Fintech

If banking was delivered like a song, how would it feel? Would it have emotion and belief, or just be delivered as words and music by a robot? The difference between customer engagement and customer service is pretty much the difference between delivering a stage song and being on the stage. I am a huge…

In a land known as Fed, there are two superheroes: AML and KYC. They fly around the world looking for villains attacking the financial markets and aim to zap them. It is a difficult task, and getting more and more difficult every day, but they try … and they fail. In 2009, the estimated annual…

How could I not make a blog about Sam Bankman-Fried who, yesterday, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme smash-and-grab using cryptocurrency? Well, I couldn’t, so here it is. Yesterday Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a…

Why am I writing about Poland? First answer, because I am married to a Polish lady. We met in a night club where she was on the dancefloor … I’ve always been attracted to Pole dancers. Second, because I moved to Poland five years ago and it is a fascinating country. One of Europe’s fastest…

I was asked to come onto a news channel this week to talk about the state of banking. The latest Q3 results have come in, and most of the banks have stonking results thanks to interest rates rising. Increasing rates rapidly on loans, whilst dragging feet on savings rates, created a basis points differential that…

I see so much discussion of AI and cloud in finance, and realised the other day that we have created a whole new risk structure on top of banking and finance. The systemic risk of failure if a cloud provider goes down or an AI system goes rogue. This is a question raised the other…

Everyone who knows me well, knows that I grew up with David Bowie as my real-life Hero. I saw him concert regularly, until he stopped touring in the 2000s, and loved the fact that not only did he produce unique music, but nearly every time it was performance and music. He was first to really…

I’ve been sitting and thinking. Not a bad thing, but a dangerous thing. I’ve been sitting and thinking about AI, Artificial Intelligence. How will AI change banking and finance? Specifically, how could we use AI to change banking and finance? When I think about this, I think about how banking has changed since the last…

This month the Bank for International Settlements (BIS – the guys who do Basels) released a report on the implications of BigTech on FinTech and banking. The report is not what I expected, as it is far too simple in its thinking imho, but it is worth a read. Maybe next time, they’ll ask yours truly…

I hate stepping into controversy, and I know that this column is going to be really unpopular, but the latest reporting of terrorist funding using cryptocurrencies is seriously biased. This specifically relates to Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively. The latest violence taking place between Israel and Palestine is awful. No one can…