Fintech

The good thing about blogging is that I have a public record of my thinking. Hence, I can claim that Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is mine. That’s because I was presenting the idea ten years ago and blogged about it in February 2009. Now, no idea is unique, and the BaaS idea was purely based upon the…

I’ve got caught in a few discussions recently with people who tell me Ant Financial are Chinese. They’re not. Neither is Alibaba and, if you think they’re just Chinese, you’re going to miss a huge change in the next decade. Ant Financial is an open marketplace of apps, APIs and analytics, that I’ve been describing…

For those who know me they know that I travel a lot and, in those travels, it is fairly obvious that the world is not homogenous. Whilst the Chinese leapfrog the West and move to mobile banking, Europeans are seeing a surge of new banks trying to challenge the old, whilst the USA has megabanks…

I’ve used a statement for a while now about the competitive landscape of finance in the future. It goes something like: Banks have millions of customers, billions of capital and centuries of history, but are hampered by heritage; Start-ups have no customers, little capital and no history, but are driven by vision; whilst Tech giants…

So, I’m presenting at a Corporate Treasury event, and we get into talking about distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain. Comments are made around so many tests and proofs of work and concept, but so little production. At this point, someone made the comment that it will happen from the ground up, as corporates start…

It’s very confusing these days. I turned up at a conference recently in a suit and tie and no one, literally no one, was wearing a suit or tie. No one had told me the dress code either, so I grinned and bared it. Then I got to another meeting today where the audience were…

I’ve often been hired to run a workshop or presentation at a bank’s boardroom meeting. Usually, I’m hired by the frustrated digital guy who wants to convince the rest of the leadership team that it’s important. They don’t get digital, he or she will tell me, so you must make them understand, they plead. Wow….

Building on Friday’s blog about small bank thinking, there’s another anomaly that occurs with big banks which is their usual response to technology is to test it. The problem with testing technology is that it is just a test. A false implementation. It is not designed for reality and can lead to false results. For…

I have several friends in the FinTech world whose views I respect, and one of those is Steve Lemon, a co-founder of Currencycloud. He recently sent me this viewpoint, which I think is worth sharing. Enjoy!   Is the weak link in alternative banking cross-border payments? by Steve Lemon, VP, Corporate Development and Co-Founder of Currencycloud…

I’ve been tempted for some time to write a book about how sex is at the heart of commerce, innovation and money. I’ve alluded to it a few times, and particularly noted that the right honourable Jeremy Clarkson sometimes says something intelligent. “Money and rumpy-pumpy (sex) are the twin engines powering everything we do”. He’s…