I get all sorts of crappy press releases from public relations managers who are eager to see me prostitute my blog for them. Rarely would I post their stuff here unless it was seriously interesting or I feel very lazy or both. You can decide which category this fits into: first direct identifies the factors…
Whilst almost 500 banks failed in the USA between 2008 and 2012, only three new banks opened. Only three new banks have opened in the United States since 2010. Before the financial crisis, over 100 banks set up shop each year, on average, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the agency that approves…
Not sure how many of you spotted the announcement last month that Goldman Sachs is launching a retail bank, but it’s been interesting to monitor such developments. First there was a raft of press reviews of the announcement: Goldman Sachs gets into retail banking Goldman Sachs Enters Retail Banking Market with GS Bank Here’s How Goldman Sachs Plans to Go After the…
During one part of my recent conference activity, I asked the banks in the audience how they organised their innovation strategies. All of them have one, is the good news. All of them have different nuances of how they structure for innovation however. The most common structure appears to be to have innovation under the…
So I just attended a really interesting two day meeting that covered all things blockchain, regulations, innovation and more. I’ll blog about the bits I can in the next few days, and thought I’d start with an overview of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Regulatory Sandbox and Project Innovate. The Regulatory Sandbox was announced at…
I’ve been presenting a summary of Digital Bank and ValueWeb for a few months now. It is the story of the origins of moneykind and, as many have now heard the story, I thought it’s about time to share this on the blog. If you have half an hour free, then you can watch the presentation. It’s been filmed…
I was just sent a press pre-release copy of The Pulse of Fintech, the quarterly global report on Fintech VC trends published jointly by KPMG International and CB Insights. The findings are quite interesting this quarter and show that, after a significant pullback in funding in Q4 2015, mega funding rounds have lifted quarterly investment…
I’m often asked whether banks should be afraid of the threat of Fintech. My answer is that most Fintech is enhancing what banks do, rather than threatening their core business. I sum this up as wrappers, replacers and reformers, and that the only Fintech firms we should really fear are those that replace core bank…
ValueWeb makes the contention that you cannot have an internet of things without a real-time and cheap internet of value. A core part of this is focused upon building a cheap shared ledger structure for digital identity and digital currencies and guess what? That cheap shared ledger is most likely going to be built in Africa. …
