Welcome to Settled Up, the Payment Expert podcast series where we get to know the person behind the profession.
This week, we speak to Benjamin David, Head of Intelligence at The Payments Association, on the music, films, books, sport and comedy that shape him.
Read the full interview with Benjamin David, The Payments Association below.
What song do you put on before a big day, and what does it do for you?
I enjoy metal music. It keeps me active, grounds me and keeps me focused. Recently I’ve gone a bit old school, back to my childhood. The one on my mind is “Papercut” by Linkin Park — in many ways it’s the song that turned me on to alternative metal. When I was young I was very much into dance, then pop, and that was the turning moment.
What album can you play start to finish, no skips?
Hybrid Theory is a classic at this stage — it’s over 20 years old now, and it happens to be the first album I ever bought as a teenager. Two other bands I’d name are Sleep Token and Opeth. Both have a lot of instrumental electronics in their music, and a lot of it takes inspiration from 1970s funk, which is a genre I love listening to at the gym. But metal for sure — much to the irritation of my colleagues when I’ve got my headphones on and metal blaring away.
What’s the film or box set you’ll happily rewatch forever?
For me it’s sci-fi. My favourite films are Interstellar and The Fountain — the latter directed by Darren Aronofsky, with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Both keep an element of realism but pair it with a wonderful futuristic element, and both exceed the bounds of what we believe to be possible, with really strong philosophical stories behind them.
I enjoy sci-fi most when there’s a strong philosophical narrative underpinning it. My background before payments was academia — I have a philosophy master’s and a bachelor’s — so that proclivity comes through in my music and film preferences.
What’s the book you press on everyone you meet?
The books I tend to read are quite philosophical. Right now I’m reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco — an incredibly dense book, but it evokes big questions about truth and meaning. I enjoy Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and most of the classic Greek philosophers.
Anything more accessible? I’m struggling here — there really isn’t much on my bookshelf. Perhaps the Goosebumps books from my childhood, which I stubbornly keep.
What’s the sporting moment you still go back and rewatch?
As I’ve aged, maintaining emotional harmony has become a priority, so I’m less involved in sport than I used to be. As a child and teenager, though, I was a massive Manchester United fan — my bedroom was draped corner to corner in memorabilia. I had the duvet set, the rug, the wallpaper, the posters, everything.
The big moment for me was when Manchester United won the Treble. I was 12 when I watched them beat Bayern Munich in the final, and it was huge. Since then I’m not a giant sports fan — I’ll follow the World Cup with friends. Sport has become more of a collective thing you do with loved ones, rather than something you study religiously in your room.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen – a sketch, a clip, a stand-up routine?
Slapstick always gets to me — I grew up on comedians like Lee Evans. My sister introduced me to Impractical Jokers, the American hidden-camera show; we had our own version over here years ago with Beadle’s About.
For stand-up, the usual giants — Dave Chappelle, Jimmy Carr. But on TV I’m a huge fan of Blackadder; I could easily rewatch the series again and again. Another one is Malcolm in the Middle — I remember coming home from school and dashing into my bedroom to watch it on BBC Two.
What I’m learning from this conversation is that I’m very much still rooted in the past — I’m still enjoying very old things. My colleagues at The Payments Association will give me a hard time when they hear this…
We’ll be talking to Benjamin, The Payments Association, on next week’s Payment Expert podcast – where we’ll explore how financial crime leaders are feeling about the fraud threat, and ask whether AI has changed fraud’s tempo and made it systemic through fraud-as-a-service. Catch the full conversation then.
You can catch up on our latest episode too, where we spoke to Vikram Bharwani, CTO, Banking at NTT DATA UK&I, about whether stablecoins, tokenised deposits and the digital euro are meant to coexist.
See last week’s entry of Settled Up here.
