Martin Lewis is stumped. His recent post for moneysavingexpert.com on 25 need-to-knows about Brexit saw him a little at sea. On the question of what’s going to happen with mortgage, loans and savings rates, he is holding up his hands. He says, with admirable honesty: “Mortgage, loans and savings rates could, er, rise or fall. This is a really tricky one.” Indeed it is. And there’s a general sense that consumers are having to work things out for themselves, reading Brexit commentators and pundits like never before, whilst keeping a careful eye on their expenditure. However, for the UK’s banks ..read more

KYC, AML, API, SaaS, PISP. In our world of financial technology and Open Banking, we pepper our everyday conversations and presentations with acronyms. In fact, our industry is innovating so fast that we are coining words every ‘day, developing a whole new lexicon to describe the latest ideas, tools and services that we are inventing. And then we realise that our new lexicon is too cumbersome. It’s slowing us down and it needs an acronym. As recently as 2017, when we’re talking about the second Payment Services Directive we would probably go on to explain how the legislation was designed to fa ..read more

Netflix knows me better than I know myself. I’ve no sooner finished Killing Eve when Netflix suggests a Scandi noir I’ve never heard of but looks spot on. How did it know? We know exactly how of course. Netflix collects vast amounts of data from its 100 plus million users and deploys that data to power a recommendation system that influences 80% of the content we watch on the platform. Customer Engagement The data is used to build customer loyalty, drive retention and engage with customers. We feel Netflix is watching out for us, taking our interests into account and anticipating our viewing n ..read more

Strength, stability and security BBC News ran a story recently, interviewing 30 year old Scott Tacchi from Truro, who has spent the past 18 months as a lighthouse engineer, maintaining the 250 lighthouses still in use across the UK. His job takes him to some stunning locations and he has documented not only the challenging technical tasks but some incredible storms and sunsets too. It’s an interesting read and Scott Tacchi has taken some breathtaking photographs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-48339120 After reading the BBC News feature, I found myself thinking about lighthou ..read more

Over 8 million people in the UK are unable to pay off debts or household bills according to the National Audit Office’s most recent report. And this worrying statistic has subsequently generated considerable concern and column inches. However, in terms of the problem of financial distress, the millions of people in actual debt are only the tip of the iceberg. Just this week the FCA published its Financial Lives Survey raising some serious concerns about the number of people in the UK who are not in debt at the moment – but whose finances are so precarious that one minor crisis or unforeseen ex ..read more

Castlight Financial, the Glasgow-based financial capability company, has further strengthened its management team with the appointment of open banking strategist, Neil Cunningham. Neil has a strong track record of new product innovation and the creation of transforma-tive business partnerships within the consumer credit and financial services markets. Most recently as Partnerships Director at Equifax UK, Neil was responsible for an ecosys-tem of over 80 third party partners ranging from fintechs to large consultancies across the credit risk lifecycle. In his new role within Castlight’s open ba ..read more

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.”  This familiar wisdom is attributed to a Chinese proverb, but it’s also a principle at the heart of many international charities working in the developing world as they empower local people to learn new skills and become self-sufficient.  And of course, it’s effectively what we do as parents. We nurture our children through education and by example for around 18 years and then we encourage them to fly the nest and go it alone.  We take exactly the same appro ..read more

The brain makes around 700 new connections each day – every time we do something for the first time or absorb new information, brand new neural pathways are formed. And the more connections we make and continue to use, the more effectively our brain works for us. At Castlight Financial our data scientists and our customers are making connections between our products all the time. Our developers are making leaps between products, developing syntheses of ideas to create new services to meet the ever changing needs of the financial marketplace. And our clients too, are making connections, moving ..read more

More than 6 out of 10 senior HR executives in the UK have seen a rise in financial well-being issues affecting employee mental health and work performance, according to a nationwide study by financial solutions company, MetLife UK. And just this week Insider magazine’s Ken Symon highlighted a troubling figure of £51 billion, which according to a Yorkshire Building Society and Salary Finance report, is lost to the UK’s economy each year in productivity and recruitment expenses as financial pressures make employees unable to finish daily tasks and more likely to change jobs. Financial Wellbeing ..read more

If you’ve given something up for Lent, you’re in the home stretch now and that chocolate Easter egg, glass of wine or can of fizzy stuff is almost within reach. Millions of Christians around the world choose to deny themselves a treat during Lent and use it as a time to remember Christ’s sacrifice. And millions of people with different faiths or no faith equally use Lent to challenge their willpower, lose a few pounds and increasingly – raise money to help better the world around them. You only have to look at UKFundraising’s website to see the range of creative fundraising campaigns which the ..read more