Digital Bank

The 11th of November. 11 November. 11/11. Not 9/11 or 5/11. 11/11. For Europeans and Americans, 11/11 means the end of the First World War. The Allies sat down and signed the Armistice Agreement with the Germans at 11:00 (Paris time) on 11th November, 1918, in Compiègne and ended the War. Poland reappeared as a…

Twenty years ago, I worked on a strategy for the future of banking. My conclusion was that banks would merge with telecommunications firms and become hybrid institutions. Twenty years later, it hasn’t happened. But will it? It was interesting because way back then I worked for NCR which was owned by AT&T. AT&T, a telecommunications…

There’s nothing like a true story to bring a point home, so here’s my latest one. I’m starting a new venture. It’s a philanthropic thing, nothing to do with banking, but because we are seeking sponsorship, we need to open a bank account. I choose to open an account with ABC Bank, where I already…

I often talk about teaching children to learn what machines cannot learn. Our system of education was created in the Industrial Revolution, and is based upon kids being stuffed with facts, stats and dates. They learn to parrot-fashion repeat things, and are tested to see if they can remember. It’s a very poor state of…

I was surprised to see that JPMorgan Chase is now hiring people as bankers and, as a mandatory part of their induction programme, they are taught to code. “Coding is not for just tech people, it is for anyone who wants to run a competitive company in the 21st century,” said Mary Callahan Erdoes, Head of JPMorgan Asset Management….

I was chairing a panel with a number of different players, one of which was Monzo. Simon Vans-Colina, Monzo’s lead engineer for Open APIs, was talking about their approach to partnering with others in an API ecosystem, including TransferWise and Investec Bank. What was not surprising is that the lion’s share of audience questions ended…

I recently had a chat with Monica Murthy of Empire Startups. Here’s the low-down. Starting From Scratch – The Path for Western FinTech It would be incorrect to call Chris Skinner an industry old hat, since despite his 10+ years in the FinTech industry, he’s known for being on the cutting edge, and doling out…

I was talking with some friends at the most innovative bank in Europe. A bank that has stopped getting on my radar for the past few years. I first blogged about them back in 2012, when I met the founder at an event. That bank is called Fidor. Following that first meeting, we became friends, and I…

I got this headline today: Most banks will be made irrelevant by 2030 – Gartner Within 12 years time, 80% of financial firms will either go out of business or be rendered irrelevant by new competition, changing customer behaviour and advancements in technology, according to forecasts by Gartner. And it really made me mad because…

Like many of us, I have several pet hates about banks. My main one is when they sting you with charges you don’t expect. I always remember getting a £50 charge for an unauthorised overdraft a few years ago. I’d been with the bank for over twenty years and never been overdrawn before. This instance…