Ep. 3: What are the main open banking use cases? Jas Shah of Bitsul explains payments, lending and adoption

Welcome to the Payments Shed podcast, the weekly podcast that dives into the big topics, trends, and people shaping the worlds of payments, fintech, and business leadership with your two co-hosts, myself, Grant Evans, and Justin Hanna.
Welcome to another episode of the Payments Shed podcast.
We're very lucky today to be joined by Jas Shah, fintech product consultant.
Jas, welcome to the Payments Shed.
Please give us an introduction to yourself.
Thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
My name is Jas Shah.
I'm a fintech product consultant.
I've been in financial services industry for around 17ish years now.
Building products across a whole spectrum of verticals within financial services.
And I'm over the past six or seven years I've just been consulting for FinTech banks, building digital banks, building PFM apps, using open banking, getting deep into payments.
And I also author a newsletter called Fintech: Under the Hood.
Very good.
Someone from product that wants to come on the podcast.
We love it.
We absolutely love it.
And what drew you to financial services originally and I guess what what drew you to product as well and like was that something that was a university link there payments especially everyone sort of falls into it and has a story.
So what's your story in that area?

My story is I'm a computer science grad so very technical anyway.
I did a placement year at a pharmaceutical company.
So for about 12 months I was just doing data analysis on clinical trial data which is actually quite interesting but I can't really talk about it because a big pharmaceutical company and they were triing stuff that people use today and I'm still not talk about it.
And at the time my friends were doing placements at the likes of Sockchen Morgan Stanley Goldman's and this was 2007.
So when I graduated in 2008 or around that time, I was just curious about what my friends were doing.
They were like trading assistants and back office people and I was like, "Oh, how does this all work?"

And I realized that if I'm going to graduate and do something interesting and build some cool stuff, probably do it in an area where there's lots of technical nuance like a broad breadth of stuff that that I could be doing.
And that's how I kind of fell into financial services.
I originally was a developer on a pension fund, a pension fund manager's trading desk.
So I was like building applications.
Engineers would kind of side eye at me because I they were rapid application development which was basically building some code in the back of a spreadsheet and then giving a spreadsheet to a trader to use.
Nice.
Not very secure like you know guardrails are already there.
There's no pretty sure there's still some players operating in that way today.
I'm fairly sure some of the stuff I built is still there.
So I would not be surprised.
Then I realized after after doing it for about a year I was like I don't really want to be coding every day.
And then slowly just I went on I moved to Citi was on their grad program and then from there I was just moving slowly into into product initially as a as an analyst and then doing requirements gathering and basically owning a product of my own there.
You mentioned before around banks and fintech kind of what do you think your lessons are from big banks compared to fintexs?

I learned a lot about how to do things the right way even though it can be slow and painful.
So like looking at implementing proper process when you're building a product not just running in and going oh let's do some research and then oh we should build this.
That that's what I learned from big banks is that they don't just take a hypothesis and then go we're going to build this thing because someone said it's a good idea they'll like they'll kick the tires of it quite thoroughly sometimes too thoroughly I think sometimes they can lean the other way and okay here's a hypothesis here's some research now you have to go on like a project approval meeting and then you have to kind of go to the networking drinks to make sure you curry favor with the people who have got pur strings that's a bit too extreme But the process of okay, here's how to build effectively, here's some guard rails, here's some proper process, like do discovery, then take it into a design sprint, get some approval, all of that stuff.
Like really kicking the tires.
That's that's what I learned.
That's I still use that today even even on like green field fintech projects.
I'm like, right, what are we building?

Why are we building it?

Show me what the requirements look like.
Show me the the data that's backing why we should do this thing.
That's that's the kind of core of stuff that I I use every single day.
Yeah, I think it's quite interesting.
I think a lot of the the bigger especially in the payments world, they know that there's products out there that are driving innovation, but it just takes them too long because of all the the kind of hoops they need to jump through and by time that they're ready to get to to what they need to build, they're already behind it again and not getting to market parity.
Yeah.
The analogy I use maybe overused, some would say, is the you're renovating your house, right?

You, you know, you want to maybe build a gym and you want to add a cinema room.
With banks, it's like the house is already there.
The house has been there for 150 years.
You're trying to retrofit a gym and a cinema room into a house that you still have to live in.
It still has to be fully functional.
Every room needs to function.
And if a single room is non-functional, everyone in the house will kick off.
Whereas a fintech is you've got a plot of land, you've maybe like stripped it back and you can build whatever you want.
In that analogy, you're like, "Right, okay.
Well, there's a lot more restriction on the bank side."
And that's why they move slower.
It's okay, we have to build a cinema room.
We have to like dig into the basement while supporting the floor and it has to be like no noise, no one can be impacted.
And I think when you kind of use simple analogies like that, when you think about it like that, you're like, "Oh, it's obvious."
I'm gonna steal that analogy.
Steal it.
Steal it.
Steal it away.
It away.
But it's it's when you think about it like that, it is obvious that okay, that's why they move slower.
It's it's inevitable.
Yeah.
There's also some chaos with comes to the other side of that of fintech with that blank plot of land where there's no plumbing available, there's no electric work, we'll work it out.
We'll work it out.
You know, that's kind of the mantra, right?

But then there's there's also the oh, we'll work it out and we'll build something and then we'll build something and then, you know, the you know, like local council come over and go, oh, did you did you ask us if you could build this?

You have to take it back out.
Like you know all of the other houses on the street have this kind of window and you've built something that's crazy and actually there are regulations you have to adhere to that I've just thought of that one on the spot so actually there are regulations you need to adhere to and you have to then fintech sometimes get into the challenge where okay okay we have to like fit into the regulation and sometimes it can go the other way where you've built something and now you have to kind of I don't know shave down the edges to make it but do you then feel like fintexs have kind of driven a new way of thinking about product in financial services specifically because those challenges have been too loud, too vocal that they couldn't be ignored anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean the I mean I think the the regulation change in early early 2010s the licensing changes like the growth spurt of challenger banks and then you can you can see it in your traditional banking apps.
They have kind of been the lightning rod to force banks to change even though banks could have done like a transaction feed and real-time balance like it it wasn't that difficult to do really but digital challenges forced banks to do it quicker step up yeah step it up I think they've stepped up to a degree but then I was talking to someone about this recently and you have the CMN IMAX and they they have improved their apps and some of the functionality but They're still not bringing real gamechanging product to market at the speed that the the NEO banks are, right?

And that that's going to be a continual problem because those banks are going to continue to steal share of wallet.
And I've gone from the day-to-day spend on Monzo card, Revolut card, you know, whatever it might be to our joint accounts there now.
Our bills will come out of there now.
Not the mortgage.
I there's like a stigma with the mortgage for some reason.
But most day-to-day bills, you know, and you get those prompts about DDS coming up, DD's changing, like it's just it works so well.
Why wouldn't you use it?

And then that will become a, you know, a tipping point where I go, do you know what?

I'm just going to move the mortgage.
And now that is my sole primary bank in in totality.
Well, yeah.
I mean, what what h what's been the reason that you've slowly shifted to using challengers?

Is it primarily the user experience?

And I guess from your perspective, you know, kind of know how it works behind under the hood so so to speak.
So what's been the primary reason for you switching over now?

It was the functionality.
I think the it was easy to set up a joint account as as an example.
Other banks, you have to go into the branch.
Why do I have to go into the branch to set up a joint account if you can find one?

Well, yeah, but I mean that that was like a ludicrous thing.
I was like, well, I can just do it at the click of a button here.
We're already singular account holders with you.
We want a joint account.
Done.
10 minutes later it was created ported the direct debits across and never never looked back.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I guess the the mortgage what was been the reluctance on the mortgage is it because I guess the new challenges I don't think any of them provide mortgages yet as far as I can remember.
Do you know I think it is actually the mortgage is probably most people's biggest single spend.
And if you've not moved your salary into that because you feel like going to your employer and changing your salary back you don't want any risk of two of the core things in your life.
Your salary landing somewhere and your big mortgage payment where you're going to get in real trouble if you don't pay it right.
So, you have to move less funds or have a recurring suite payment set up for less funds than if you have your mortgage there when you're suddenly putting potentially, you know, thousands of pounds into that account on a on a monthly basis.
So, maybe that's just just me, but it does seem to be a thing that people talk about a lot, salaries and mortgages.
They seem to be the two that get called out.
We trust the banks, but do we trust them enough for our mortgage to be paid in?

It's mad because the protection's the same, right?

Regulation.
The protections are the same.
The perception is is different.
And I guess so your salary and your mortgage comes out of goes in and comes out the same account.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Same with mine.
And I think that is once you move one, you'd be more inclined to move the other.
But I guess we're now in a we're now in a world where I don't think this the main salary account matters to to the customer really.
It matters to the bank because the bank sees like that's the biggest back that's the biggest inflow into the account and they can do things with the account.
Okay, they predict how much balance sheet we've got.
We can lend off that.
But I think once I think from a customer's perspective, people don't care as much around okay this is my I have to take all my pimps out of my salary account.
It's like I put my salary in here.
I sweep 200 there, 300 here, 400 there.
Ideally, that's automated and maybe we'll be in a world in a couple of years with with a gentic financial management where salary goes into one account and it just automatically goes into the right accounts that you want it to go into and then you spend off whatever you spend.
Or you've got some sort of polymorphic card, one card you spend, it just takes it from the right account because it knows how you spend and what what you value, rewards, points, all of that stuff.
And we're moving that way in terms of, you know, one card for multiple accounts and things like that, right?

And and the other thing I would probably, you know, say on top of this is creditwise, there was always a how long have you had your bank account with that bank for?

Most people have been with, you know, a traditional bank for many, many years.
You're like, well, I've got a load of credit linked history by having had that account for 15 years, whereas I might have only had that one for two or three years.
So that's maybe another thing.
Kind of the old school, you've got a relationship with the bank manager.
I'm just going to see my manager at the bank.
I would have no idea if I had I would never have had a manager.
I never will have a manager at the bank, but it's an old school way of thinking is that if you stay with one bank, they're more likely to lend to you than they would to anybody else because you've been there for longer.
So, we could talk about this all day, I'm sure, but you you mentioned obviously when you're talking about your career path, you've obviously been consulting for a few years now.
What brought about that transition for you from employee to consultant and how how have you found that journey over the last few years?

Ironically, it was the the thing that I spoke about in terms of the process.
It's the process that ended up kind of killing my spirit.
I when I was I was at Fidelity, which was my last kind of big permy role.
I was there for three years, I think.
I was managing a couple of folks had a product had there was a development team that I oversaw and I was like right I want to you know I want to do more with this product.
You know actually what we could do is package it up and we could sell it as a Fidelity product externally to other asset managers.
And the what what we've built here will be usable by hedge funds, usable by like smaller asset managements with lower AUM like similar to what BlackRock have done with Aladdin and they did it they did it just after the time that just around that time and I was like well they've done it why can't we do it and our product is a bit more niche and it's focused on fixed income and I just get push back every turn.
No, there's no budget this, you know, D.
I'm like, I've spoken to every fund manager on the floor and they agree.
I've got all the buy in and it's just like, no, your budget's already set for this year.
Yeah.
So, I was like, I'm just going to be doing BAU for a year.
Like wasting a year of my career.
That's what it felt like.
And what were those sort of early days of consulting like then when you did finally make the leap?

They to be honest because it was 20 2019 early 2019 it was quite there was an abundance of of funding for startups so there's no shortage of people building stuff and actually there not being enough product expertise so it was quite fun and I was kind of my pick of interesting projects based on my experience I think it's the recent the downturn in funding that's kind of what led me to do the newsletter to be honest because it was like oh there's downturn of funding there's only so so many people in my network building stuff so I should try and build my like grow my network instead of just you know looking at my network repeatedly I should grow it so that more people you know likely come to me instead of me asking people if they they need help with building some stuff.
Yeah.
How kind of has that then evolved kind of from where it was then with the newsletter to where it is today?

I mean, there's a lot more eyes on it.
So, like I'm quite OCD, so I'll it it takes me I'd say it takes me a full day to write a newsletter across the course of three days.
So, Wednesday Wednesday and then Thursday evenings.
You do a lot of graphics and things as well with your newsletter, don't you?

Yeah.
And they take ages to put together.
I was going to ask that.
And then someone just takes it and reposts it and trims off the credit.
You're like, I talk about this quite a lot.
The the LinkedIn or social media thieves that you know repurpose your content or post your content in the guise of them talking about it but they know that Jas has done like an amazing graphic that they want front and center on their post really and then Jas is like hidden in the ether for as like source jazz sure like right at the very bottom.
Yeah.
It'd be like if you wrote about, oh, you know, Formula 1, this is what's really interesting about Formula 1 D.
And then someone just copied and pasted that into their post and then right at the bottom put, oh, source Justin.
I'm like, you've copied and pasted the entire thing.
It's not a source.
It's it's repurposed in that way to be fair.
I message him some be like pretty sure this is your post from like four months ago, mate.
But yeah, just check that one.
What do you think kind of been the hardest challenge from your perspective?

Getting the getting the newsletter out there.
Building credibility is difficult, right?

And as you just mentioned, there other people also building credibility off off your hard work as kind of as a as a founder and a consultant.
What's been that challenge?

I just think it's it's usually just time and projects.
So, I mean, most of the early credibility is off the back of okay, just building some building some things and then working with the same people as a second or third time after already working with them.
Building a digital bank, let's say, or PFM, Apple, working with the CEO of a lender and helping them scale a lender.
That's how you build lots of credibility kind of behind the scenes.
There's and there's so many people like yourself.
I would not have heard of no offense to to either of you.
I would not have heard of either of you had you not done the newsletter and the podcast, but that's not to say you haven't got decades of experience.
And it's the same with like there's thousands of other people who are as experienced as me probably if not more experienced who aren't doing this stuff and they're experts in the field.
It's just you don't know about them because they're not putting themselves out there.
And I I just saw it as okay, you kind of have to even though like the core of my personality doesn't lend itself to putting myself out there to be honest.
No.
Well, we always say on this, the hardest part is actually starting.
And you know, George was obviously he's he's run off to Australia.
Bless him.
He's really suffering surfing and chilling out there.
But he pushed us to to put our voices out there and put our content out there.
You know, obviously started the newsletter.
We did the podcast at various different places and and now we have this podcast.
But without him pushing us and saying like people we I see people come to you guys in the office like you have all this knowledge you share it here anyway why not be sharing it to a wider audience and just see what happens.
So we do credit him massively with kind of pushing us to to do that in the first place.
LinkedIn is a sales channel that allows you to speak to your ICPs without speaking to your ICPs.
And I think if you see what you what you've done on LinkedIn by telling people what you do and the challenges that they're probably having without trying to knock on their door and really annoy them to sell them something.
So when they do want to buy, you're the person they're coming to.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And it's especially good if you're not the the salesy person, which again I'm not.
I don't you guys don't strike me as the oh, we do this, so can you do you want to do you want help with this and and we can do this and this and this and this and this.
It's like I'm not that person.
I don't think you you guys are.
And it it's like like you said it's a sales channel but it's an easy way of doing sales without doing sales.
I think a big one for us was always like don't talk about your competitors but you know being employed by payments companies.
People respect that more if you actually do talk more broadly about the market and the competition and the innovation like it's a very collaborative industry.
You know financial services broadly has become a lot more collaborative in in recent years.
So someone does something cool, of course talk about it because it helps to drive the status quo and the narrative of we should all be doing this, right?

Yeah.
And you lose credibility if you're not if you're like intentionally not talking about some something that someone's done.
That's cool because it's kind of in similar sort of competitive spaces and like you guys know as well as I do, people move from Visa to Mastercard all the time.
People move from Goldman to JP Morgan and JP Morgans all the time.
People are moving from Monzo to Revolut to Monzo.
Like it's it's such a small it seems like on LinkedIn that oh there's like oh you look at fintech there's like you know 700,000 people as part of this fintech group.
It feels massive but actually it's quite small and you bump into similar people doing you know doing innovative things and it's not talking about it is almost disingenuous.
It's like why are you not talking about it?

It's really weird.
So so interesting.
Well I completely agree.
So we obviously both follow Fintech: Under the Hood.
Really like your stuff and recently certainly I've seen you've been talking about open banking quite a lot and that's because there's a lot of change going on in that space right and a lot of big big news so I want to maybe dive into your take on the current state of play of of open banking where are we at at the moment what the biggest challenges facing open banking in the next couple of years yeah I mean I I think it's obviously I've written about this in some depth I think the challenges I feel like there's more challenges here in the UK which is weird Even though UK has been the kind of Yeah, it's been the poster child.
And then you you go to the Middle East and I've I've been to the Middle East.
I've looked at some of their opening implementations.
They've literally said in white papers, this is basically the UK's implementation with some tweaks with some like with some reviews and obviously moving moving with the times.
How are they commercializing it out there?

They're not really.
This is I mean this the the debate I guess we're they're not commercializing it because I mean particularly in Saudi ambitions are a bit different.
Their ambition is to grow the fintto ecosystem as fast as possible.
Not necessarily worrying about the commercials right now of open banking.
And one way to do that is create, you know, create an open banking framework, create open banking infrastructure.
You can build 10, you know, 10 15 times faster because you don't now have to go to BSF, Riad Bank, Araji Bank and ask them for their data and try and connect with them.
You can connect to lean, you can connect to spare who already in the region, get the data and then create like micro finance platforms or PFM apps.
I think business analytics is an area that I've that that's looks like it's got a lot of white space and innovation.
They wantme growth in the region and I think open banking helps all of those things accelerate at pace and that's really their objective.
I don't think I think maybe they will turn around in 5 years and go oh actually we need to implement some sort of commercial model or the banks will but do we think the biggest issue then in the UK is kind of regulation standards versus commercial adoption of it.
I mean I I think it's for me it's been the the pace of innovation of the protocols themselves and I think that's where the slowdown has been.
I mean, I think pretty much every single product I've worked on since 2019 has used open banking in some form.
Like dig all the digital banks, definitely obviously PFM stuff.
But on the lending side, I think I think people would be surprised how many lenders use open banking to do a quick like source of funds check or like a light touch eligibility without having to do full-on ASP connection.
So for me I think like the adoption is always it's it's going in the right direction but it feels like if you look at the the perception of innovation and the speed of the protocol development it's been like oh it's kind of stagnated.
Well go on LinkedIn click on anyone like open banking influencers profile what they'll be saying is why has VP been so slow?

Why is the so slow for like two years and it has been slow and I think that's part of why there's been a bit of a like perception of a slowdown is because some of the innovation on the rails themselves has been a bit slow.
There's been some flux with OBIe.
Is it OBI?

Not really.
It's open banking limited.
What's it going to be next?

There's still there's still a move to be made and it's like we can't even call it OBI anymore.
So latest numbers today or yesterday I think came out maybe there 15 million active users of open banking monthly numbers for July I think 5.6 6 million variable recurring payments.
But the challenge we talk about with VRP is obviously the commercial CVP.
And yeah, In terms of like you know non- sweeping purposes, right?

And the challenges to direct debit and all the hype that was around that.
I think we're taking a little bit of a step back from that now as well.
We're not obsessing o over VRPs being a challenge to direct debit and looking at their tangible use cases which is a a much better way of looking at VRPs and we'll get a lot more backing from the the sort of financial services market I think.
Yeah, I mean it's it's the same sort of weird discussion that was happening when open banking payments started to take off a bit and it felt like we got open banking in 2018 and then it felt like 2019 2020 people started to talk about PIS versus AIS and it's the same debate there.
Everyone was saying oh it'll never be as good as cards.
It's like no that's not the point.
It's not supposed to be a card killer.
It's it like it has its own use cases and the use cases are probably not booking a flight or a hotel.
Is it easier to say that now though when if you were an investor six years ago and you had a business coming to you with a really nice looking presentation that says, "Hey, we're going to kill Visa and Mastercard.
We've got this product that's going to allow someone to pay us straight away from their bank account into our bank account and save us on change fees and scheme fees."
I think it is easy to say that now, but if in that presentation in the UK, they also showed the journey of what a payment looks like via open banking.
I think the client would have gone, well, I'll put a card out now and tap it on a terminal, and I know end to end that's going to work.
I don't know if customers will use this screen, but I know a c a customer is familiar with a with a contactless card.
So, like the conversion rate, I think if they show those screens, and I think they've had to Mhm.
Would have been lower.
But again, I think like theme payments is a is a bigger pie for open banking.
Like embedded payment links that activate open banking payment flow embedded into an invoice.
Like things like that make more sense to me than going to a checkout, paying via open banking.
So, and I mean in the UK, in India, it's very different.
In Brazil, it's very different.
In actually in lots of places in the Middle East are very different where they've kind of become very accustomed to paying with a QR code.
So that's very different.
US and the UK don't I don't think payments is a card killer.
I don't think anyone who's said it has been saying it with their chest.
Oh, I think they've been saying it to maybe go back to our previous discussion, get some clicks.
Yeah, there's been a couple of interesting news stories and I think, you know, the biggest one out of all of this is probably the data side of things over in the US.
JP Morgan obviously were the the match that lit the flame initially, but I'm not going to point the finger at them because I think this is a broader US way the market works out there is leaning out there from a data point of view.
Subsequently, and whether linked or not, Visa have obviously pulled their open banking product from market in the US.
What what's your take on everything that's happening state side at the moment with open banking?

I think the Visa thing is linked I think Visa pulling their open banking product is linked to that because I think the biggest volume contributor to Visa in the US is JP Morgan.
These conversations probably happen.
I don't know if this conversation has happened but they've probably gone look you know it's not worth you doing this.
You basically we're giving you a load of volume and revenue and then you're going to try and eat that via an open banking product.
That's what and they've probably looked at the economics and gone I don't know per account like a $150 per account connection.
This per data request plus if it's a payment then basically every date request is a payment.
So I think it's 20 cents per per call.
It's like it's they probably looked at it and thought economics don't stack up.
It's not like they're a massive player in open banking in the US anyway.
Versus the likes of like Trustly, MX, Plaid, even AOA, which is bankback backed partly owned by JP Morgan.
So I think on the on the Visa side, I think it was logical they pulled out based on probably economics and just competition.
On the data debate.
I think I'm biased because I'm, you know, I've built open banking stuff here in the UK where it's been explicit that there is no like there is no commercial benefit for the banks.
So, I am definitely coming from an inherently biased place when I say I still don't think there should be in the US.
I see why they're asking for it.
I think the reasons they've put out there aren't, I would say, necessarily fully thought out like the API throttling that could be legitimate.
Like maybe the likes of the open bank aggregates are really throttling JP Morgan's APIs, but also you do need data every single day to support certain types of products.
Like a PFM app is not a PFM app if you only look at it once at the end of the month because you do one data pull of previous month's transactions.
You need to pull every day.
You also there's lots of the PFM apps in the US kind of work a little bit differently.
They're PFM apps and they usually offer credit whereas here like the likes of Plum and a few others, they're like pure data.
Whereas there they're like credit plus data.
And to do the credit side of things, you maybe have to poll a couple of times a day to get real-time transactions.
And then if someone wants to apply for credit, you have to do another poll.
So you might, and if JP Morgan is their main account, you'll be pinging JP Morgan four, five times in one day, but you're still serving the customer in the right way.
You're not aggressively throttling APIs.
You're doing it because it it it's needed to service the product.
I think we're fairly conflicted on this as well because we know we've talked about you know this the scheme lobbying on charges for for schemes and you I work in the payments industry we both do but fundamentally the product that's being provided to businesses to c customers you know everyone talks about how easy Apple pay is and how easy it is to pay by card now and chargeback protection all this stuff like that there needs to be a cost point to that and why does it need to be so very very low because just because it's an established product.
You people see this thing that it should always be heading in in a downward direction.
Well, hang on.
Innovation and product delivery and and what you're providing to the market is getting better.
So, if anything, there's a higher price point for some of that stuff because it's enabling businesses to operate more efficiently.
And I think open banking has to be the same.
And if you're, you know, a bank or issuer that that's benefiting from card payment volume at the moment, you don't want to give away a huge amount of margin or give something away completely for free.
It just makes no sense whatsoever.
And the data side of things, if that's driving better decision, you know, making processes in in lending, whatever it might be, because there's a cost point to that because that's helping the lenders to make decisions faster to issue more money, which then makes them more money.
I just I don't get this debate that that everything has to be for for nothing in financial services, which kind of seems to be a narrative from different parts of the market.
Currently, it's got this sense of entitlement, isn't it?

Where everyone gets to get a really good product, but doesn't have to pay for it.
When you look at visa and mascad interchange fees, that should be what most people from a PIS perspective should be a cost saving.
So you've got change fees, scheme fees, acquiry fees.
When it comes to the AIS side of stuff, it's an incredible product.
You should be charging for it.
Full full stop.
Banks have have invested millions and millions and millions.
Why are they not going to get any ROI?

If I was a businessman and I owned a bank, which I never ever will, and I'd invested into a product, I'm investing into it for a reason, not just to give people the satisfaction that they can go and do AI.
Do do we think open banking is losing momentum from a PIS perspective or is this kind of a natural maturing stage?

That sounded aggressive.
Sorry, Justin.
What are your thoughts on it?

I think I think it's losing some sort of momentum.
When you take away maybe what the HMRC does from a taxpayers perspective for open banking, if we take the numbers off it, it's growing month on month.
So, the momentum is there, maybe just not the growth that people wanted it to be at and that purely comes down to consumer adoption and maybe we're trying to win the wrong brands when it comes to open banking likememes of the world.
The the niche of it is sitting alongside card payments really to to allow more personal purchases of a higher rent transaction value to save the merchant money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in cases where you're very unlikely to go through refunds refund and chargeback processes because you don't want the additional friction and headache.
So the the example I always use is is restaurant payments.
So, I mean, look, it's not cheap to take someone out for for a meal now.
Like, dinner for four is what, £200, £250 minimum.
That kind of like that's the ticket value I'm talking about.
And then when you go to like upper restaurant or restaurants, you're talking five, six, 700 pound sometimes, just even for a dinner for two.
That's the kind of thing where you can take me out for dinner by the way.
I'll do it.
I mean, I do it once a year.
We can get into that later.
I'll do it once a year.
I'll give you some restaurant recommendations.
I won't be taking to those places.
But like places there's situations like that where you you've received the service, you've literally eaten the the product, the product's gone, and if you're not happy with it, you bring it up there and then.
So, there's no there's like really small likelihood of chargeback or refund process.
And actually the user experience because it's more of a service.
It's like you can like okay a customer doesn't have to pull out their card or they've already got their phone.
You maybe get a payment link where they can do it without someone kind of standing there and like when you're ready to pay you just get a payment link to the to the email address that you booked the restaurant with.
Oh, click payment link pay.
I don't have to be like oh put my card here and wait and like oh yeah you're like oh you know I just want to pay and go now.
I want to we've got another booking.
It's like that's perfect.
It's on you.
You can do it at your own pace.
Click the link.
You can add your tip.
There's no Who are the guys that do the really good split payment table service stuff?

They're all around London.
Lemon or someone like that.
Remember what they're called?

Might be Lemonade.
There's there's one that's kind of stuck around.
They've lasted through the the death of the QR code in restaurants because let's be honest, there are a lot that don't work.
They're not switched on anymore.
But these guys are quite prevalent around London.
I'll put it in the show notes afterwards.
Probably named the wrong company, but they were really nice split payment function.
You know, none of that awkwardness.
It's like, what did I have?

I had that drink.
I had that food.
And you could do that with open banking.
Everyone tops the wallet up to total amount.
Done.
You walk away.
Bill's paid off.
You go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Again, like those are the scenarios where you where it would be super valuable.
Again, going to a merchant and paying like paying for a coffee doesn't really make sense.
Just the transaction value doesn't make sense and the journey doesn't make sense.
But that kind of situation where it's service, low likelihood of chargeback or refund and then payments just broadly I think is is the the space.
So alongside obviously the consulting stuff you mentioned around your presence as a creator which is which has definitely worked and hopefully is brought in revenue and new business for you.
Do you think that's the way forward for businesses now from kind of a founder growth perspective to be winning more business?

I I think a great example of this is which is what I thought of on the train here is Alex Chris the PayPal CEO has had this job roll out demand general.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was like it was like a chief of social media or something but it was going to be literally shaping his presence on LinkedIn, Tik Tok, Instagram.
So if they're doing it, if PayPal C and it's I think it was a six figure salary ro it was not it wasn't like 30 40k.
Yeah.
Even for the U like in for the US I think it was 170 180.
Yeah.
We we talked about it when we saw Did you also did you also apply?

We were saying to George at the time we were like you should go and do that like easily.
Yeah.
I think that that for me is a signal that people are people really value like curation of presence understanding your niche what you say online matters and I think like when it comes to product launches it's become it's becoming a thing now where the CEO will do an Apple style presentation I think Vlad the Robin Hood CEO did one like in front of a pool I can't remember where it was wearing like a tan suit looked kind of like time share sales pitch, but he was literally drawing like how how specific products that they're launching will actually work.
Like that's the kind of thing that I do.
And I think more people are starting to lean towards I'm not just going to say, "Oh, we've launched this great product."
I'm going to be like, "We've launched this great product.
Here's who it's for.
Here's how it's going to work.
And here's why."
Like, critique it all you want, but here's why it's going to work.
And I've explained it.
There's no like piffy oneliner.
It's got depth to it.
What then would your core advice be having done it for a few years now to someone that is just starting out?

And it doesn't have to be in that consultant arena, but if you were to pick one core piece of advice, someone starting out creating content, what would it be?

I'm going to steal your advice, which is just get started.
But if I'm not going to steal your advice, it would be just to think about what you're really good at.
And maybe the best way of doing that is just asking some colleagues and being like, if I was going to post something, what do you think I should post?

And like, what do you think I'm good at that people would see, read, and be like, oh, that that's a really unique perspective and it makes a lot of sense.
So, go like go do some discovery with your old colleagues and be like, if I was going to write something, what what do you think I should write?

And they'll give you the input and then you can process it and be like, yeah, lots of that makes sense.
And then pick the one that you actually want to write about because momentum and consistency is key.
If you're writing about something that or you know putting something on LinkedIn that you don't really care about, it's a recipe for disaster because you just you'll be writing every few weeks and being like I don't even want to say any of this stuff.
I'm sitting here late late Thursday night writing about something that I don't care about and it it's a recipe for like a short-lived LinkedIn experience.
So stay true to yourself, right?

Stay true to what you believe in.
I mean, someone said to me the other day that I have good brand consistency.
I think they said, "Oh, what do you mean by that?"

And they couldn't really give me an answer, but they were like, "I just kind of know your stuff now."
Like I know it's got your kind of voice behind it if you like.
So that probably bows well if someone is copying my stuff because my voice I do sometimes I do have people say, "Oh, I want to start posting on LinkedIn.
What shall I post?"

And I normally say, well, if you can do your job, there's content there to be made, right?

Whether you're an account manager or you're a product manager or you're in sales, you're doing your job every day.
People really love hearing about people's challenges because this is the way humans are wired.
I love reading LinkedIn posts or videos about people talking about problems they've had.
But then also talking about the jobs that they do.
And I only have a couple of pillars I talk about, whether it's personal life, whether it's children, whether it's golf, I don't know, or or payments and leadership.
And I think if you can stick to them three or four things that's core to you as a person in your everyday life, people will start getting a feel for you and who you are.
That's definitely something that I would normally recommend to people.
But also don't put too much pressure on yourself because I couldn't tell you if I read a bad LinkedIn post from someone last week.
I could tell if I seen a LinkedIn post from somebody but not what it said.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fail fast.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Sure.
So looking ahead on on that note then, what does the future for Fintech: Under the Hood look like in the next few years for you?

Oh, next few years.
That's that's a long projection.
I'll just keep writing.
I mean, there's there's no shortage of of stuff to write about.
I've actually got a list of like 30 topics that I've just accumulated and I just haven't got to.
So, at least at least 30 more editions.
I mean, I like formats like this because you can get like you can meander through and get to nuggets that you might not have gotten to.
So, like maybe a podcast, but I've also got a day job, so I think I just need to manage my actual product consulting work with, you know, sharing insights and thoughts and experience and expertise.
So, I would just be balancing those two, but maybe maybe a podcast, probably not an event.
Where do you see consultancies adding most value right now to businesses?

Again, I'm biased, but I think the early very very early stages of organizations that are kind of like finding their feet.
Maybe they've got like they've just got funding round.
They've got pitch deck.
They kind of know what they want to do but don't really know how to get from like step one to step five and they just need help.
Help.
Efficient help getting from step one to step five and like getting a product to market.
I think that's the that's the most effective use of of usually investment because then you can get to a point where you're like right got a product now I can start to generate some revenue and I can jet the consultant or expert if I want or need to or I can like start hiring more perm people.
So I think the very early stages for me is the most valuable the valuable spot and then you get into like okay when you're going to a new market that that's also probably where consultants can help or if you're if you're going through an arduous regulatory process and you're not an expert in the field get someone else in to do it.
It's interesting because I think sometimes you you know startups can be quite bootstrapped, right?

So the last thing they think is we need a consultant to come and help us or actually it's probably the most important time to have consultants and people that really know that market around you and and helping to guide you in those those early stages.
I think other people maybe just see it as large corporates that are looking for specific projects to be delivered go out to that consultant world and it's completely wrong really when you break it down.
Yeah.
I mean I've this is my leaning.
I prefer to work with smaller startups just because it's usually more interesting work and I get I can get my hands dirty.
But there are a few bigger organizations who I've I've been approached by to do projects like incubate projects within their organizations because they're like we know like going back to the the Citi Fidelity stuff, we know that our ship moves very slowly.
We want to bring someone in to to speed up to speed up the development process, speed up the discovery process and like get to a proven hypothesis faster so we can take it forward or just like cut ties.
We'd rather get there within two months than spend eight months on it and get to the same conclusion.
Yeah, definitely.
So, before we wrap up, Jas, one of our favorite parts of the show, the shelf of shame.
You bring something to the table and we decide whether or not we will banish forever or we will keep it here in the shed.
Can I just add that our last two guests got a bit confused by this and brought about four things.
It's not just a list of continuous things that you can put on.
It's not it's not just a rant about industry.
Yeah, basically.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm going to go with this.
It's very general.
It doesn't feel very specific, but I don't really want to put any fintech things in there.
It could be it could be a business thing.
It can be whatever whatever it's going it's hyperbole.
It's people going something something something is dead or X is the next blah.
And it's like I just like bring some nuance to the conversation.
When you're saying things, make sure you're saying things with meaning and backing it in understanding and data and research.
Don't just say like the open banking one.
Oh, open banking is going to kill cards.
Okay, tell me how.
Explain it to me.
Show me that you know what you're talking about and not don't just say something for clicks, which is what I think what we've yeah what we've leaned towards I think on LinkedIn is is getting towards like what's a catches headline so I can bring people in and then when I bring people in actually what I'm talking about is something completely different.
It's like I don't like to be tricked.
Let's drop the hyperbolic headlines and let's be more real about what's going on in the industry.
And definitely don't do one of those headlines with one of your graphics without a tag attached to it as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't don't copy my stuff as well.
So we can banish clickbait LinkedIn post forever.
I think that's one definitely to to leave in here and do not take anywhere else.
And then just to to wrap up then Jas, where can people find you?

Where where can people get in touch with you?

Oh, this is this is new for me.
So can I do I can go click the link up there.
Drop the No, no, it's LinkedIn mostly Fintech: Under the Hood on Substack.
So it's jazzshaw.substack.com.
I think those are the two main places.
And on the Payments Shed now.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, thanks for joining us.
Awesome.
Thank you.