435. News: Is now a good time to launch a challenger bank?

Sarah Kocianski and Ross Gallagher are joined by some great guests to talk about some of the most interesting stories of the last 7 days, including: Vivid Money launches digital banking services in Germany; the pandemic savings surge forces Goldman to shut Marcus to new UK clients; and Islamic finance startup Wahed closes $25M funding round to grow their Saudi Arabia hub.

Our expert hosts, Sarah and Ross, are joined by some great guests to talk about the most notable fintech, financial services and banking news from the past week. This week's guests include:

• Sanjay Gupta VP and Global Head of Products and Corporate Development - Mitek US
• Rachael Pollard, Chief Growth Officer at Starling
• Anti-Jussi Suominen, CEO of Holvi

We cover the following stories from the fintech and financial services space:

• Is now a good time to start a challenger bank? As Vivid Money launches in Germany and we hear from their co-founder Alexander Emeshev to give us his perspective
• Marcus shuts to new UK clients
• Fintech in the MENA region is hotting up as islamic finance start up Wahed raises $25m to grow it’s Saudi Arabia hub - and we hear from their Chief Product Officer Kareem Tabaa to learn more
• Onfido, Deloitte and Evernym Prove that Re-usable Digital Identity is Market-Ready with the FCA Regulatory Sandbox - and we hear from Onfido CEO Hussayn Kussai to tell us more
• Mastercard, Axis Bank and Worldline unveil new payments solution in India
• Holidaymakers need to think like futures traders

This podcast is brought to you by Mitek (NASDAQ: MITK). Mitek is a global leader in mobile capture and digital identity verification solutions built on the latest advancements in computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Mitek’s identity verification solutions enable an enterprise to verify a user’s identity during a digital transaction, which assists businesses operating in highly regulated markets to reduce financial risk and meet regulatory requirements while increasing revenue from digital channels. Financial services, marketplaces and other organizations around the world use Mitek to reduce friction creating the digital experiences their customers expect. Mobile Deposit® and Mobile Verify® are used by millions of consumers for check deposit, new account opening and more. The company is based in San Diego with offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris and St Petersburg. Learn more at www.miteksystems.com.

This podcast is also brought to you by Equinix. Equinix is the world's largest data center & colocation provider, enabling fastest application performance, lowest latency and a digital ecosystem for financial services. Its platform of 200+ data centres worldwide protects, connects and empowers the mission-critical infrastructure for over 10,000 businesses.

This podcast is also brought to you by Salesforce. Right now, business leaders are re-thinking, re-assessing and re-purposing business as usual to deal with this new crisis. It’s a global conversation Salesforce is having called Leading Through Change. And it’s all about businesses relying on each other to achieve one simple goal: Help. Learn more at salesforce.com

Small business financial services are only 1% finished. Our latest research examines the Jobs to be Done and cultural insights on what US business owners need, and the digital services that will help them meet their goals. Download the research for free by heading to bit.ly/digitalsmb.

Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. Hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David Brear, Simon Taylor, Jason Bates, Leda Glyptis and Sarah Kocianski and joined by a range of brilliant guests, we cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive into subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking.

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Special Guests: Alexander Emeshev, Antti-Jussi Suominen, Husayn Kassai, Kareem Tabbaa, Rachael Pollard, and Sanjay Gupta.