Future

People talk about time travel a lot. Hollywood loves it. Going back in time or forward in time is really popular. Switching bodies between a young you and an old you is often a theme. Being able to jump time is great fiction. And yes, it’s a fiction but, if I could jump time and…

My newest book comes out in June. The theme is the integration of finance, technology and ESG. It’s a subject that has been in the ascendancy for years, but became in vogue in the late 2010s. Now it is a thing. I worry some will therefore think I only came to think about it in…

I haven’t written much about Facebook’s digital currency Diem, as there’s not much to write about. A dead duck from day one, it would never succeed. I said so back when it launched in 2019: The bottom-line is that Facebook may have developed a stablecoin using blockchain to enable global payments within Messenger, Instagram and…

This BBC article … The remarkable items that have been used as currency … got me thinking about tokenisation. The article discusses the use of shells, specifically the seasnail shell called a cowrie, and how it became a global currency by around 1200BC. Although the cowrie is mainly found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans,…

Question: Has retail banking transformed to be digital forever? Answer: No. I’ve always said that banking can never be purely digital as it needs a human touch. It needs the ability to talk to someone as money is the second most important thing in our lives. In fact, for some, it’s the most important thing…

Sometimes you think there’s not much more to say about a subject. Then a friend sends you some links and suddenly you’re falling down another rabbit hole, this one all about banks and climate change. A friend of mine just shared a bunch of documents about banks’ funding of fossil fuel firms. It makes for…

We seem to be at an intersection. The intersection is the moment that we realise our futures are threatened by many things, particularly the climate emergency. The intersection is that the solution to the climate emergency is a mixture of government, finance and technology. The three areas are critical to solving our future. Government is…

Recently, Dr. Gail Bradbrook of Extinction Rebellion allowed The Finanser to publish a guest piece, which was generally well received. However, one letter stood out as a rebuttal. Gail determined to reply to this view, and so the dialogue carries on below… When economics and investments are led by our better selves Dear Anonymous Banker, I…

I stumbled across an interesting report by Clarivate who, using a statistical analysis, have identified the 100 most innovative companies in the world. Technology advancement is a complex composition of talent, of competition and of need. New ideas emanate from everywhere scientists, engineers and developers reside. What is the methodology? They basically take the inventiveness…

I was thinking about the balance between money, wealth and power, versus health, happiness and love. Is it versus or is it inclusive? Is happiness related to wealth, or is it true that money can’t buy you love? Obviously it’s an existential question and, tbh, I’ve met many happy people who are dirt poor and…