Fin the Week

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The Friday financial marketing & technology briefing.

  1. 1d ago

    Trust vs Credibility: Why Financial Brands Can't Just Talk a Good Game

    Credibility gets you through the door, but trust is what makes people stay. On this episode of Fin the Week, we're joined by Indulge's newest team member, Tonicha, to unpack why financial brands can no longer rely on confident marketing alone. We dig into how consumer duty, the EU AI Act and the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements are pushing firms to evidence their claims rather than just make them, why "finfluencers" cut both ways, and how something as simple as a mortgage calculator can build more trust than a bold headline stat ever will. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the importance of trust and credibility in finance 01:42 How regulatory changes are influencing trust evidence 03:35 The role of consumer duty and EU AI Act in trust 06:26 Differentiating credibility and trust in marketing 08:19 How credibility can be faked and the importance of trust 11:03 The impact of misleading claims and greenwashing 13:58 The significance of transparency in insurance and finance 16:52 Industry examples of trust and credibility issues 19:54 Building trust through consistent messaging and evidence 22:35 The importance of easy cancellation and customer support 23:37 Credibility & trust in the consumer funnel 25:14 Does being trustworthy put firms at a marketing disadvantage? 27:43 Selling insurance on price versus features 31:53 Can marketing teams incentivise and be trustworthy at the same time? 33:45 Finluencers and the impact on trust 36:36 Risks of misleading marketing and short-term gains 39:14 The importance of honest reviews and influencer vetting 41:58 Using technology to enhance transparency and trust 45:55 Summary and key takeaways on trust and credibility 46:46 Jargon Busters: Diversification

  2. Jul 31

    Life Insurance: Consumer Duty Teardown #4

    It's Consumer Duty anniversary day, so we're rounding off Consumer Duty month with our fourth and final teardown. We take a look at life insurance and protection: the sector with 7 of the FCA's 11 open investigations. We ran a direct insurer, a comparison site, and an independent broker through UX Duty and found 109 issues between them, half of them accessibility failures. In this episode: misleading "£3 a month" headline pricing that hides eligibility criteria in tiny asterisked footnotes, pre-ticked marketing consent boxes that breach GDPR, sites that make it nearly impossible to reach a human for a complaint, and a wrap-up of what four teardowns (12 firms, ~600 findings) reveal about where financial services UX keeps failing consumers. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Consumer Duty Teardowns 02:16 Overview of the Insurance Sector Investigations 06:24 The core findings in the insurance sector 08:37 Misleading Headlines and Transparency Issues 15:22 Consent, GDPR, and Dark Patterns 20:40 The Impact of AI on Accessibility and Regulation 25:35 Collecting Data and Privacy Concerns 31:22 Complaints Procedures and Vulnerable Customers 33:53 Website Accessibility and Quality Testing 38:13 The Future of Accessibility with AI 41:17 Summary of Findings and Industry Implications 47:20 Jargon Busters! 50:27 Next time: the EU AI Act

  3. Jul 24

    Mortgage Brokers: Consumer Duty Teardown #3

    Four weeks into the trust reset and three episodes into the Consumer Duty teardown series, Amelia, Paul, Pat and Russ turn to what's arguably the biggest financial decision most people ever make: getting a mortgage. Using their scanning tool, UX Duty, the team reviewed the online journeys of a top-tier broker, a mid-tier broker and a smaller, consultant-branded challenger, scoring 125 findings across the three firms and, for the first time in the series, a "medium risk" rating for one of them. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and episode overview 06:57 An overview of the findings from the mortgage brokers 11:02 Fee disclosure issues 21:21 How much fee disclosure is reasonable? 23:31 Firm A drops a GDPR clanger 29:19 No FCA registration details displayed 32:02 Back to accessibility flaws across FS websites 36:54 Missing accessibility statements 39:11 A project building an accessibility plugin with a major tech firm 43:40 User testing and inclusive design for accessibility 47:21 Jargon busters: Understanding industry terms 48:06 Upcoming topics: protection insurance and final thoughts

  4. Jul 17

    Consumer Investing: Consumer Duty Teardown #2

    Week three of Consumer Duty anniversary month, and we're going up a level; from everyday bank switching to investing. We ran three anonymised robo-advisors (a big player, a mid-tier firm, and a fintech challenger) through Indulge's in-house teardown tool, UX Duty, and turned up 150 findings across the three. In this episode we get into... Why risk warnings keep losing out to bold "grow your money" headlines, and what that means for consumer understandingThe FCA's growing focus on "foreseeable harm" from platform features, not just price, and what that means for trading appsMissing exit costs and a genuinely hard-to-find "get your money out" journeyEligibility criteria buried deep in the sign-up flow, wasting users' timeVulnerability support (or the lack of it) for first-time investorsWhy 53% of all issues found were accessibility problems; including one firm whose entire brand colour fails contrast checks Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the episode and main themes 01:11 Findings from digital journeys of banking products 11:09 Accessibility issues and common themes 15:22 Key findings on accessibility and design flaws 20:01 Risk warnings and consumer understanding 26:23 Cost transparency (joining vs leaving) 31:07 Eligibility and vulnerability support 41:13 One firm drops an accessibility clanger

  5. Jul 10

    Bank Switching: Consumer Duty Teardown #1

    Consumer Duty is turning three, and the FCA's message is clear: the grace period is over. In this episode, Paul, Russ, and Pat break down the FCA's new Enforcement Watch 2 report, then dig into our first teardown: a hands-on review of the bank switching journey across three UK current account providers, run through our UX Duty tool. Loud offers, quiet conditions, missing debt advice signposting, and 205 findings later, here's what good, and bad, Consumer Duty compliance actually looks like in the wild. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Current Events 01:46 Discussing the FCA enforcement watch 2 update 06:12 Teardown of Bank Switching Process 09:06 The methodology for the research 11:18 Exploring the findings 16:19 Loud offers with quiet conditions 24:16 Looking out for financial distress 26:36 Switching in versus switching out 29:17 Dealing with vulnerability 32:30 The Language of Finance 37:31 Standardising financial product comparison 41:13 Wrapping up the findings 42:50 Jargon Busters: Hedging

  6. Jul 3

    Consumer Duty: Three Years In

    Consumer duty turns three this month. Three years in, "we're working on it" stops being an excuse, and the FCA's tone has shifted from patient to pointed. So we're kicking off our Q3 edition, The Trust Reset, with a four-part teardown series where we run real financial services journeys through the wringer and ask a simple question; is this actually fair, or does it just tick a box? In this opener, the full team's back together to set the scene. We get into what's really changed since 2022, why "we don't sell to consumers" is a dangerous thing for a firm to believe, and how much of consumer duty comes down to accessibility and sludge. We also lift the lid on UXDuty, the tool we built in-house to scan digital channels against the PRIN 2A rules and surface the friction firms would rather you didn't notice. Next week we start the teardowns proper with bank switching, a big provider, a mid-tier one, and a challenger, side by side. What we cover: Why year three of consumer duty is the year the excuses run outDistribution chains, and why more firms are in scope than think they areAccessibility as good practice, not a compliance choreWhether AI fixes digital channels or quietly makes them worseUX Duty: how we scan journeys for sludge and evidence board reportsJargon buster: escrow, explained New episode every Friday. Fin the Week is the financial technology and marketing briefing from Indulge, a digital agency for financial services. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates 00:55 What's coming up in Q3? 06:09 What was the industry reaction to Consumer Duty? 11:36 Consumer Duty in 2026 13:47 Understanding the distribution chain for Consumer Duty 22:16 Consumer Duty is about making something that's better for everyone 26:22 Explaining what UXDuty is 35:33 Introducing the Consumer Duty teardown process 39:20 Jargon Busters!

  7. Jun 26

    Where are finance firms actually using AI?

    To wrap up our Pragmatic AI Edition, we stop theorising and go looking for the receipts: where is the financial services sector actually putting AI to work? Amelia, Paul and Pat play a quick game of Yay-I or Nay-I, scoring five real-world deployments to decide whether each one is genuinely useful or just a bit of clever PR. From Morgan Stanley arming its financial advisers with an internal chatbot, to Klarna's assistant doing the work of 700 agents in 35 languages, to Stripe's fraud-fighting Radar. We dig into what's impressive, what's overhyped, and where the human still matters most. Plus an NHS phone-bot anecdote that changes one sceptic's mind, a pitch for Lenny Henry to answer the Premier Inn phone, and this week's Jargon Buster: IPO. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:35 Morgan Stanley AI Chat Tool 08:53 Morgan Stanley AI Debrief Tool 12:23 Klarna's AI Assistant 24:03 Klarna's AI CEO 33:43 Stripe Radar 40:23 Jargon Busters: IPO Fin the Week is the Friday financial technology and marketing briefing from Indulge: a digital agency for the global financial services sector. #FinTheWeek #FinancialServices #AI #FinTech #MarketingPodcast #Indulge

  8. Jun 19

    The week Google's AI answers became Google's problem

    This week on Fin the Week, Amelia, Paul and Mayna unpack five stories reshaping search and marketing in financial services: a German court ruling that makes Google liable for its own AI overviews, fresh SparkToro data showing fewer than one in three UK searches now ends in a click, Hiscox stepping into ChatGPT's advertising pilot, what 54 studies reveal about ranking in AI search, and the UK's incoming social media ban for under-16s. Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:54 A German court has ruled that Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words 09:48 Zero click searches continue to rise 20:53 Hiscox testing advertising in ChatGPT 26:03 Research into AI citation ranking factors 34:27 Discussing the UK under-16 social media ban 46:57 Jargon busters

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The Friday financial marketing & technology briefing.

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  • Creator
    Indulge
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Indulge