather than big whales.

41:43And I think at the moment, you know, some of the tech, particularly in the AI space, you're looking at big whales for these things and it just doesn't help you in the boat. But this is great. Thank you. Thank you both. I know one of the other kind of key components of what you're doing is obviously there's a sort of dedicated fund for sort of high assurance AI, I suppose. Does that relate to kind of the points that Dave was making around like those greater regulatory requirements? How will that help? Absolutely. I'm glad Dave raised it. Because, yes, because we've historically been fintech investors, we see how hard it is.

42:20It's way harder, I think, for a startup to develop in a regulated environment. And also speaking to, you know, our strategic LPs, who in large part are banks or insurers, taking an AI model and making it compliant from a regulatory perspective is really hard because you have to make sure that what that AI model is generating is accurate, auditable, and explainable, and has very little by way of hallucinations. So the funds that we are going to raise, the high assurance theme is effectively to address that. And that use case is relevant in financial services, but it can also be relevant for any other regulated industry.

43:13And the way that we sort of liken it is, you know, it's fine if an AIM model can suggest and buy and send you a shirt that they think you may like but you don't like, that's fine. But if a medical model diagnoses somebody incorrectly and prescribes the wrong kind of medication, or a process for medical treatment, then that's a failure, actually. And that's the same for defence, but also for financial services as well. So the High Assurance Fund is really just to find startups that can help address this issue. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of that difficult paradox, right, where I think some of the sectors which have the greatest potential, AI could have the greatest potential impact on customers' lives SecHealth, financial services also have the greatest potential downfalls if it's poorly executed.

44:13So this sounds critical to getting it right. So, yeah, really excited to see what you guys do. And it's also about AI safety, right, and doing things in an ethical way. The idea is that we also provide transparency around that. And, you know, when we talked about the broad church of members, we also want to be inclusive of regulators and make sure that what we develop is done in a transparent way and we get buy-in from the regulators at the very outset. So we don't foot fault unnecessarily. I'm a big fan of hallucinations in AI personally, but obviously not in a regulated world. I think there's certainly industries and certainly some of the research that's been done around things like alien thinking and things like that to actually get AI outside of the way we think as humans can add some real value to some of the innovation that we want to do across the world, but certainly not when you're trying to, you know, live up to consumer duty and the pricing models that you've given to people through an AI model and things like that, it's certainly not a good thing.

45:16Yeah. Yes, yes. And I think honestly, one of some of the potential challenges or things to watch after this, I think number one is on top of that is the intellectual property, ownership and licensing, right? Like how will a shared IP be governed? Who owns it? Who owns the improvements? And what licensing terms applies? And another thing maybe to watch is how this can help between the competition among the startups. Like if resources are shared, definitely there is going to be a potential for conflicts like two startups competing in the same niche, but using the same shared model or data. And back to Dave's point, I think the control and the governance is one of the key areas that can be a potential channel.

46:12And it must be a thing to watch because who's going to be setting the standards and who maintains this shared compute infrastructures, ensure uptime, security, compliance, and so on, right? Like it's a very interesting area, but I think those are potential challenges and things to watch. Like need to keep an eye on them to make sure that none of these or all these elements, all these points are happening in the right time and as they should happen. Yeah, it's a great point, Ahmed. And we spend a lot of time thinking about that. And that's why the platform, one of the key pillars, the first pillar is structured as a CIC, a community interest company, and it's structured in a way that is not for profit.

47:06And so the neutral governance structure of it is to benefit the community. so we're not a government, we're not a for-profit company. The idea is that that neutral governance helps to be able to arbitrate between all of the different members on the platform and the idea is I think that we want to share what's non-secret source within the confines of the platform and the idea is that we level everyone up to a certain point so that we level people up more quickly, more efficiently, using best practice, but the bits that are secret sauce or the data that's private, that element, which is pretty much if you think about what these startups are raising for, is really like 20 % of what they are spending their money more.

48:04So actually this way, if we can invert it and allow them to spend less on the foundational aspects but devote 80 % of what they're raising on what secret source, then that's going to be a way efficient way for everyone to scale up. And the idea is that we're going to time embargo certain aspects of the IP and then release it out beyond that. But we allow the members to be able to use the relevant IP within a time embargoed environment. Yeah, all of that makes a ton of sense. And I think just, as you say, like some really important and well-intentioned sort of principles there and just really excited to see how this plays out as you guys roll this out.

48:45I'm sure we'll be coming back to kind of maybe hopefully talk through some of the evolutions as this goes through. But, okay, I'm going to move us on to our next story. I'm sure we absolutely could talk about AI or show. But our next story comes from Tech Africa, and that is Hala secures$157 million in landmark Series B among largest fintech rounds in the Middle East. Hala, a Saudi fintech focused on embedded financial services for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, MSMEs or MSMBs, if you prefer to say businesses, has raised$157 million in a Series B funding round, one of the largest fintech rounds in the Middle East.

49:24The round was led by the Rise Fund, TPG and Sanibel Investments, which is a PIF-owned fund. Funds will be used to strengthen Hala's position in the Saudi market and expand its embedded financial services and lending products aimed at MSMEs and freelancers. Hala currently serves over 142 ,000 businesses and processes more than US$8 billion in annual transactions. Hala's growth is aligned with Saudi Vision 2030, particularly the goal of increasing SMEs' contribution to GDP, supporting economic diversification and digital transformation. Ahmad, again, probably would make more sense to come to you first on this one.

50:00That is a chunky piece of money. Are they the next Middle East giant? I mean, there's kind of quite a lot of competition for that crown now, right? But this is pretty big. Yeah, like what happened? We slept one day, we woke up another day and with a Saudi authentic and Series B raising countries at$57 million. That's really amazing. And being in this market from 2017, which is, I know Hela for, and I know the management team, I know all of them. Since the last five, six years, I had a direct interaction with Hela. And I think what they are presenting to the market is amazing. Because if we take a step back and look at most of the markets, not only Saudi, who's the most underbanked, not underbanked, who's the most, I would say, neglected type or version of the market is SMEs, right?

50:53Because like if they go to a bank, they are not well treated like huge firms. Okay, and so HALA solved this problem and they've been focusing on serving SMEs, small and medium businesses, which is really amazing. Okay, which is, wow, they are saving more than 142 ,000 businesses, as you stated, Kate, with more than, I think,$80 plus billion of annual transactions. So what they have done, if we take a step back and how HALA started, okay. They started with the raise of all the e-wallets, EMI license, okay. When everyone was competing and wanted to create a customer wallet, okay. They said, you know what, let's differentiate ourselves.

51:43Let's create an SMU or a B2B wallet, okay. So they created an e-wallet, EMI license, electric under the electric money institution license which in Saudi that's the top uh that that's the top license under a bank license directly one step under the bank license directly okay and they created a pos machine for their own they linked this pos machine with the wallet you go to a merchant that's using ala pos you buy from them and the money will be will appear directly on their machine on the wallet sorry the smu wallet so how cool was that right okay back to your question kate so could hala be the next regional fintech trade definitely yes however i think three things that they are focusing on that's going to make them the regional another regional fintech trade okay the distribution locked into daily merchant flows which is the pos the invoicing the payouts payroll bill pays etc okay and there is priced working capital lending on top of those flows okay so data advantage underwriting it offers a lot okay and lastly is i think the regulatory and bank partnerships which is the partnership they are doing with the banks whether it's their uh uh what is their custodian bank account or other partnerships between them and the banks okay which would then allow them to access more funding and do more collections and avail more acceptance for your LSC.

53:11So the financing size plus the investor mix suggests the belief that Helic can become the SME operating system in KSA, not only the next regional fintech trend because they literally reshaping the market in KSA when it comes to how SME is being served. And I think they're going to expand regionally. That's 100%. I think that's going to happen. Okay, and if we look on how this race compares in MENA. Okay, so raising$157 million at Series B in MENA region is really exceptional. Because most, let's call it 150 plus million rounds have been larger stage, like Tabby for example. They raise the same amount of money but at Series A, Series E, sorry.

54:01So it puts HALA among the top fintech checks in the region for this year and signal heavier made growth capital rotating area for the B2B infrastructure. So yeah, we are so excited to see what's next, how they're going to use this$150 million to expand into more markets and launch more products inside their ecosystem. them and I think that's how they can use the money because I know in fact because of my relationship with Hala I know in fact how they can use this money and what's the product, the new products they are launching, I'm not sure. You have to tell us you can't tease us like that Well that was a fresh news from yesterday's money 2020, my discussion with them Excellent, I love an exclusive But I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it I'm going to leave this for them Give me some clues I can guess, I can guess.

55:02No, it's super exciting. May, how impressed are you by this race? As Ahmed said, some pretty phenomenal numbers, especially at Series B, right? It's really astonishing if you kind of think about what the average Series B is. You know, 157 to a race is really phenomenal. But like Ahmed, I'm a big fan of the SME market. I think it's massively underserved. underrated and they are the lifeblood of any economy. So anyone who serves it well is going to turbocharge that country's economy and it's really great to see that. I see a lot of parallels with that with Tide, one of our most successful investments here in the UK, where they really democratized access, I think, for the SMEs.

55:55It made it faster and easier to grow your company as an SME. And the way that Tide grew really quickly is as a platform, it allowed it to bolt on lots of different products through partnership rather than developing them in-house. And that It allowed, I think, firstly to develop very quickly, grow itself very quickly, but also to ensure that it was almost like the financial control center for the customer, the SME customer, because it really was like a one-stop shop, right? You could put your deposits there, you could get a loan, you could get insurance, you could do a whole bunch of other things.

56:40And we see that the SME market is super exciting. So you see Monzo and Revolut and Starling all going into that because they can see what an amazing sector it is to enter. Yeah, I think one of the components of this that I was most excited by when I was looking through what Hala currently offer, you can see that they are already, as you say, partnering. And it's exciting. They've got a clearly very well integrated Buy Now Pay Later offering with Tamara. So we're now obviously another huge success story within KSA. I don't think we've been out of time to cover the news today, but they've also just announced an enormous financing package that they've got with Goldman Sachs, Citi, kind of coming, I think,$2.4 billion worth of financing to help them roll out their buy now, pay later offerings as well.

57:26So it's a super exciting time when we've got not just one Saudi FinTech being successful, but sort of giants starting to come together to kind of really have an even greater impact for customers. So, Dave, do you share my excitement? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think what HALA are doing is not KSO specific. They can take this very broad and they can really go across not just the region, but out and there's markets that are massively underserved in places like Pakistan or into Africa and things like that, that they can repeat what they've done. And I can see why, I would imagine that's where a lot of that money is pointed out is want to go out and expand beyond the kingdom and get much broader in what they're doing because they can repeat this very easily.

58:15Just cough, Ahmed, if you think that's part of the plan. Luke, as well, if you think like, if you think like, if you look at the Samiz, is like it makes you question one thing seeing is seeing this this huge praise of of of series b and how Allah is developing in the market it make you just like ask one questions right are banks failing this segment or start up just faster right and personally I think it's both okay but traditional banks optimize for larger ticket ticket for larger ticket um

58:57and so on. While startups win, how they win, how Hala is winning, embedding financial tools into daily worker workflows such as POS invoicing, etc, etc payouts, they lower the CAC and pricing risk from real cash flow data. So I think that's a key success factor for HALA and if you look why investors like this model and I think one of the key things that they raise this money and investors like this okay because number one it fits with the vision 2030 which is policy to push digitize SMEs they want a digital one of a part from the vision 2030 is to digitize everything related to assemblies okay because as I said the part that's still not digital in the market is this part is still related to smes okay so they are pushing so companies like hala or hala especially hala okay because honestly i don't see anyone anyone at this stage level offering the same level of the service that hala is offering so so the policy which digitize smes expand the credit supplies right and number two is a data advantage so owning transaction and payout data improves the underwriting and collections versus a pure play lenders.

1:00:22Okay, so they know the day-to-day transactions that the SMEs are doing, which improves a lot by underwritings and collections, right? You know how much they are spending, you know how much they are income. You have all the data, you don't need to rely on any documents they submit. You have the data from the POS, they are from the POS, right? Okay. And I think one of the key reasons as well, the local mode, like licensing, bank ties and KSA specific product operations, like all of those made HALA and presented it as a key fintech in KSA that I'm sure that soon we're going to see it expanding to other regions.

1:01:10and that's why they gained the trust of the investors to raise this amount of money. Yeah, no, I mean, again, I'm sure we could talk about the SME space in KSA and globally, again, for a whole show. We have done probably, but I mean, yeah, just kudos again to the team at Hala for the raise. I think, as everyone has said, super exciting to see what they do next. I'm personally, as you've mentioned, Ahmed, like they've had some really great success today, I think kind of creating those connected point of sale data to kind of lending products, I think, focused as far as I can see on a slightly smaller ticket size, whereas I think some of the blurb around this raise suggests they might be looking to move more into kind of larger lending volumes to kind of really support business growth, not just sort of funding products, things like that.

1:01:55So I think that'll be really interesting to see if they can convey that success into the risk management or that sort of side. Anyway, we sadly have to take a quick pause here. We'll be back shortly.

1:02:14Okay, now for a quick look at one more newsworthy story this week that we don't have time to cover and fill, but we think you'll find just as interesting. Fintech startup Chest set to launch a new pension app that turns savings from everyday spending into future retirement funds. It's Pensions Awareness Week here in the UK, a timely reminder of how important it is to engage with our future finances. Thankfully, a growing number of fintechs are stepping up to ease the pension pressure and make planning for retirement simpler, smarter and more accessible. Chess is a UK fintech startup launching a pension app aimed primarily at Gen Z and millennials.

1:02:48It lets users turn cash back from everyday spending plus automated savings into pension contributions. Research commissioned by Chess found many under 45s feel they can't afford pension contributions because of pressing short-term expenses. and many are anxious or uncertain about their retirement prospects. Gosh, I feel seen. Chess Modeling suggests that small consistent savings, for example,£30 a month from cashback loyalty rewards could translate to substantial extra nest egg by retirement. To tell us more about the launch, we have a voice note from their CEO, Ali Adam. Hey everyone, it's great to be on the podcast.

1:03:26My name's Ali and my story is that I ignored my pension for over a decade and was completely shocked how little that I'd saved. So that's why we founded Chess and that's to help young people not make the same mistakes that we did. The key problem is that paying 8 % into a workplace pension, which is the default contribution, is nowhere near enough for most people. But even though many millennials and Gen Z want to save more into their pensions, the high cost of living with rent bills and basic living costs eating up their paychecks is really tough. So at Chess we're building a new pension app for the younger generations to help them save more, making pension saving more accessible, connected to daily spending habits, hopefully to make it a little more fun.

1:04:11Users will be able to earn cash back with leading brands and make automated savings through open banking. Our whole ethos here is to help them build their pension without sacrificing today. and this is all tracked through their chess score which is like a credit score for their pension yeah i'm i'm really excited to see this in more detail when it launches i have actually joined the wait list for full disclosure i just really want to have a nosy around when it launches i think all around the world we have an impending later life crisis where people are living longer but also holding far more individual responsibility for building their own retirement reserves as like those generous defined benefit type schemes of the past or would disappear.

1:04:51So we know objectively, I know I've heard firsthand from customers that getting people to start saving and investing in their 20s is key to realizing the benefits of compounding. But this approach of trying to make this happen in the background and as just part of your everyday life feels so much more realistic to me. It kind of really feels like if they can make it work, if they can actually execute this, that it could be really, really powerful. We've seen how successful roundups and automations have been in the saving space. So yeah, I'm really hoping that they can nail the execution of this.

1:05:22So best of luck to Ali and the team. Okay, and finally, now time for something a little bit different from the world of business to finish this week's news show. This story comes from Newsround, which for international listeners is an amazing children's news show, but I used to watch a lot when I was not an old person. And that is Real Monopoly Money Revealed by the Royal Mint. The Royal Mint in the UK is releasing a limited edition, a Monopoly-themed 50-pence coin to mark the 90th anniversary of the board game. The coin features iconic Monopoly elements, the Monopoly logo, Scotty Dog, race car, top hat, greenhouses, red hotels, the Monopoly Man, and a community chess card.

1:06:05The coin is not entering general circulation. That's very upsetting to me. It's only available to buy in special collectors' packs. The silver coin starts at£15, while the gold version costs£1 ,730. Ahmad, are you a Monopoly fan? Has Monopoly been a formative part of your life? Like, who didn't try it? I'm not sure that I've ever participated in a Monopoly game that didn't end in tears. well I always use to win if that will help yeah it's bizarre I'm a very competitive person but actually the thing I find really funny is to go into a monopoly game with no intention of winning and just not deploy any strategy and just rampage around the board, buy whatever you like refuse to build, refuse to sell and just play to burn out completely.

1:07:11And every time I play this with my friends who are very competitive and love Monopoly, it just, shout out to my two best friends, Tanya and Oana in particular, who like love Monopoly. It makes them literally like get to the verge of tears because they're just so frustrated by my lack of passion for Monopoly. I heard a story that's actually based on, the genesis of the idea came about through Rockefeller and JP Morgan. and their fight, I guess, for control. And how actually it's a reflection of capitalist society and actually the chance card and the community chess card. You know, those are real things, right?

1:07:51Which, irrespective of your strategy, something can make or break your fortune. So I thought that was quite interesting. So, Kate, are you the team of Scotty Duck or Top Hat or the race car? I quite like the Top Hat, personally. But I know that each person eats their own. Dave, what's your kind of icon token of choice if you're playing? I feel like this will reveal a lot about a person. I don't know if it's still there. The iron was always where I went to. The iron. The iron was always where the fights were when I grew up with my two brothers. Echo that. We had to hide Monopoly though when my grandmother came around because she was a card-carrying communist.

1:08:34So she wouldn't want to see it in the house. Well believe it or not, Cade, sometimes when we used to play just me and my brother, just two of us, and you know how Monopoly takes time. We used to leave the game going for days and days and we carried Monopoly as is and hid it under the bed so the next day it can be as is and so we can continue the game from where we start. It used to take us like two or three days to finish the one single game because it was just the two of us. if I were your brother I'd be going under the bed and taking a few of your red houses away maybe yeah my purpose would move the houses I think May in the fact that I told you that I always win you can know that who was doing that wow been second side of ruining careers with monopoly revelation gosh I mean obviously we don't dispel any kind of investment advice on this show but May what's your take on the the ticket ticket size of a gold version?

1:09:37£1 ,730? Are you going to be rushing to buy one? No, I think it's a little bit excessive. Actually, I didn't know this thing was on. When you talked about it, I found it quite interesting because my little six-year-old has started to lose some teeth. I've been popping some coins under my pillow. And then when you said that there was going to be a 50p coin with a top hat, I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. Until you said it was going to be a grand for the gold. Well, the silver is only£15. So a bargain. £15, yeah. Maybe it's an investment. Maybe in lieu of a pension investment, I should be getting this one.

1:10:15That's a good point. Okay, yeah, that sounds... That's what I'll do. I'll convince myself I don't need to focus on my pension. I'll just buy a gold Monopoly coin instead and hope it all works out. Yeah, yes. And I think that's who they are targeting. And that's the idea behind launching the coin. Like, as May said, that if you want to send something and they are targeting basically, I think they are targeting Gen Z with this. If you want to give something to someone who plays Monopoly instead of giving them like a birthday gift, you know what? Let's digitize it. Let's give them a coin. Let's give them a token and see how this goes.

1:10:55I think that's the idea and that's how they are representing it. And if it's going to become successful, I think that's what they are relying on. Yeah, I mean, it is actually my friend Tanya's birthday this week, who is obsessed with Monopoly. So this is making me just feel really bad that I've not got it as far as a gift, which I clearly should have done. So, damn it, maybe there's time. So reading the notes, I was not aware of this, but apparently new tokens have been issued. so the boot, the wheelbarrow and the thimble not the thimble, I love the thimble have all been retired and been replaced by a Tyrannosaurus Rex a penguin, I can get on board with that and a rubber ducky, does it have to be ducky rather than a duck, I don't know why so final question to round us out if we had to introduce a FinTech themed playing piece, what are we throwing to the mix Dave, what's going to be your new Monopoly token Oh, is it going to be a credit card or your mobile phone, so you've got your app on there or something, I don't know.

1:12:00May? Oh, a tricky one, a token, probably, digitized token or something like that. Oh, I'm trying to work out what that would look like, but I like it. It's got a theory or sort of… Bitcoin symbol. Oh, I don't want to say Bitcoin, but some sort of token. Yeah. Ahmed, what about you? I agree with May. I'll go with that token, definitely. It's kind of hard, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I could come up with like a fintech token, but it'd be quite cool to see like a fintech monopoly board where, you know, you buy different fintechs, you know, which would be the equivalent of Mayfair. I guess it would have to be like a Stripe, right?

1:12:41And then, I don't know, you could have kind of the hierarchy of fintechs going around and you buy, I don't know how you'd group them, pick which ones in which colors but that would be fun maybe someone's probably already done that I suspect that's I'm probably not the first person to have that idea someone somewhere if not maybe we should do it okay that wraps up today's FinTech Insider News thank you so much to today's guests where can people find out a bit more about you and your companies Ahmad they can find more about me on my LinkedIn page okay and more about my company by visiting tunes.com excellent May, what about you?

1:13:20I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on our Anthemus webpage. And there's also now a Common AI webpage. So that's probably the more important one, given the topic of today's conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Go check it out. And Dave, what about you? Yeah, me via LinkedIn. And if you go up Foundry on foundry-os.com, and bigger picture stuff that what we're doing around there at 11fshouldings.com. Brilliant. And as for me, you can find me on LinkedIn as well or drop me an email, kate at learnfs.com. Thank you so much for listening today, Spintech Insider. If you like what you heard, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

1:14:01And 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 or Fintech Insider or email podcasts at learnfs.com. Thanks again. Goodbye. You