Digital Bank

The chasm between start-ups and incumbents is massively exposed by coronavirus. I realised this early on, when I saw that FinTech firms who were born on the internet were far more ready for working from home than traditional banks who depend on branches, buildings, office and physicality. A good example …

The coronavirus crisis has hit everyone sudden and hard. We originally thought it was a Chinese crisis and now it’s a global one. It’s shut down economies worldwide and the banking system has been asked to step in fast and address the crisis. Governments worldwide have asked banks to give …

I was recently watching an online poll that asked the best way for a traditional bank to compete with the new digital banks. Should they build a new bank, buy a digital bank competitor, or transform the old bank? The vote was split fairly equally between all three choices after …

In the latest example of a bank that couldn’t hack the digital bank market, RBS gave up on Bó last week. It surprised me as the bank only launched last November, to a fanfare of £100 million investment and the acquisition of the start-up they had been co-funding, Loot. The …

I remember some years ago that Nikolas Sarkozy wanted to bring in a law that would force call centre operators to tell French citizens where they were located, due to the backlash over offshore call centres. I wonder what he would make of today’s world, where most French and European …

There’s a great write-up by one of my guest contributors Alex Johnson, about the bad sales culture of most banks. Admittedly, he says it’s partly inspired by my blog of last year about challenger banks, but his write-up takes it further and has a swipe at the whole bank culture …

Today is the day that Doing Digital, my newest book, is finally live on Amazon and all good book stores. It’s the result of two years primary and secondary research and, to pay it its due, has been featured in many interviews with me recently. I’ll share many of them, …

It’s interesting that governments around the world have announced huge stimulus packages to protect workers, small businesses and life in general. Trillions of dollars. Great. The reality is that no one is getting it. You see these announcements and try to get hold of the bank to get the stimulus. …

I did a presentation to a conference via video link the other day. Slido allowed audience members to ask questions through the presentation, and the list of questions at the end was quite extensive. I didn’t get time to answer all of them, but here’s a selection. The most popular …

I don’t know how you guys are holding up, but I’m finding myself on lots of videoconferences, even delivering a keynote in Tokyo the other day from my home office in Poland. The event was recorded and so I thought I’d share the video and transcript with you. This, btw, …

In the next few weeks Doing Digital, my newest book, will be finally live on Amazon and all good book stores. It’s the result of two years primary and secondary research and, to pay it its due, has been featured in many interviews with me recently. I’ll share many of …

I don’t do many interviews on The Finanser, but had been planning a massive book launch over the next month, touring the world and spending $1000s on media engagement. Ah well. That’s all on hold until this coronavirus thing ends … Meantime, one of the major sponsors of the book launch is …

I’m getting a lot of people asking questions about what I think the coronavirus will mean long-term in the financial markets, so I’ve tried to jump forward to look back. Obviously, the big thing about a pandemic is that people are being told to stop meeting each other. Conferences, events, …

“Are you willing to take the risk of investing in bullshit?” Interesting headline. It’s not mine btw. It’s a question from a leading banker. The question, in this case, related to investing in data mining … but you will probably find it’s a question asked about any major project. It’s the …

I just found that Deutsche Bank Research issued three in-depth reports in January looking at the future of payments: Part I: Cash: The Dinosaur Will Survive… For Now Cash will survive. But digital currencies’ potential could re-balance global economic power. Part II: Moving To Digital Wallets And The Extinction Of …