Blog Index

This week’s main blog discussions include … Is this the bank that JK Rowling based Gringotts on? I found a great interview the other day with Bella Hoare, a partner and director at the world’s oldest privately owned bank, C Hoare and Co. The bank has been run by the Hoare family for 12 generations,…

This week’s main blog discussions include … What would Taylor Swift’s bank look like? Trust and money and day-to-day life go hand-in-hand. It’s all about who you deal with, how and the outcomes. Recently, I’ve lost trust with Apple, my bank, my friend and my brother. That’s pretty sad, isn’t it? But who do I…

This week’s main blog discussions include … It’s all about trust Building upon my blog about Revolut the other day, and their need for a banking license, I’ve been accused many times of coming back to a theme that you can only be a bank if you’re a bank with a license. Why do I…

This week’s main blog discussions include … There is no next big thing in banking I’ve been trying to think of the next big thing. Someone asked me on a conference call: what’s the next big thing? I’ve always been on top of the next big thing. Whether it’s the metaverse, AI, blockchain, cloud computing…

This week’s main blog discussions include … I just debanked my bank … before they debanked me There’s a huge furore in Britain about debanking: the process where a bank says we cannot trust you anymore so get lost. It happened to Nigel Farage, a high profile figure, and now it’s happened to me. What…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Am I financial marmite? At a conference the other day, a banker came up to me and said “oh, you’re that fintech guy who throws rocks at us all the time”. A short while later, a fintech founder came up to me and said “oh, you’re the banking…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Selling customer data – good or bad idea? Be careful with data Many years ago a few banks debated the idea of selling customer data to get a payback. It was the wrong decision – if you sell customer data, it should the customer who gets the payback,…

This week’s main blog discussion’s include … Is your chatbot compliant? Fifteen years ago, social media was becoming popular. Facebook was growing fast, and Twitter had just launched. Ten years ago, banks were cautious about such media as it might compromise customer information. Five years ago, many were starting to get the idea, but were…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the oldest bank in the world became the newest? I’m working with a cryptobank start-up, and we’re looking at options for licensing. Various countries have various attractions, with some more attractive than others. I won’t go into the nuances of the details as…

The main blog discussions this week include … The Dunning-Kruger effect, as inspired by a bank robbery I had never heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect until the other day. Inspired by a bank robbery, Professor David Dunning worked out that people sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of confidence. Some are hugely confident and…