Fintech

Is it just me or has the whole digital currency space become hot, hot, hot? Every five minutes, I see stuff about CBDCs – who needs them?; cryptocurrencies – who’s using them?; and stablecoins – what’s that all about? The last one is intriguing me the most at the moment, as I’ve said for years:…

I just wrote something that was pretty ambiguous when a friend asked what my latest speech is all about. The answer? “Becoming an AI-native bank – digital is so last century – and digital trust in a deep fake world (digital ID)”. The answer is accurate, but I just wrote off digital and then talked…

I was going to change this, but am reposting a LinkedIn update from Leonid Bashlykov, who heads up Crypto at Revolut because it further clarifies the blog I posted last week. The post was titled: Launch a bank from your bedroom which, unsurprisingly, gained a lot of criticism from good luck with that to wait till…

As everyone who reads me regularly will know, I’m a big sci-fi fan and have blogged regularly about Star Trek versus Star Wars and their view of money. A dystopian or utopian future? Money is the core – Chris Skinner’s blog Today, I’m going off on another trip as I’ve just got hooked on Alien:…

Twenty years ago, four critical things happened: cloud computing became mainstream; the smartphone was launched; Satoshi Nakamoto released the bitcoin whitepaper; and the global financial crisis killed all trust in traditional financial institutions. All of these things pretty much happened at the same time. Twenty years later, a multi-trillion dollar world has appeared on the…

In a trip to London last week, I was lucky enough to be given a deep dive into the status of Revolut, Europe’s stand-out fintech unicorn valued at $45 billion last year and $75 billion today.   This is a company that, ten years ago, was just two guys sitting in a Canary Wharf office…

I’m such a futurist nerd in banking that, thirty years ago, I forecast banks would open telco services and vice versa, and can prove it if you want. The reason? Both have frequent customer contact, high transaction volumes and similar capabilities. Just seven years ago, I was still banging on the same drum. It is…

Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT and more – along with the PayPal Mafia https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/04/who-owns-chatgpt/ – was speaking about bank capital rules this week and made an interesting comment that: “There are some FIs that will accept a voice print to move a lot of money. That is a crazy thing…

We are really good at creating bingo buzz words in business to get everyone feeling they are missing the buzz. Terms such as Big Data, Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS, invented by me!), embedded finance, invisible banking and more turn up every day. Some get traction and some don’t, but the whole idea is to make you feel…

I recently got an invite to present a TEDx talk at Haberdashers School in Elstree, England. Shortly afterwards, a second TEDx talk invite came through from the American School of Warsaw, Poland. Of course, I accepted both, but then the challenge became how to do two TEDx talks with some clear differentiation. The result is…