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Always a controversial figure, Anne Boden has hit the headlines again after stepping down as CEO of Starling Bank. Her announcement of remaining on the Board but no longer being the leader of the bank was originally made in May: Boden, who owns 4.9 per cent of the bank she founded in 2014, said she…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Should a bank close a customer’s account because they disagree with their views? From The Times: ‘Until last summer, Nigel Farage had dealt with the same relationship manager at Coutts for years. Then Mark Pierce left for the rival private bank Arbuthnot Latham, and responsibility for the outspoken…

As the Nigel Farage affair rolls on, with resignations and regulations flowing fast, I was struck by one comment in The Financial Times, where a financial analyst said that these changes could prove challenging. “How does it work if a bank is being told ‘we’ll rip your arms if you process money for the wrong people’,…

Seven years after the vote and Britain still feels European whilst not being in European Union. What’s the point of that? In particular, there’s a fair dilemma about regulations in banking in Britain. Should they stay aligned with the EU or go their own way? I guess the more telling question is: what was the…

A while ago, I cited one of the lessons of Doing Digital is that data is the air that we breathe: Data is the new air, and the banks that breathe the best will win (November 2017). Data is not oil, a rare fossil fuel that is finite; data is ever present, ever growing and powering…

For many years now, I have pleaded with bank executives to change. Begged for them to be digital. Prayed that they get the message and transform. Looking back over presentations made in the 2000’s and 2010’s, the message is the same: the leadership team need to ‘get it’. Get what? Get the fact that you…

From The Times: ‘Until last summer, Nigel Farage had dealt with the same relationship manager at Coutts for years. Then Mark Pierce left for the rival private bank Arbuthnot Latham, and responsibility for the outspoken Brexiteer’s accounts passed to a Coutts executive named Min Fung. The former Ukip leader’s first conversation with Fung was also his…

This week’s main blog discussions include … AI should augment the human and automate the mundane We’ve all seen the massive discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) lately. Can we regulate it? What does it mean? Will we all lose our jobs? How can it be used in way that helps humans and does not destroy…

I remember a big debate in the 1990s about the future of finance. One of the main themes was whether we needed intermediaries. After a quarter of century, the answer is yes. We have intermediaries to provide trust between two people who don’t trust each other. The trusted intermediary’s role is key. The question is…

7 million households have no internet access according to the UK’s House of Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee (CDC) published, who its report at the end of June titled: Digital exclusion. Summarising their findings they say that the Government has “no credible strategy” to tackle digital exclusion. That’s a good start isn’t it? Statistics flagged…