I had a few recent experiences that showed me how bad developments are in the digital world today. One was trying to cancel a subscription to a news app and, when logging in online, couldn’t find anything to show me the answer. The second was my bank who changed my international bank account numbers but…
IPO-yay! It’s Fintech Float Season 🙂 Investment bankers must be lining their pockets as Fintech Float Season has arrived. After a decade of FinTech developments with a few floats, of which the biggest have been companies like Square and PayPal, who were recently worth more than Goldman Sachs and Bank of America respectively. Now, there are…
I was thinking about this article in The Telegraph saying what a rotten job supermarkets have made of competing with banks. Tesco sold its mortgage book to Lloyds two years ago owing to “challenging market conditions” and is now closing all personal current accounts. Marks & Spencer this year decided to close all of its bank…
I’ve blogged a bit about the Finverse – where the metaverse and crypto come together – and was reading Jemima Kelly’s column on the FT about the Metaverse and crypto. She states: As far as I’m concerned, the hypocritical fantasy that underpins crypto also lies at the heart of the metaverse. This isn’t about building…
Four years ago, I was using this slide in my presentations. As I blogged at the time: “Those who recognise that banks are doing 1000 things average, will naturally come together to do 1000 things brilliantly.” The idea was that FinTech start-ups would start to align with each other to create global platforms. The first…
This headline struck me: Barclays Bank branch to shut as only 15 people use it regularly Reading the report, Barclays spokesperson is quoted as saying that “85% of customers at the branch are using alternative ways in which to undertake their banking, including via the telephone, online and mobile app” and that, “in total, [only]…
We talk a lot about neobanks and challenger banks, but how are they doing in reality? Well, they seem to be doing pretty well. By way of example N26, the Germany-based bank start-up, is now the second most valuable bank in Germany behind Deutsche Bank. It’s worth more than Commerzbank. Not bad for an eight-year-old…
CB Insights just released their FinTech 250 for 2021: These are the top FinTech firms in the world, in their view. The companies were selected by CB Insights’ Intelligence Unit from a pool of over 17,000 companies and, at last look, I’m tracking over 25,000 FinTech start-ups worldwide who garnered just under $100 billion of…
I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about ESG – Environment, Sustainability and Governance – as it’s the theme of my next book. Then up popped a headline: Prince Harry and Meghan are joining Ethic, a fintech asset manager in the fast-growing environmental, social and governance space, “My husband has been saying for years, ‘Gosh,…
Talking of Open Banking, I hosted a dinner focused upon Open Banking and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) in London the other night. The conversation was with neobanks and challengers and was an interesting mix of old and young views. For example, someone opened by saying that BaaS and Open Banking has hardly delivered anything. It’s disappointing and clearly…
