Hey Fintechers and Fintech newbies 👋🏽
As you might have noticed, this is a special early and slightly different edition of Fintech R&R in which I chat to Robinhood UK President Jordan Sinclair.
This special is in place of Friday’s written edition and is packed full of some great insights including:
Jordans go-to book reference/analogy from Chinua Achebe
Detail about Robinhood’s UK launch strategy
Some insights from the early waitlist discovery work
Removing barriers for customers
The importance of a web accessible platform
OOH marketing efforts
…and much more!
Here is a little video snippet of our conversation:
We recorded on Friday but Robinhood launches in the UK today, Tuesday 19th March so download the app to try it for yourselves and if you’re in London, keep your eyes peeled for some very special in-person marketing efforts from the Robinhood team.
The full transcript of the conversation is also below but I recommend listening to the audio in full at the top of the page if you can.
P.S. Let me know your thoughts about this edition by dropping a comment and like below. It’s something I’ve thought about doing before but it’d be great to see if the demand for more editions like this is out there :-).
EDIT: The margin investing feature mentioned in the recording is currently on hold as they continue to discuss the feature with the regulator. And modern day Robinhood statues, like the below, is what you be on the lookout for as part of their OOH marketing.
Next edition will be out on the 5th April so subscribe below if you haven’t already to receive it directly to your inbox.
FULL TRANSCRIPT GENERATED FROM THE AUDIO
INTRO
Jas Shah: Hello and welcome to this special recorded interview edition of FinTech R&R. For new subscribers, my name's Jas Shah. I have over 16 years of experience strategising, designing, building, and launching products and financial services. In my hands on product consulting role, I've helped strategise and build digital banks, provided early stage expertise for PFM apps, led product teams for scaling FinTechs, advised organisations, as well as mentor product folks.
Regular readers usually receive a fortnightly analysis of a fintech topic from a product perspective, from a deep dive on how car payments work, the evolution of UK open banking, using psychology and UX to build stickier, customer centric products, the importance of metrics in fintech products, and much more.
But, this week, I had the opportunity to speak with Jordan Sinclair, President of Robinhood UK, about the progress of their launch, and it was an opportunity I could not pass up, so I'm pleased to have Jordan here with me today.
Jordan Sinclair: Jas, thank you for having me and I appreciate you instead of writing words this week, actually recording a video and a podcast is a nice change for a Friday.
But yeah great to chat. I'm Jordan Sinclair. I'm the president of Robin Hood UK. I lead our FCA regulated entity here in London. Robinhood UK first international brokerage market outside of the US for Robinhood as a group. Can you believe it? Robinhood's 10 years old, which is crazy to think we've reached 23 million customers over 100 billion in assets in the US Where our ambition doesn't stop there in the UK is our first market.
We're certainly not stopping there.
Jas Shah: Amazing. Yep. So I think we'll get into it for sure, especially the product focus questions, because this, this will be a very product centric conversation. And I'm sure you'll. You're probably happy to hear that rather than looking at the product. You don't
Jordan Sinclair: You don’t have a great product, you don't get customers, right?
FUN REFERENCE
Jas Shah: Exactly. So in the newsletter, I usually make lots of movie references. Sometimes it's easier to explain things using an analogy or movie reference. It'd be great to know if, if there's any ref movie reference or movie meme you regularly use in conversations or explanations.
I will accept Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves as a reference. As a response, I I regularly use the Zoolander that's so hot right now because because FinTech, there's always something that's like the flavor of the day. So what's yours?
Jordan Sinclair: Sure. I, you've really got me on the spot in terms of a movie or book.
You know, one thing I always kind of, my wife's great at keeping me grounded actually is that there's a Chinua Achebe is a, an African writer. And he once said about a little bird who was learning to fly. And the bird landed on a antelope and actually thought he'd learned how to fly and he was up above looking down on the earth, but actually hadn't really left the ground.
And I kind of think about that in terms of you never really finished building a product. You never really finished meeting customer needs. Launch is like such an inaccurate term. It's like, it's another milestone, but you've got to just keep going and relentlessly build awesome things. So that's something I always keep in mind and South Africa is home for me.
So we've got lots of funny stories like that where animals kind of tell the story for us.
Jas Shah: I love that. I'm going to have to get the link and I'll put it in the description because I’m going have a read of that. So it's, yeah, it's great to get you on. And it'd be good to hear a little bit more about the about Robinhood and the update, update on progress of the UK launch.
ROBINHOOD UK BACKGROUND
Jordan Sinclair: Yeah, definitely. So end of last year, in November, we launched a waitlist here in the UK. We have been bringing on customers since then and actually next week that'll be the official launch and everyone can have access to Robinhood and access is we'll get to that. It's really top of mind for us and it's how we've built our business.
We believe everyone should have access to investment platforms, a fair deal in terms of fees, great products, research tools, not just talked about Robinhood, the fairy tale, I guess, but not just the rich, right? Everyone should have access to that. So what we've done and, and interesting I think on a product perspective is a wait list and a kind of staged approach to launch gives you the best opportunity to learn.
You get a product that you've built. Originally talking to UK customers, which for us was really important. You can't just take your US business, drop it here and, and hope a customer loves it. Like customers are different. They have different needs, cultural differences. The best thing is with the way this that we did launch is that a customer's got the App in their hands and tells us what they like, which is awesome We've heard some amazing feedback But they also tell us you could do this a bit differently or have you thought about this or like i'd like to see more of this and that's awesome.
I mean you always know pretty sure what your product roadmap needs to look like You get some validation from customers, but they also make you rethink some things and you're like, okay Maybe you want to see it like that So for us, it's been a great success and what we intended it to be. I'm a waitlist has continued to grow, but talking to customers has been awesome.
Jas Shah: Yeah, I think there's always there's always a balance, right? Because people tend to say, listen to what, what your customers say, build what your customers say, but actually you're right, it's. Sometimes they get you to rethink things, not necessarily, they won't necessarily tell you exactly what to build because as Henry Ford said, Oh, if I listened to my customers, all I'd have is a four business, the horse.
Yeah. It's a, it's a great way to reassess things that, that you're building. I guess on that note again, I agree with you with product launches. Launch is a very definitive sounding word, because we always think about rockets and then, you know, once the rockets left the ground, that's it.
That's the hard work done. But any rocket scientist will tell you that's, you know, one of the hard bits, but keeping the rocket in the air is quite tough. So it'd be good to hear some of the From the feedback some of the feedback that cements some of the similarities between the US and UK market and maybe some that Have informed how you tailor and differentiate the UK product from the US one.
MARKET OPPORTUNITY AND CUSTOMER NEEDS
Jordan Sinclair: Yeah, definitely I think I started but what the market looks like Why we think it's such a great opportunity in 10 years ago when Robin Hood launched in the US They looked at the market and the large traditional brokers were still charging commissions and high fees, kind of creating barriers for the customers.
Fast forward and, and Robin actually led a disruption in the U S market where every large broker is now a commission free broker and they changed the market. Right. But if you look at the UK, we kind of still look like the U S did 10 years ago, where we have a leading market kind of share provider who charges 11 pounds 95 a trade and then it's 100 basis points fx fees on top of that and then an account fee I mean if you want to invest 100 pounds by the time you're finished You're actually maybe getting 80 and I think that's a that's a barrier, right?
And then there's a lot we can talk about kind of investor participation in the uk and how customers are different The first fees was a big thing that customers told us that at traditional brokers that they weren't getting a fair shot And then at some of the commission free brokers Is They were paying a pseudo commission because they wanted to invest in Apple, Amazon, Google, and video.
But then they were paying a hundred basis points FX charge on top of that. And they just didn't really think they're getting a fair deal either. So for us removing FX fees and giving customers the opportunity to actually invest the amount they want to invest has been really well received. And we've seen that from our customers.
We did a piece of research. Customers were paying about 240 a year. On fees to trade your stocks on the larger platforms. That's a lot of money, right? And then living crisis, 240 pounds is a lot of money. So that's our mission, right? Make sure we. Make it accessible for all customers. Another piece has been really interesting for us is another barrier for UK customers trading us equities is time zones.
I mean, it's crazy to think that every day you have to think of what time does the U S market open? Is it half past two? We had a laugh in the office last week because, or this week, because then the broker sent out emails about. They're trading hours changing because of time zones and daylight savings in the U.
S. Now for a short period, then daylight saving starts for some time starts here and you're like, that's ridiculous. So we are for 24 5 trading. The market is always open, and we've seen over a third of our notional trading being open. taking place outside of traditional market hours. And that's always what we hope to see.
And it's great. Then when you see it and you hear from customers to say, yeah, like I actually don't have to check the clock anymore. I can listen to earnings calls at night and see the market move. And, and you see that with stocks, right? But they don't have to wait now until two o'clock with two 30 or one 30 the next day.
So then those two pieces really were great validation for us and what we felt that we were best positioned to help customers. I mean, what runs in parallel, which is really important to us is kind of learning and education and giving both our customers, actually anyone, even if you're not our customers, access to learning articles and education in the app, in particular, research tools, data, things that aren't behind a paywall, things that charting experience that you'd expect any kind of fancy broker that maybe has a qualification criteria or you must earn this amount of money to get in.
But we've seen over half of customers interacting with our research and investment tool. And that's great for us. That's what we want to see. You talk about product. We see learning as a product. And if you see it that way, you inherently build something that says, Okay, how do I make my customer understand this better?
Like customer understanding is important for the Confidence investor for the person learning to become an investor or just kind of figuring out their strategy and earning 5 percent interest on uninvested cash and just kind of waiting it out. That's great for us. And that's the opportunity in the UK too.
I mean, in the U. S. We have 23 million customers, but we have a daily newsletter. It's just a three minute bite size like Simple explanation of what's happening in the market. We have 40 million subscribers, so it's 17 million people that aren't our customer. Like they're learning that they're on their journey to, to become investors.
So I think there's such a big opportunity here in the UK and yeah, I think that's a start on some of the things we've heard. So some of the differences between a US customer and a UK customer equity equities as a share of household wealth in the UK. 10. 6. In the US, 36. 7, quite a big difference. And the UK doesn't need to be 36 percent right, but there is such an opportunity where if we remove some of these barriers, we can help customers kind of get on that investment journey.
Because we heard from them, two of the big reasons they invest, retirement, buying a house. That's awesome. Let us help you get on that journey and grow your wealth over time. And then yeah, buy that house or save for the future or save for your kids or just for a rainy day. So yeah, I think there's some work to do here to kind of help the UK investor, but that's an opportunity.
PRODUCT LAUNCH AND COHORTS
Jas Shah: Amazing. Yeah. It sounds like, yeah, access, transparency and education are three, three of those really big pillars that, that I agree are really important. Yeah. So in terms of the, I always try and think about product launches again, like you said, not as a big bang, but as a kind of slow introduction.
So in terms of the product in the UK, how are you planning on introducing customers to the product? Like formally public launch is, is it going to be cohorted? And what, what would those cohorts look like on day one? And how will those, I guess, guardrails be removed over time?
Jordan Sinclair: So when we get to Tuesday when we launch availability to everyone so that the no guardrails everyone can download iOS Android or web What we've had up until now since the end of November is kind of a wait list That's grown over time and we've given customers access over time So kind of built up those cohorts in that way kind of learn from the first cohort it's rate.
See how that what Customers in the second cohort. Think about that. And that helps you build the product and give more customers access. And there's been pretty cool buzz of people wanting an invite or I don't know, saying, see them somewhere and then, okay, I got my invite, which is, which is really cool.
But that means when Tuesday comes, we're ready to go publicly available to, to all customers.
Jas Shah: Okay. Good to know. Yeah. So Tuesday, this will go out on Tuesday. So technically you can say today. I won't edit it out. This will go out on Tuesday. So you can say today and that will be factually accurate.
Jordan Sinclair: Factually accurate 19th of March. And I mean, you say like about launch, I think what we do have lined up, which you'll probably see on the 19th of March, which is today, is some pretty cool marketing actually. Something a little bit, but fun, but really focused at making sure the customer in the UK gets a fairer deal.
And that is what we see as a big opportunity here. I can't tell you too much, but I'd say when you're looking, where you commuting on Tuesday, keep your eyes open, there's some fun things around.
Jas Shah: Oh, okay. Yeah, I was going to, yeah, so I was going to ask you about, I think, you know, again, like you said, we're still, you know, we talk about digital age, but out of home marketing is really important.
I think, you know, the likes of Wise, Monzo, and more recently Yonder have leveraged out of home experience to bring people towards their brand and download their product. And they've seen kind of really good, good spikes in downloads off the back of. Out of home or ooh, marketing efforts. I haven't heard that before.
Jordan Sinclair: If I say that to my marketing team, they will just give me an RL.
Jas Shah: They will probably, they'll probably laugh at you, but I've said it. So it's fine. You take a laugh at me instead. So I guess, you know, what, where we're saying commute, are we saying like Liverpool street, Fowler square? What can you give any specifics?
We could be steering commuting traffic on Tuesday. The day this goes out, people could change their commutes.
Jordan Sinclair: I will pop your message on Tuesday morning. So yeah, I can you say no. You know, I think there's a couple things you put that all together. Like we heard from customers and you mentioned some great businesses there to trust is a big thing for customers.
Like when they come into the app like it helps to know with us, there's 23 million other customers were listed business. We're regulated by the FCA. I'm sure customers who bank with Monzo as well feel safe that there's I think 9 million other customers now with Monzo. And in the way that some of these businesses have done their, their OO marketing I guess it is in a way that helps their customers trust their brand even more.
So I think that's, there's a way you can do that and really create this experience of customers in your app, seeing that and being like really proud. Like, yeah, I bank with them or I use them as my investment platform and other customers kind of creating that interest to say, I really want to find out more.
So I think this is a cool opportunity to do it in your own way.
Jas Shah: Amazing. So yes, you know, we're, we're talking about launch and we're talking about the, the big bang approach that some people consider it, but I think Looking at launch success is to figure out some success signals upfront, or like people call them metrics, product metrics.
So it'd be interesting to know what types of metrics maybe Robinhood currently monitors, maybe in their US market and what specific metrics will be part of the part of tracking. Success in the UK. I'm not asking for specific numbers. I'm talking things like, you know, average funding amounts number of shares invested in new signups and that, that kind of thing.
Jordan Sinclair: Yeah, I mean, I think our U. S. Business is a good place to start in our Q4 results showed. We demonstrated profitability on a gap basis. I reached over 100 billion in assets. What we demonstrate is how we make money in cross diversified revenue streams as well. And what we set out to do in the U. S. Which was take meaningful share from the big picture.
brokers. We did and we actually captured share from the top six brokers and account sizes that were over 100, 000. I mean, what we demonstrate is that that is the ambition and kind of a big market opportunity. You've got to chase it hard and it maybe takes some time. But when you get there, it really is a great success.
So how we build the product here is, I mean, ultimately it's building a long term profitable business. No different to how we do it in the U. S. Making sure customers are happy in the beginning is important. Are you meeting their needs with your initial product set? Are you doing it in a way that's differentiated and giving them a better experience and they get somewhere else?
You see that through funding. You see that through tenure on platform. You see that from kind of word of mouth telling people about your product in the early stages. Those are all good kind of quantitative and qualitative measures of product market fit. What I do think you owe the customer in return for those is iterating your product and meeting those needs.
And you're never gonna meet everyone's needs on day one. But you can be quite clear that you know what the big ones are, and you can relentlessly work at bringing those into the app and a quick, quick speed. I think that's, that's on us. Right. And then all those metrics come with, but those are the early signs, especially what we've seen from our customers using our app already during the wait, this time, I mean, some of the stats I shared with you, like that's, that's a great indication already of where we've got to, but I'm under no illusion that there's more to do, and I think local products is top of mind for us.
How do you tailor this more and more to the local investor? And yeah, I think local tax wrappers is top of mind for customers here. I mean, other asset classes to invest in too. So. We know we're not done.
Jas Shah: We're touching on product capabilities now, so it'd be good to hear what, what customers can expect day one from the UK product.
What things will be in there from maybe a usage perspective, but from a referral perspective as well, you know, having a referral engine is, is key. And then also, you know, UK security coverage is something that customers quite value quite a lot when they're, when they're using a new platform.
They want to know that the platform's got access to everything and they don't want to have to use five different investment platforms for, for five years. Yeah.
Jordan Sinclair: I mean, how many apps do you have on your phone? Right. I've got, I mean, I've
Jas Shah: got, I've got three and there's one, like, like you said, I've also got one that is 11.
95 a month and, but I don't, I don't use it anymore.
Jordan Sinclair: I won't judge you.
Jas Shah: I won't tell you what bank it is because it's a bit of a
Jordan Sinclair: shade. No, no. That's all right. Yeah, I'd say the product is what we started with, which was 24 5 trading, no FX fees on trades and 5 percent interest on uninvested cash is initially U.
S. securities only, but that's certainly something we've heard from customers loud and clear in terms of expanding that universe to local equities is one of the things they've told us for sure. What we've added based on what we've heard from customers and is is web access. What we've heard is actually fascinating.
We could check product four days on this. But you think in this mobile first world we live in We hear more and more from customers that actually they expect an as good web experience for the investment platform Because they are going to do things like charting research news Actually on their desktop in different places then they feel like they need to come back to their app make their deposit there then make an investment and there's just this disconnect between what and where they're talking and reading about the markets and where they're actually making a trade and Putting that together on a on a slick web platform You Yeah, it's I think it's actually a great kind of indication of what customers expect more and more multi channel Which is cool for us rewards.
So we offer a free share reward referral reward But we offer also a free stock on signup And so you're kind of coming to the applicant approved account and we'll give you your first stock And what we find with that is actually a referral program is great And we'd love you to tell your friends and you both get a free stock But actually for some customers That free stock on approved account will be their first stock ever.
And that's really powerful. Like in the wrong hood in the U S we have 10 years to say, actually, some customers started with that first stock and now are still our customer. And in the UK there's also a segment of customers who would like to start investing, but don't really know where to start. We think that's really awesome.
And they can choose their free stock too. So we think that's a, that's a nice way to kind of get into the market. And then the other thing we're launching with is, is margin investing. So the ability to, to borrow money from, from Robinhood and increased buying power, this is a product for a certain set of customers that are, that are experienced and it's not necessarily for everyone, but it is a tool we heard from a lot of people that you have to have a fancy account somewhere else, or only certain people have access to it.
Why can't you guys do it then? So, yeah, yeah, we can do it. So. That's what we start with, but again, we're not done.
Jas Shah: I think, I mean, those are, those are really interesting features to launch, launch with, especially the starting with a, with a web platform, because what tends to happen is you launch a, a mobile app, which frankly is harder to launch a mobile app, you know, aim to launch a mobile app.
And then later, later down the line, a year down the line, they look to, you know, they Look to launch a web platform back. But like you said, you know, lots of people, lots of people are working on laptops and computers day to day and investing often the intensity of effort that's required to pick the right platform.
Pick the right stock, make sure it fits with the portfolio, look at some predictive numbers. It's quite intensive and it feels like work and often people associate that with being on, being on a larger machine where they can see all of that breadth of, breadth of data in one place and not scroll up and down.
Jordan Sinclair: Yeah, I would say. And also people, I mean, if you think of Post 2021 and the people now have a work from home set up where they've got big screens and they want to do it and at home sometimes to and you contribute to like financial news. It's always happening, but not always. Can someone make that connection of how does that impact the stock and how do I kind of make an action on that?
So yeah, I think it all comes together quite nicely.
Jas Shah: Yeah, and that the the giving someone a free share is a great Use of the endowment effect, which I guess is you feel like you own something and Like that's yours now and you know, you, you have the choice to sell it, but odds are you'll end up because you've been gifted it and it's yours.
You don't end up selling it. You keep it. It's a great way of keeping people in the platform and then teasing them into going, you have this now, what about, you know, what's your next move? And it kind of tests the product out for them as well. I think it's a great, it's a great way of getting people into the platform and get people familiar with the product.
So I think very conscious of time. One last question. There are lots of, lots of FinTech founders among. The readers and now listeners of Fintech R& R. So before we finish, it'd be great to get some of your little gems of wisdom for folks listening who are about to launch a product Or like Robinhood is about to maybe launch into a new an existing product into a new territory So what are your little little gems?
I think you've covered a lot of them is more like summarizing what you've already said
LESSONS FOR OTHERS LAUNCHING A PRODUCT OR INTO A NEW TERRITORY
Jordan Sinclair: Yeah I'd say there's a couple of things that you kind of learn along the way and that it's best to take all those learnings together and actually realise what you've picked up in different experiences. And you've talked about the other things you've done in your career, and you can probably look back and piece them together and be like, okay, now I know.
I'd say in a, in a new market, it really is important to look at what you can serve in terms of customer needs in a way better than others can. Not always just looking as a new market as a PowerPoint slide that says big opportunity. And it certainly is a big opportunity in the UK, but it's how do you win there?
And how do you make a great product? I'd say for some of the founders and product managers that you can't help but being really deep into the detail in the product. Like it's awesome and you've got to love it and you've got to care about every single screen on that app and that's great. So I didn't say if you're doing that and you're feeling like you should, I can't see another way, right?
Like, I think that's, that's what you should be proud of when the customer is using it.
Data. It sounds like a bit of a generic answer, but honestly, the next optimal next step likely is sitting in front of you on your dashboard, looking at the data, seeing how customers are using it. That will probably give you a pretty good guide of where to start digging in.
And I said the big thing for teams is just turning intention into execution. A lot of the times teams say, Oh, this would be great. So we should think about doing that. Okay, let's do it. And I think that's that big thing. And look at what your product roadmap and what you want to do and what you've achieved at the end of the year.
Often it is just that intention into execution.
Jas Shah: Love that. Loads of gems. That, I think that probably about wraps things up. It was really great speaking to you Jordan. I think this is the first time we've actually met, but I think we could probably talk for a couple more hours on this. Yeah,
Jordan Sinclair: We must do
Jas Shah: Thanks for everyone listening. A reminder to subscribe to the newsletter if you haven't already, and if you enjoyed the episode, drop a like and comment below. Until next time. Thank you.
Jordan Sinclair: Awesome. Thanks, Jas. And download the app and tell me what you think.
Jas Shah: Yeah, download the app today because it's today.
Listening to this, it's today. Go download it
Jordan Sinclair: Cheers, Jas. Thanks, mate.
Fintech R&R☕️🎙 - Interview: Robinhood UK President, Jordan Sinclair