Fintech

I’ve grown up in a period of strong political stability. I’ve been lucky. Many other people grew up in a period of strong political instability, with war and famine and economic starvation. I realise I’ve been lucky because I’m now looking at lockdown, China-US trade relations, British-EU trade relations, African …

I stumbled across a great article about Brazilian neobanks the other day. Bearing in mind that Nubank is the most successful neobank in the world, with 25 million users at the start of June. As a result, when I saw a great article about banks in Brazil by Contexto, who …

I blog regularly about what a fanboy I am of Chinese technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. It’s getting a bit ridiculous now however, when payments companies are designing payments for cats and dogs … or maybe it’s not … it’s just an extension of technologies that work for humans. My …

OK, OK, OK.  I know that some of my friends have been doing FinTech and Banking songs for a while, and I’ve avoided it. I’ve also avoided doing much video, as I don’t like seeing myself on camera. And I don’t sing, except in the shower. But … … oh …

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 …

This could be a serious mistake, as I’m an old guy who wasn’t born for rapping, but I can’t help myself. I woke up today and thought: you should make a rap video. Stupid, I know, but can’t help myself. My wife actually wandered into the office as I recorded this …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

In any business, there are different movers and shakers. Some can create momentum; some can maintain momentum; some create ideas; some kill ideas; some run the business; some change the business; and so on and so on and so on. I’m an ideas guy. I could never run a business. …

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 …

I spent some time recently chatting with Joanne Dewar, Chief Executive Officer, Global Processing Services (GPS). I spotted GPS a while ago, and blogged about how they worked with Monzo, Starling, Revolut and more last October. Anywho, Joanne wrote a brilliant piece on the Nasdaq website the other day, which …

The chasm between start-ups and incumbents is massively exposed by coronavirus. I realised this early on, when I saw that FinTech firms who were born on the internet were far more ready for working from home than traditional banks who depend on branches, buildings, office and physicality. A good example …