AI will augment, not destroy humanity
I’ve spent years talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Source: Europa Bearing in mind that we always talk about AI in the context of the Turing Test – a test that Alan Turing created back in 1950 – it’s not surprising. That test is that we will have achieved the true opportunities for technological development when…

Neobanks: are they really challenging?
In surfing this week, I found a great article on my friend Amit Goel‘s website GoMedici.com. The company has just completed a deep dive into the world of challenger banks or, as they term them, neobanks. The time for neobanks is now. Here’s their summary of thinking: Neobanking 2.0: Global Deep Dive 2020 Just like…

BaaS works, it’s the regulations that don’t
During my MoneyBox interview about Wirecard (see end of this blog), Paul asked me the question: how could this happen again? What’s next? And I said, we learn from our mistakes. Progress never stops. Wirecard won’t shut down FinTech. It will amend it. This means this is not the end of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), but an…

Wirecard … the biggest accounting fraud? Is the customers money safe? The end of Banking-as-a-Service?
Some of us are old enough to remember Arthur Anderson and Enron, a mixture of two companies that created an accounting mess bigger than any seen before in corporate history. That was until Ernst & Young (EY) and Wirecard. Interestingly, there have been many auditing mess ups in the past few decades, but there are…

Wirecard or Weirdcard?
Another day and another headline about Wirecard: ‘The money’s gone’: Wirecard collapses owing $4 billion Wirecard’s Missing Billions Forces Out CEO, Panics Lenders Wirecard: Former boss arrested over €1.9bn scandal How Wirecard fooled most of the people all of the time Inside Wirecard EY failed to ask for Wirecard bank statements for 3 years Softbank…

FinTech can’t tackle financial services without tackling its diversity problem
I blog about so many things. Sure, most of the time it’s FinTech, banking and technology. Sure, most of the time it’s about the future, the outlook, the ideas. But quite often I find myself returning to topics that I’m passionate about: diversity, equality, inclusion, climate protection, the future, our children. So, when a newbie…

Unicorns and incumbents are equally challenged in this crisis
I’ve often questioned the valuations of unicorns in technology, whether it be Uber or Revolut. And here we are in lockdown world and the valuations of most unicorns are crashing overnight. Monzo’s value is down 40 percent, and FinTech funding is at a three year low. Some companies like Revolut were quite lucky. Raising $500…

























