Digital Bank

For some time, I’ve followed Clara Durodié’s Decoding AI for some time. Decoding AI is a digital publication dedicated to AI in financial services and, in her most recent update, she delves deep into Trust, Ethics and the Rise of AI in Financial Services, which is my specialist subject of the moment. I won’t repost…

We talk a lot about AI these days or, as some call it, A1 or Al (yes, Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al) and we have now moved on to other terms including Generative AI, Agentic AI and AGI which stands for Artificial General Intelligence. The thing is that these terms…

It is notable that a few challenger neobanks are expanding footprint into telecoms, namely Revolut and N26. N26 joins Revolut in disrupting the telecommunications market The interesting thing here is that there have been many telco’s trying to move into banking – think Orange – and vice versa, but it rarely works. Orange checks out…

I just attended two events – one fintech and one regulatory. The contrast could not have been more different. The fintech event was buzzing with activity and youth; the regulatory event was very serious and full of suits. It reminded me of my old days dodging between Money2020 and Sibos. The thing about the regulatory…

As with all stages of constant change, there comes a moment of crisis. Many say that crisis means threat and opportunity based upon a Chinese legend. That legend is that crisis in China is a proverb which states that “crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind”. It’s very true. Riding the dangerous wind (骑着危险的狂风)…

For no particular reason, I was reflecting on being a boomer the other day. Probably it was to do with the speed of change. After all, when I was a lad, there was no tech at home. I played with Batman and James Bond Corgi toys – which I still do – and that was…

For quite a while, I have been amazed by China’s innovations in fintech from Ant to WeBank. My first visit to a Chinese bank in the 1990s, they were using Abacuses to calculate transactions; now they use rocket science in the form of AI. A lot of this was covered in depth in the deep…

Dealing with financial abuse It only came to my attention recently in talking about these things with those trying to solve the issues is that financial abuse is as prominent as domestic abuse. If you beat up your partner, you can see the physical bruises; but what about if you coercively control your partner or…

The internet was launched in the 1990s based upon generations of technologies that went before. It was designed for the exchange of information, not value. Now, we live in a networked world of information and value exchange, and are trying to retrofit the mechanisms for commerce to a flawed structure. That is why we are…

Revolut just dropped their annual report and the numbers are simply stunning. In 2024, Revolut processed over £1 trillion in transaction volume, a 52% jump from the previous year, and customer deposits grew to £30 billion. Extraordinary fact: Revolut now serves more customers than HSBC! The question I hear you ask is: why? Why are…