Fintech

Varun Mittal, Associate Partner with EY, recently posted a couple of interesting slides about the launch of virtual banking licences to encourage challenger banks in Asia. If you’re not aware, there’s a great deal of digital banking activity across Asia. It’s not just in China, but there are notable things …

I just spent time with a bank talking about Doing Digital. The host had read a preview copy of my new book and was asking a few questions about it. What had surprised me the most in my talks with five banks? What lesson was the most important one I …

Looking beyond 2020, there has been a rise of quite a number of folks looking to the longer-term future. Here’s the key ones I’ve picked up on so far. First is Royal Bank of Canada with their Imagine 2025 series. Quite an investment and lots of interviews and insights. The …

The UK implemented Open Banking in January 2018 and now, almost two years later, you would think it’s doing really well. This is why the momentum is building. The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) shared figures that show there are 49 million data sharing requests monthly, doubling in just seven …

Building on my blog post last week, showing the views of 1997, it was clear years ago that banking was under siege. However, that siege never happened. Tesco thought that most banks were “a bunch of clowns”, but never cracked the market and still have not. Sainsbury may have onboarded …

I’ve blogged many times that so called free banking is a fallacy.  It’s something I have blogged about for a decade, and the recurring theme is free banking should be banned by the regulator as it’s only free as long as you don’t go overdrawn. The result is that the …

Back in 1997, I was tasked with writing a strategy for NCR. The strategy had to review the likelihood that other industries would enter banking and what threat or opportunity this offered. I spent a long time on this and concluded that the most likely outcome would be that telecommunications …

I’ve noted that the bitcoin swings and roundabouts tend to often cycle around the hope and expectation of the US SEC giving approval to a bitcoin ETF … only to find that they never do and so it goes around. In an interesting article by Dave Weisberger on Coindesk, there …

Interesting conversation about switching accounts. I’ve had a few people saying that banks don’t have loyal customers, but they have trapped customers. By way of example, an email from a friend: I am just exactly as loyal to my bank as they are to me, which is to say not …

Really interesting interview here with Ana Botin, Executive Chair of Santander, on Bloomberg. It starts with talking about how Santander can make a difference on climate change with Ana claiming that the bank is voted the most sustainable bank in the world. But when the interviewer, Erik Schatzker, asks her …

I just spent a few days in bars and restaurants in a place where everyone lives underground. It’s called Toronto. A place so cold that even Olaf from Frozen has migrated South. In fact, it gets so cold in Canada, they actually have hair freezing contests. Anyways, sitting in a …

I got a tweet the other day pointing me to a report from the Financial Stability Board about the use of decentralised technologies for financial services. Excellent report from the Financial Stability Board @fsb about the impact of decentralized #fintech#finserv #DeFi #DLT #payments #lending ➡️https://t.co/toIsNQ580a pic.twitter.com/LUfGxn9akl — Sebastien Meunier (@sbmeunier) November …

I got an email the other day from TransferWise, a service I use frequently. Why do I use it? Because I moved to Poland. Poland’s currency is the Zloty and paying everything on my card in British Pounds with conversion rates seemed stupid. It really struck home when I was …

I attended the New Statesman’s FinTech Summit yesterday. I gave the opening speech and was followed by the indomitable Anne Boden, CEO and Founder of Starling Bank, who talked about the path to profitability. She asserts the bank will deliver profitability next year, but her presentation focused upon a number …

I’m acutely aware that so many people write and talk about how big banks are dumb and stupid and don’t get digital, that I try to avoid that mantra personally. People do accuse me of being a bank basher, but I’d rather say that I’m a bank challenger (not a …