A few years ago, a bank CIO said to me that he was not that bothered about blockchain technologies, as these involved many externalities; he was far more interested in AI, as this could make breakthroughs with internalities. In case his words are lost in translation, what he meant is that blockchain would not deliver return…
Brazil’s FinTech giant Nubank just crushed its 2Q 2023 earnings. We have never seen growth like NU’s in any challenger bank. In fact, some would claim – including me – that this ten-year-old company is not only the strongest neobank in the world, but one of the best-run digital banks ever, maintaining solid profitability. Here…
As someone who has been writing most of his life, and specifically books for two decades, the singular focus on technology and finance has been an interesting journey. The breakthrough came in the early 2010s for me, when Digital Bank was released. Since then, I’ve travelled the world meeting visionaries in banking, finance and technology,…
Building on yesterday’s idea of the future world, where our brains are connected 24*7 in real-time to the network, what would that mean for financial services? Well, I’ve blogged about this a few times already: Invisible banking is the place to be Nobody wants embedded finance Specifically, if we think of money as part of…
I was thinking about embedded, intelligent finance and imagining the future. There are many scenarios, but one that I kept returning to is when you have infi inside (intelligent finance inside). A chip in your brain, and you can run your life on automatic. It may seem phantasmagorical but there are several examples of where…
Although we can mock consulting houses, their research can prove incredibly useful. This is why I’ve just put McKinsey’s top 15 technology trends report at the top of my inbox. Here is the summary McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2023 After a tumultuous 2022 for technology investment and talent, the first half of 2023 has seen…
As millennials reach C-suite positions, they bring with them new eyes, new skills and new outlooks. In particular, they get technology, the internet, the digital world. Does this mean that banking will evolve and change naturally, due to new leaders with new eyes? Possibly yes, maybe no. The thing is that it is clear that…
I think it is time to launch a website of cryptoscams so yes, I’ve done it. It’s called cryptocrim.com, a space where all the crypto criminals will be thrown into Room 101, a place where you can consign anything you hate to history (although George Orwell had other ideas). The new site will be live…
Apple rules the world. Assailed by Google/Alphabet, Facebook/Meta, Samsung and more, Apple has sustained an incredible trajectory to become a three-trillion-dollar company. Apple is now worth more than the entire FTSE100 list of companies … In terms of competitors, only Microsoft comes close which, some say, is mainly due to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but Apple’s dominance is…
