Fintech

During May, the floor fell out of the cryptocurrency markets with many losing their life savings. You can question why they had their life savings invested in cryptocurrencies in the first place, but what made the price fall so far, so fast? The answer is a combination of things, the core of which is a…

I noted that the FCA is holding the new UK banks to account for their mishaps over customer onboarding and, specifically, their lack of due diligence: Barclays’ fraud prevention team spotted a problem: some customers had handed over millions of pounds to a single, suspicious Monzo account in a matter of weeks.  As I said a…

We all got excited a couple of years ago about the biggest FinTech IPO that would ever be listed. Ant Group would have listed with a valuation over $300 billion. They didn’t, because President Xi blocked it after Jack Ma messed up, but it was exciting whilst it lasted. Now there’s another big FinTech IPO…

For years now there has been a discussion of having chips inside humans. I was presenting this idea twenty years ago, and often used the example of the Baja Beach Club. The idea made sense: get a club chip inserted under the skin and you need no wallet or phone … just dance. It particularly…

As I posted analysis of the state of financial innovation in Ukraine the other day,  I thought it only fair to get the other side of the story: what’s happening in Russia? I have many friends in both countries. In particular Daniel Gusev, Managing Partner & Founder at Gauss Ventures, has been a good Russia…

I don’t know if you’ve noticed a new start-up called Column, but it’s worth watching as it’s a chartered bank in America created by the co-founder of Plaid, William Hockey, and his wife Anne. What’s Column all about? The problem the Hockeys are trying to solve is that fintechs and large tech companies often need…

New banks have great opportunities. They can fix all the things old banks do badly, using a clean sheet of paper. But sometimes they get it wrong. For example, many are fans of Monzo, one of the fastest growing UK challenger banks. I’m a fan, but have noticed one issue that keeps getting social media…

I had an interesting comment the other day from a friend who said that he had worked with incumbents and start-ups. The big difference is that the incumbent views digital as a cost-cutting exercise, whilst the start-up sees it as a customer-enhancing opportunity. It rang a bell with me. Having spent so long dealing with…

I just spotted a spoof story on The Onion which, if you’re not aware, is a humour website of news stories. Their latest one: Study Finds Processing Power Wasted Mining Bitcoin Only Thing Preventing Sentient Computers From Wiping Out Humanity It made me laugh but, at the same time, made me think. Is bitcoin that…

I never used the Apple wallet until recently. Reason being that I didn’t need to. Then the pandemic hit, and I wanted to avoid using cash, so all of my cards that would work with Apple loaded into the phone. Interestingly some cards would not load but hey, contactless and cardless is the way. Then…