Blog Index

The main blog headlines are … How can you be AI with DD? No, I don’t mean Attention Deficit Disorder, which would be ADD, but I mean Artificially Intelligent with Dumb Data. Now, I know I moan on and on about fragmented legacy systems, but I honestly have no idea how a bank could ever…

The main blog headlines are … Platform, marketplace, ecosystem … buzzword bingo! I encounter lots of banter about platforms, marketplaces and ecosystems, and do wonder in the flippant way people use them interchangeably whether they really understand what they are talking about. I’m sure many do but I’m also sure some people throw them into…

The main blog headlines are … Monzo and Marcus: American challengers or just noise? My mate Ron Shevlin is on good form these days. He’s written quite a few columns on Forbes that are clickbait: Customers don’t want digital banking The FinTech fast follower fallacy (which I spotted just after writing this yesterday) His latest…

The main blog headlines are … Challenger banks don’t matter as they’re not a primary account During Money 2020 Europe, I bumped into a chap from Monzo. No names mentioned, but he was buzzing and no wonder. The start-up has just boomed through two million users and is growing at over 60,000 account openings a…

The main blog headlines are … M&A … Murder & Assassination I was having a breakfast meeting with a banking friend who had recently been through a tortuous experience. His start-up had been acquired by a major traditional bank, and it ended with blood on the floor. The start-up got squeezed into the Empire, and…

The main blog headlines are … Earth’s future is all down to the banks I’ve been struggling for a while now. My struggle is that I love flying around the world, seeing new places, meeting new people, finding new things … but I hate polluting the planet. This was brought to a head this week…

The main blog headlines are … When will the FinTech bubble burst? Reading about FinTech unicorns and pizzas worth $80 million, you would think that the world was bubbling over with wealth. FinTech investments last year peaked at over $110 billion, more than double the year before, and IPOs for firms like Uber and WeWorks…

The main blog headlines are … Five phases of FinTech (2005-2027) Three years ago, I blogged about three phases of FinTech. Three years later, I can expand on that theme and talk about five phases of FinTech. The five phases of FinTech are (dates are rough guide): Disruption (2005-2014) Discussion (2014-2017) Partnership (2017-2022) Integration (2022-2027)…

The main blog headlines are … Bitcoin, Stablecoin, Blockchain, Enterprise Ledger … WTF? I used to blog about blockchain and cryptocurrency almost every day. I stopped as it got too hyped, scammed and boring. In fact, my last blog was about the blockchain hype being dead, but the blockchain dream is still very much alive….

The main blog headlines are … Banking in the Cloud One of the surprises I have had in my discussions with banks that are doing digital well, is how all of them seem profoundly committed to cloud-computing. Some more than others, as one of the banks I spoke to wants to achieve over 80% of…