Fintech

I walked into a grocer’s store the other day. The store was resplendent with fruits of all colours and continents. There were red, yellow and green peppers; carrots, courgettes and cauliflowers; oranges, apples and bananas of both large and small; watermelons, honey melons and mangoes; green grapes, red grapes and grapefruits; and more and more…

I don’t get The Financial Times editorials these days. Last month, they published a ridiculous article about challenger banks eating the banker’s lunch – which I covered here as being the crumbs off the table of the banker’s lunch – and this month, they publish a totally contrary view that the large banks have steamrollered over…

I hear this a lot, and don’t like it. Many banks say it these days, and they say it to be cool. To be like a start-up. To be like a Silicon Valley angel investment firm. To be like a young, FinTech unicorn. However, there is a massive difference between Amazon, Alibaba and Bank of…

I was talking with a senior banker, who told me that he was in charge of the Artificial Intelligence program in the bank. I was impressed as he is part of the executive leadership team of the bank and not the CIO. We have invested widely across the board in AI, he told me, and…

I just spoke at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum, a Davos for the Russian world and beyond. Hosted by Vladimir Putin there were stellar guests attending including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, as well as other world leaders and Chris Skinner. Hanging out with the heads of Russia,…

I was listening to questions at a meeting this week where one of the audience asked if I needed to adjust what I say on my travels, to suit the culture of different countries. I thought about it for a second, and realised that I don’t. I do adjust the humour, the timbre of my…

After yesterday’s article about how backward America is, in terms of payments, there’s a useful article talking about how they’re trying to rectify this. Bearing in mind that the big American banks are all spending $10 billion plus each on technology, they should be updating, and CB Insights latest installment looks at where the top American…

I often say that blockchain is one of the most complex areas, combining all we don’t know about technology with all we don’t understand about finance. It’s a big hole of acronyms, confusion and debate. Some things that claim to be blockchain don’t use blockchains, and some blockchains claim not to be blockchains but blockchain…

I often talk about the business model of a bank (or any business) being made up of three major parts: A back office that manufactures the product and administers the service; A middle office where the infrastructure is built to connect the back and front office; and A front office where the relationship exists between…

The term The Internet of Things (IoT) was first used twenty years ago. Twenty years later, IoT is emerging rapidly. We have our cars and homes networked but, more than this, we have gadgets like Google Home, Siri and Alexa. Amazon has taken this even further with services like Key for Garage, a smart door…