The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III report has just come out. The report looks into the progress made in limiting global emissions and the available mitigation options across systems and sectors in the short, medium, and long-term, and follows fast on the heels of reports …

During the lockdown, banks moved rapidly to sign cloud contracts. Thing is they were signing with the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft, but these are all American firms. Where are the European ones? I raised this issue two years ago, but it is now coming to a head as …

Building on my recent thoughts, I cannot for the life of me understand how a bank can spend so much on technology and yet be so inefficient. By way of example, let’s take a bank cost-income ratio. That’s the measure of how much a bank spends to operate, and the …

I’ve noticed that Wal*Mart has recently been hiring bankers. Goldman Sachs’ bankers to be exact. Goldman Sachs Marcus’s bankers to be more specific. Bloomberg Omer Ismail, the head of Goldman’s consumer bank [Marcus], is making a surprise exit to the fintech, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The …

How much money is wasted by banks on digital? I wonder whether, one day, anyone will work out how much money has been wasted by banks on digital technologies. Various reports reckon that banks spend anything from half a trillion dollars a year on tech to over a trillion. Two …

In the midst of Brexit plans and a Covid pandemic, the UK Government launched a FinTech review chaired by Ron Kalifa. I’ve met Ron at a few conferences, when he was CEO and then Chairman of WorldPay and will find it interesting to see what he finds. “The intention of …

After a year where every day felt like Groundhog day – same shit, different day (SSDD) – I’m hoping that 2021 will be different – different shit, every day (DSED). I’m not complaining, but 2020 was pretty awful. Some loved it – more time at home with family – but …

Have you noticed how people talk about disruption more and more, and note the collapse of companies like Blockbuster, Kodak, Nokia and Thomas Cook? In fact, there are more companies entering and leaving the stock market lists than ever before, with the average tenancy now under two decades compared to …

Readers of my blog may have realised that, over recent years, I’ve become a little bit passionate about saving the world. It’s our world. It’s the only one we’ve got. I’m quite keen to keep it here for that reason. Whilst coronavirus, disease and pandemics drive our thinking, we should …

Talking of politics and, after my piece last week about the possibility that Chinese infrastructure could replace our European (SWIFT) and American (Visa) operations Kathleen Tyson, a good friend and member of the Financial Services Club, piped up and said: Don’t give up on the American dollar that easily. She …

I’ve spent a long time writing about how bad banks are with technology and digital transformation … but I’ve never said banks will be eaten by technology. So many other companies and industries are destroyed by technology, but banking is not one of them. I laugh when I read about …

During the summer I teamed up with a colleague, George Ravich, to research views on the crisis amongst the financial community. We published the results in August, and here’s an update guest blog from George on the process.   New Research Finds Banking Industry Positive on Effects of Covid-Crisis Chris …

After the last two blogs, various comments highlight other questions, with the commonest one being: will any of these new banks make a profit? The answer to that is yes. Some already are, such as Shawbrook, OakNorth, Aldermore … the ones you hear less about. Monzo, Revolut, N26 and others …

There’s no logical reason for this, but I’ve decided the second week of June is women’s week. It’s a week to celebrate diversity, or the lack of diversity, in finance and technology. So, this week’s blogs are all about women and finance and technology. To start with, let’s look at …

There’s lots of talk about civil unrest, an unjust society, the need for a universal basic income, a change in attitude towards everything from capitalism to socialism to democracy to inclusion. Good discussions but hard to know how it plays out. In many countries, people are suffering so much. They’re …