For years, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has sold itself as the future of finance: transparent, decentralised, unstoppable. Now one of the most respected security figures in crypto is saying: get out whilst you still can. Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of OpenZeppelin, believes AI has fundamentally changed the security equation in decentralised finance but his latest warning is…
For years, banks have been criticised for fraud. Today, a growing number of bankers are asking a different question: why are banks paying for fraud that originates elsewhere? Across the world, consumer groups, regulators, banks and campaigners are increasingly pointing to the same source of online scams: Meta’s platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram. This is…
The latest McKinsey Global Banking Annual Review paints a fascinating picture of modern banking and shows that the industry is both richer than ever and more threatened than ever. On the surface, everything looks fantastic. Global banking generated around $1.3 trillion in net income in 2025, making it one of the most profitable industries on…
For years, the conversation around digital banks focused on whether they could survive. Today, the question is very different: what are they becoming? The latest results from Monzo, Revolut and Starling reveal something remarkable. These institutions are no longer niche challengers. They are profitable, growing rapidly, attracting millions of customers and, perhaps most importantly, becoming…
Continuing my pickup of great reports this week, here’s one from EY who used to be known as Ernst & Young. This report is about the five questions bank execs should be asking about their tech investments, namely: Do we have a governance framework that prioritizes projects based on strategic alignment rather than immediate returns?…
For years, fintech has sold a compelling story, particularly Wise. Their message? Banks are slow. Banks are expensive. Banks are burdened by legacy systems and bureaucracy. Technology can move money faster, cheaper and more transparently. Source: Wise But today, Wise faces a €500 million potential fine for breaching money laundering rules. What’s going on? Originally…
We are living through the third great revolution in modern business. The first revolution automated administration through mainframes and databases. The second digitised services through smartphones, apps, APIs and cloud. The third revolution is now intelligence: machines that can write, analyse, reason, create and increasingly act on our behalf. That is why so many people…
The key thrust of my new book is the intelligence revolution. More on that tomorrow but the basics are that we are living through the third technology revolution of finance and banking. The first began with automating the mundane with mainframes from the 1950s onwards (back office efficiencies fifty years ago); moving to making the…
I was thinking more about this third revolution of financial technologies. The first was very much focused upon automation administration using mainframe computing; the second moved from pure cost reduction to the changing dynamics of how to leverage productivity and cost using the network effects of connectivity, and driven by cloud and mobile; the third…
Now that Intelligent Bank has finally launched during my trip to China with Hauwei, here is more about what it means, as written by an AI friend … Intelligent Bank: The Third Financial Technology Revolution argues that banking is entering a third major era of technological change. The first revolution was automation, driven by mainframes, SWIFT, Visa…
