Blog Index

The main blog headlines are … What’s next, after digital? I was invited to do a keynote for a Canadian conference the other day, but on a subject different to my normal digital stuff. The theme was sustainable finance. I decided to take a different tack and talk about my …

The main blog headlines are … The world after #coronavirus During this lockdown, it’s easy to get a bit down. The constant news of deaths and corona cases; the arguments between liberals and conservatives; the debate over whether the government acted early enough, fast enough, good enough; the rage over …

The main blog headlines are … What’s the impact of coronavirus on FinTech? Someone asked me what the coronavirus pandemic means for the future of FinTech. I guess they thought that not much is happening and many firms will shutter and close. However, some may think that times are dull …

The main blog headlines are … The FinTech Karaoke Challenge OK, OK, OK.  I know that some of my friends have been doing FinTech and Banking songs for a while, and I’ve avoided it. I’ve also avoided doing much video, as I don’t like seeing myself on camera. And I …

The main blog headlines are … What you really, really want is money (that’s what I want) I’ve written quite a few times about how economies work and the role of money as power. In particular, money is not just power but status, and leads to attractiveness, and the ability …

The main blog headlines are … HSBC and Standard Chartered are wrong to kowtow to China over Hong Kong I keep saying that I don’t want to be political on this blog – I’m not qualified and it’s not why you read it – but, as a human being, I …

The main blog headlines are … The Wirecard fiasco: Wirecard or Weirdcard? Another day and another headline about Wirecard: ‘The money’s gone’: Wirecard collapses owing $4 billion Wirecard’s Missing Billions Forces Out CEO, Panics Lenders Wirecard: Former boss arrested over €1.9bn scandal How Wirecard fooled most of the people all …

The main blog headlines are … Is FinTech getting it wrong? Focus on needs and wants A friend of mine, Alessandro Hatami, wrote an interesting piece on Sifted that I shared in my news yesterday. He claims that neobanks like Monzo and Starling are not reinventing banking at all. They’re …

The main blog headlines are … This is no Black Swan (Part Two) I was having a bit of ding-dong over my article about the coronavirus pandemic being perfectly predictable and not a black swan. There are many who believe the reaction to the pandemic is a black swan, as …

The main blog headlines are … Are banks too full of testosterone? 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 …

The main blog headlines are … No one changes behaviour … unless forced to I see lots of surveys and research about the use of technology in finance. Things like 47 percent of consumers are interested in biometric payments or 80 percent of consumers would use mobile payments. Then you …

The main blog headlines are … What happens if consumers stop consuming? I saw an interesting article the other day: I Don’t Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore … our economy is built on Americans of all class levels buying things. What happens when the ability — and desire — to …

The main blog headlines are … Here’s what the new normal looks like 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 …

The main blog headlines are … Dealing with a crisis: FinTech versus Bank The chasm between start-ups and incumbents is massively exposed by coronavirus. I realised this early on, when I saw that FinTech firms who were born on the internet were far more ready for working from home than …

The main blog headlines are … Where was the digital backup to our physical structure? The coronavirus crisis has hit everyone sudden and hard. We originally thought it was a Chinese crisis and now it’s a global one. It’s shut down economies worldwide and the banking system has been asked …