Case Studies

We’ve seen some pretty strong attacks on banks cyberdefences in the past year. Three major incidents in the SWIFT network; 50 at the Federal Reserve; problems at the Bank of England and many other central banks; a major incident at the Danish payment processorNETS; and big banks like HSBC and …

My presentations change every day, but I got a great new slide to illustrate the burning platform that banks sit upon.  This is the one I was blogging about yesterday, and the one area I blog about incessantly (so much so that I bore myself). But there is a burning platform …

I’ve blogged a few times about GAFA – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon – as the worrisome Gang of Four.  Sure, we can worry about them, but the thing is to stop worrying and do something.  Australian banks decide to stop Apple by taking them to court; British banks would rather …

I haven’t blogged about InsurTech much, as this is a banking blog, but having started life in the insurance industry I guess it’s time to shine a light on this corner of the financial world. My first hearing about InsurTech, or InsTech if you prefer, was in a US conference …

I got into a conference this week (for a change) where the presenter of a roboadvising wealth manager got into a bit of a Q&A scuffle with an audience member.  Felix Niederer, founder and CEO of Zurich-based start-up True Wealth showed the stats for their customers. Most of them are …

Building on yesterday’s blog (Do bank’s need a CIO?) , the key misunderstanding is the role.  Most banks thing the CIO is there to run the technology.  They’re not.  That’s what they used to do.  That’s not the job for the future. First and foremost, the person leading technology developments …

As my readers will know, I regularly interview innovators of start-ups and banks of how they see the world.  These interviews constitute a third of the ValueWeb and Digital Bank books.  In the interests of maintaining these case studies, as I find them interesting, I recently met Ben Milne, Founder and CEO …

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you may have noticed the rise of Pokémon Go.  It’s been in the news everywhere, mainly because kids seem to be gathering in places they shouldn’t.  Equally, the game has been responsible for everything from finding dead bodies to resurrecting other ones.   Mayhem …

As you can tell, I found the White House meeting so interesting that I’m gonna bore you about it all week.  Today is the turn of how FinTech can make us live smarter, better and more informed lives.  That theme resonates as Moven’s strapline is to spend, save and live smarter (guess …

Not sure how many of you spotted the announcement last month that Goldman Sachs is launching a retail bank, but it’s been interesting to monitor such developments. First there was a raft of press reviews of the announcement: Goldman Sachs gets into retail banking Goldman Sachs Enters Retail Banking Market with GS Bank Here’s How Goldman …

I promise to shut up about African developments after this post, for a while anyway, but there’s a definite feeling that Africa may set the standards for a cheaper, easier financial system in the future, as blogged last week.  In fact, when I was asked about Africa as a continent …

ValueWeb makes the contention that you cannot have an internet of things without a real-time and cheap internet of value.  A core part of this is focused upon building a cheap shared ledger structure for digital identity and digital currencies and guess what?  That cheap shared ledger is most likely going …

One of the gating factors to financial inclusion is the mobile network itself. It sounds simple to say that all of Africa can have access to mobile money, and they can, but if each telco has different wallet structures, charges and fees, then the ease of usage falls sharply. This …

I need a little time to think about my reimagined financial structure, but some of the basics are already in play such as the idea of thinking about value exchange rather than monetary exchange.  Value exchange is based upon the ability to reach the world with a thought.  I do …

There are a number of hotbeds for innovation in finance – London, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley – may all spring to mind to begin with … but what about Berlin and Munich? Yes, Berlin is showing some interesting true colours with three standout start-ups: Fidor, NUMBER26 and solaris.  Two …