Crypto

As referenced in my R3 fake news last week, there are various camps out there fighting for the cryptocurrency crown.  The lead runners are bitcoin and Ethereum, and both have serious backing.  However, it’s still early days.  I keep stressing that we need to remember we are experimenting here, and the end game is still…

It made me laugh today.  I was chairing a panel where Romana Kumar, Head of Global Transaction Banking for the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), was discussing their trial of Ripple.  The background to this was announced in a press release on 1st February 2017: Ripple’s Distributed Financial Technology fits within NBAD’s existing infrastructure…

I mentioned in my FinTech Wave that blockchain has entered the trough of disillusionment.  It’s certainly a lot quieter space this year than last.  In fact, when I say blockchain today, a lot of folks turn the other way.  What’s going on? A lot of it is to do with the hype cycle, and the…

For ten years, my friends cover at Z/Yen have been producing the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), on behalf of the City of London.  It’s a research program where people can answer the survey questionnaire and, from those participating, the different cities of the world vying to be financial hubs are ranked.  Around 2,500 people respond…

A bank has to make a regulatory change every 12 minutes.  That’s some task.  A bigger question must also be: how can a regulatory check that a bank is compliant with their regulatory changes, if their regulations change every 12 minutes are run to 1,000’s of pages? The answer is they can’t, but they don’t…

I outlined yesterday the fact that 98% of money laundering goes unchecked, allowing $1.6 trillion a year to be used for terrorist funding, drug dealers, sex traffickers and possibly worse.   This was prompted by a conversation about AML (Anti-Money Laundering) with the CEO and Co-Founder of I met Coinfirm, Pawel Kuskowski. So what’s the solution, is how…

I was surprised the other day when I met Pawel Kuskowski, CEO and Co-founder of Coinfirm, a start-up firm offering Compliance-as-a-Service.  Pawel has been trained in compliance and AML, having worked with some of the world’s biggest financial institutions including AIG (Compliance Officer), UBS (Director of Compliance, Compliance and Operational Risk Officer) and RBS (Head…

So one of my 2017 forecasts is coming true already: it is the year that blockchain moves out of proofs of concept and work and into the mainstream.  Two great examples broke out this week from skunk works to media. The first I spotted was the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group using bitcoin for various…

I was looking through Google Analytics to see which of my blog entries had been most read in 2016.  Here’s the list and, as you will see, it’s mostly people reading about blockchain news, although how to change the bank, fintech and innovation all get high rankings too. The top ten trends in banking innovation…

Earlier this year, I summarised some of the best research papers that had been released on FinTech and Blockchain in three parts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.  Thanks to Oliver Bussmann’s blog, I can now provide you with a list of the best research released on Fintech this year.  Enjoy! 2016-12 Digital Asset Holding Non Technical…