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Innovation is being damaged by lack of confidence in governance

I just got a report on trust from The Institute of Business Ethic’s (IBE’s) (attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2024 survey) in business and politicians. Headlines? Only 14% of 2067 UK adults polled trust that politicians behave ethically in 2024. Charities, businesses, media and politicians, have all experienced a three-point decrease in trust from 2023. Corporate…

Weaponising bank branch closures

The UK has an election in July. The likely winner is the left-of-centre Labour Party, after 14 years of the righter wing Conservative Party. The new leader will be Sir Kier Starmer, a guy described as a “political robot”. Nevertheless, his party has created a burning platform to win votes. No, it’s not “stop the boats”…

If you are data-dumb, you cannot compete

Whilst I was in South Africa, they couldn’t help talking about Rugby  (could they?). You may remember that South Africa won the Rugby World Cup last year* for the second time in a row – a rare feat – and are the top-ranked world rugby team right now. So, it’s not surprising they would talk about…

Is this the man who invented BNPL?

A few people got excited about Affirm working with Apple Pay to embed BNPL (buy now, pay later) in their services. As reported by CNBC: Apple device users will be able to tap into buy now, pay later loans from Affirm for purchases Affirm will surface as an option for Apple Pay users on iPhones…

What the Finternet?

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the guys who create the Basel rules and control much of the way the global banking system works, released a paper the other day about the Finternet: “the financial system for the future”. The idea is that all of the financial world will connect through unified ledgers integrated by…

When will everything, everywhere be open? Oh, around 10:33

I had a chat with a friend the other day about Open Banking and they asked if I’d heard about 1033. 1033? Is that a PIN code for their cash? No. As it turns out, 1033 is the section of the USA’s Consumer Financial Protection Act that will introduce Open Banking to our American friends….

Who are you? eIDAS2!

I recently stumbled across an update of eIDAS. Have you heard of it, eIDAS2? It’s all about our digital identities in the European Union. The first eIDAS – short for electronic Identification, Authentication, and trust Services – tried to sort out all the ways to recognise who you are online. That first version was implemented…

Is digital banking done?

As Revolut reports exceeding 40 million customers across Europe and Monzo raises $430 million at a $5 billion valuation, many people are thinking that the challengers are no longer challengers. They are banks. Putting it in context, in the UK, NatWest have 14 million retail customers; Monzo has over 9 million. The challenger has matured. Yet, when…

What’s NOT hot in Fintech?

In discussion with other investors, we were talking about what’s hot and what’s not in fintech. What’s hot I discussed the other day. What’s not is today’s discussion. Our conclusion was that digital banking, neobanks and challengers, BaaS, payments, lending and other well trodden fintech fields are no longer hot. Been there, done that. These are the areas…

How can we be data-driven when we’re data-dumb?

I’ve written a lot about how banks are dumb with data because they’re spread over so many systems with massive technical debt, and yet every bank is now saying to me that they are “data driven” with “digital at the core”. Really? Most of those banks, when I look under the hood, are bankensteins. These…

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