Fintech

I know I’ve written a lot about China and the Chinese internet giants for the past couple of years, whilst leaving out much of what’s happening in the USA. It’s not to say the USA is boring, but it’s not innovating at the speed, rate or scale of the Chinese internet companies. By way of…

I’ve spotted a couple of interesting discussions about millennials and money in the last week, both of which say that the views on them are wrong. Stereotyped as avocado-crunching, cappuccino drinking, needies, the general media view is that this is a generation spoilt by helicopter parents to grow up to be the most earnest losers…

I spotted a chart the other day showing the millions of dollars lost on cryptocurrency platforms … Source: The Wall Street Journal Since 2011, there have been 56 cyberattacks directed at cryptocurrency exchanges, initial coin offerings and other digital-currency platforms around the world, according to Autonomous Research, bringing the total of hacking-related losses to $1.63…

I cannot post a 222-page PDF from the US Government on FinTech and competition without also posting a 136-page PDF from the European Parliament on FinTech and competition. Also released last week, this is a report prepared by the policy department of the European Parliament at the request of the ECON Committee. The EU document has a…

The USA is a little bit confusing. On the one hand, they have some of the fittest people in the world; on the other, they have some of the fattest. On the one hand, they’ve championed the banning of cigarettes far more than any other nation and were the first to do it; on the…

I’m off to Chile next week and thought, in preparation, I’d look at the state of FinTech in Latin America. So far, I’ve spent fair time in Colombia, Brazil and Argentina, and see these as the three major centres of activity along with Mexico. Equally, I meet a lot of the LatAm companies in Miami at…

KPMG’s Pulse of FinTech report came out this week. It makes for interesting reading, especially as investment in FinTech has raced ahead to levels unseen before. Globally, $57.9 billion was invested in FinTech firms in the first half of the year. These figures were slightly inflated by the $14 billion funding round by Ant Financial…

After my recent blog about challenger banks, I received an interesting email from David Parker challenging the idea that a start-up is actually a challenger. Chris I continually argue that Revolut is not a challenger bank – it does not today have a banking licence. If you want to say any prepaid card is a challenger bank…

A few years ago Jamie Dimon was renowned for saying that bitcoin developers “are going to try and eat our lunch” and that silicon valley was coming to get the banks. Three years later, it’s not quite the case. The big banks are getting bigger, and the FinTech community is nibbling at the ankles and not…

I find it quite surprising to see statistics around ICOs, such as the fact that $13.7 billion has been raised by ICOs so far this year alone. $13.7 billion! In what? Well, the 10 biggest ICOs this year are: Telegram: $1.7 billion Dragon: $320 million Huobi: $300 million Bankera: $150.9 million Orbs: $118 million Envion:…