Digital Bank

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…

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…

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…

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….

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…

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…

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…

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…

Presenting to a group of banking people the other day, the constant question was about risk, return, regulation and compliance. It actually became quite irritating until one person said: “how can we create an innovation transformation culture in a zero-risk company?” It then hit me: these guys cannot do this. It’s too hard. I’ve had…

A friend of mine was inspired by my aggregation discussions last week* to ask ChatGPT what they would do about it. The discussion was so good that I feel I have to share it so, here it goes: Anonymous I am researching Financial product and fintech product solutions that provide do good, positive financial wellness…