Fintech

I’ve met many FinTech founders and the one thing they have in common is youthful optimism (even those over 30), but I was taken with an article written by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian the other day asking why so many so many under 30-year-old founders face jail. You see the thing about youthful optimism…

As an advocate of digitalisation, I am finding myself more and more conflicted these days. Apps don’t work; settings change; updates mess up my services; processes break and cannot be repaired without a reset; I can’t make a payment as there is no WiFi or mobile data; I can’t get home as FreeNow and Uber…

The World Bank released a free report the other day titled: FinTech and the Future of Finance. It’s an interesting read and I was going to summarise it, when I discovered on LinkedIn that my friend Richard Turrin had already done the job. Here you go: “The World Bank” delivers a great read on fintech and…

I was listening to a fascinating debate about identity authentication, and one of the speakers referenced the fact that it was only because Dutch jews registered their identities at the start of the Second World War that so many died. I had not heard about this and immediately started Googling. Sure enough 75 per cent…

“When you’re not working, what do you do to de-stress?” was the last question Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)*, took at an investor conference on Tuesday last week. “Cycling is my advice,” he replied. Three days later he was on his bike as his bank went into receivership.  You’ve probably seen a…

I just picked up a long and fascinating article on TechCrunch this week. Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall, but they interview seven leading VC investors in FinTech and asked a whole variety of questions: Many people are calling this a downturn. How has your investment thesis changed over the last year? Are you still closing…

The fintech bloodbath continues as three really interesting articles came across my desk last week (we discussed them on Fintech Uncut in case you missed it). The first, from Reuters, talked about the valuation of Stripe, my favourite FinTech. Why are they my favourite? Because they expanded massively from a new entrant in 2011 to…

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about money. I’ve learned about its creation, usage and operation. I’ve learned that it wasn’t invented to replace bartering. I’ve learned a lot. Here’s a few facts about money … The Barter Economy was a myth We believe that money replaced bartering with each other, but that’s just…

I’ve said that my old bank is deficient for some time. Specifically, no alerts of transactions so I have to open the app to see when something is paid; no detail of transactions, just something like ABC CORP TX 3201984 on my statement; zero detail about where I’m spending money, just a date and a…

I blogged the other day about a decade of FinTech failures, but FinTech is not failing, it’s flourishing as demonstrated by the numbers. For example I took note of Innovate Finance’s analysis of FinTech 2022 a month ago. The key headlines are: The total capital invested into FinTech globally reached $92 billion in 2022, a…