Fintech

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…

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…

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…

In a long strategy session yesterday, we were trying to list the things that are hot and what’s not in fintech. So, what’s hot? Obviously crypto and AI. However, those are the headline buckets, what’s the detail? The detail is the use cases of crypto and AI. This is something I say often, as you…

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…

Just had a wonderful time in South Africa, a country I love to visit. Going between Johannesburg and Cape Town, there were many great meetings and networking opportunities, and it made me realise how vibrant the African fintech scene is after my recent visit to Cairo. Cape Town is particularly noteworthy as one of the…

I was having a chat with some friends about the good old days, where everything was domestic and local. We had passbooks, cheques, cash and branches. Ah, those were the days. Life was simple, money was all in one place and easy to manage. Then the ATM came about and so we moved to cards…

I got into a new debate yesterday, talking with two guys who are formerly with big card companies (shush, you know who), and we started debating the four-pillar model that’s been around for the last half century. The model is the basis of the card industry and involves acquiring merchants, issuing cards through banks, and then…

I talk a lot about the platform economy where the network joins us all together. In that economy, like life on Earth, there are many players. 1000’s of companies, millions of people and billions of capital. The question is: how to connect them? The answer is to be a connector in the connected economy, and…