The Finanser’s Week: 1st November 2021- 7th November 2021

This week was COP26 and so the Finanser had a two-track week. The usual updates, but also the COP updates. Here’s the usual track …

Why challenger banks find it hard to challenge

I was thinking about this article in The Telegraph saying what a rotten job supermarkets have made of competing with banks. Tesco sold its mortgage book to Lloyds two years ago owing to “challenging market conditions” and is now closing all personal current accounts. Marks & …

Don’t tell me to do this or do that

I had a few recent experiences that showed me how bad developments are in the digital world today. One was trying to cancel a subscription to a news app and, when logging in online, couldn’t find anything to show me the answer. The second was …

Authenticity versus Condescension

I often contact companies due to issues with their services. When I contact them, it inevitably means that something in their digital services has broken. It is then an opportunity to delight and provide a customer experience that exceeds exceptions. However, it normally means anger …

Change? It’s the only constant … FinTech float season has arrived

IPO-yay! It’s Fintech Float Season   Investment bankers must be lining their pockets as Fintech Float Season has arrived. After a decade of FinTech developments with a few floats, of which the biggest have been companies like Square and PayPal, who were recently worth more than …

 

And here’s the COP updates …

Will COP26 make any difference?

As it’s COP26 time, I’m delighted to have a column from Jeff Scott, a co-founder of rewired.earth. Will COP26 change anything? I have said a lot about ESG recently and there’s a whole lot more about to swamp the media as COP26 began on Sunday …

COP26: Climate blah, blah, blah is all about the money, money, money

Kate Mackenzie, who writes with Bloomberg Green, published a fascinating long-read article on Phenomenal World the other day. I wanted to publish the whole thing, but instead took some key paragraphs to share here. Maybe this is why, as Greta Thunberg said it, most leaders …

#COP26: Where’s the incentive?

The discussions of today’s COP26 interested me, as it’s all about the money. Today is the day that all of the world’s finance ministers meet to discuss their dedication to climate change. They had this before – in Paris six years ago they promised $100 …

#COP26: We must use the world’s wealth to save Earth

Just in case you didn’t catch it, yesterday was the Finance Day at COP26. Rishi Sunak, the UK Chancellor, made a speech commiting the UK to be the first with a net-zero financial centre. Watch the speech: Or, if you prefer, here’s the transcript: …

HyCOPrite: Harvey Dent (Two-Face) strikes at #COP26

Mark Carney stood up at COP26, alongside Larry Fink (CEO of BlackRock) and Jane Fraser (CEO of Citigroup). Together they announced that the financial industry has pledged $130 trillion of assets to solve climate challenges. Woo-hoo! Thanks. Trouble is that it’s a lie. Larry Fink …

 

This week’s top headlines include:

• JP Morgan Report: Global embedded payment volume reached US$1.1T in 2020
• DeFi — the ‘Wild West’ of crypto — is next on regulators’ hit list
• Google invests $1B in exchange giant CME as market moves to the cloud
• Goldman Sachs-backed digital bank Starling expects to go public within two years
• Revolut wants to build its own crypto exchange
• JPMorgan says CBDCs can save firms $100B a year in cross-border costs
• China's 6 state owned banks part of M-CBDC Bridge SWIFT replacement