Blog Index

This week’s main blog discussions included … Financial sanctions: a reality check Some friends were applauding Visa and MasterCard’s decision to throw Russia off their payments networks over the weekend. Both companies handle 90% of all debit and credit card payments outside of China – and their announcements will deal another significant blow to the Russian…

The main blog discussions this week include … A SWIFT slap on the wrist During the weekend, there was some real action against Russia and specifically Vladimir Putin. The aim is to freeze Russia’s assets, worth around $630 billion, around the world. ‘A global financial pariah’: how central bank sanctions could hobble Russia The ban…

This week’s main blog discussions include … The last thing we need is for banks to innovate I stumbled across an interesting report by Clarivate who, using a statistical analysis, have identified the 100 most innovative companies in the world. Technology advancement is a complex composition of talent, of competition and of need. New ideas…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Should you have ‘bank’ in your brand? The Financial Brand published an interesting piece challenging the use of the word bank in a brand. It got me thinking, and agreeing with their summation, which is yes. Sure, you can have Chime, Chase, Citizens and Truist, but is that…

This week’s main blog discussions are … A banker responds to Extinction Rebillion’s call I had quite a lot of response to Gail Bradbrook’s post on February 1. It would be too much to share all, but this particular email from a friend (former CxO at a Big Bank) was the most detailed and illuminating,…

This week’s main blog discussions include … FinTech’s growing pains and toxic cultures I find it interesting reading the articles about toxic cultures at Revolut. If you Google “Revolut Culture”, the second search item is this one: “You’re nothing but a number to them with dollar signs attached.” That’s how Revolut, one of the fastest…

This week’s main blog discussions included … We need to talk about crypto Crypto is in its usual rollercoaster mode with bitcoin prices halving in January, but then it did the same in January 2021. Regardless of this and, building on yesterday’s blog, there’s an interesting trend I’ve spotted, and it is the reason why…

This week’s main blog discussions include … A great list of central bank thinking about digital currencies (#CBDC) Madhvi Mavadiya, Head of Content at Finextra, just posted a great list of developments in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). She promises to keep it updated and the link is here. It covers every country from Antigua…

This week’s main blog discussions include: How a bank’s IT systems allowed £100m a day of fraud NatWest, formerly Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), is a good example of a bank with rubbish IT. This was illustrated when I spotted the headline: NatWest fined $300 million for money laundering. They didn’t do the money laundering,…

The last fortnight’s main discussions include: Welcome to 2022 I used to make predictions to start the year. I’m not doing that anymore, as everyone else is doing them. I will add a few thoughts at the end of this week’s series of blog entries but, for the moment, here’s my selection of what’s ……