Fintech

I saw an interesting comment the other day that got lots of shares, likes and clicks: fintech founders MUST have some experience in banking or financial services background first before they are funded. Many fintech neophytes destroy so much value not out of deliberate actions but just pure ignorance. Funnily enough the person making this…

I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which states that: “if the use of fintech grows rapidly outside of the regulated sector, it can generate risks to market conduct and integrity”. Shock, horror! And so? “New fintech developments might quickly become systemic due to network effects (for example, when…

It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have a cat? Pork bellies or Orange juice? They are probably too cryptic for…

When Open Banking launched in the UK, it got a drubbing from the media (I blogged about it). The issue is that the media and banks believe that sharing your financial data will compromise your security. That attitude still persists today, which is why Open Banking hasn’t really taken off. By way of example, five years…

KPMG’s recent Global Analysis of FinTech Funding Report shows a mixed landscape for fintech funding in H1 of 2023. The Americas, Asia Pacific (ASPAC), and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) saw different rsults when it came to investments in venture capital and private equity funding. The key takeaways from the report for H1’23 included…

It’s interesting times when regulators seem to regularly clamp down on fintech firms that are out of the starting gate. The biggest area they are trying to grapple with is cryptocurrencies, obviously, but they seem to be failing there: The rise and continuing fall of Sam Bankman-Fried: A step-by-step guide to his case so far…

It’s coming. It’s been talked about for years. It’s finally here. Tokens. Physical and digital assets are being tokenized. In fact, maybe your DNA has been tokenized. Soon, everything will be tokenized. We talked about this years ago, but it’s notable that VISA, SWIFT, BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are now tokenizing. In a number…

I bumped into an interesting online debate the other day, that started with Brian Armstrong, the CEO and founder of Coinbase, who always has something worthwhile to say. His opening line on a recent Coinbase blog is a good example: Coinbase is working to update the financial system that was built over 100 years ago by enabling…

Times change. We can see that from the massive success of some firms, like NuBank, that there is good news out there in some parts of the world. Having said that, 2023 seems to be blighted by an awful lot of bad news. A company regularly picked over by the media is the massive failure…

We’ve talked for years about the need for micropayments. I can remember in the 1990s that the pay-per-view model demanded a payment for a single piece of information. Why should I subscribe for $30 a month to a website where one article has become relevant? Surely, I could pay $0.50 cents to read that one…