Future

“When I was a lad, I got four shillings and sixpence every week for pocket money.” “Luxury! I was whipped in two by my dad and lived in a shoebox by the motorway!” says my friend. OK, enough revival of old Monty Python sketches, but the point is that children do need to know about…

I’ve seen a lot of discussions of adversaries. It’s FinTech versus Bank, central bank currencies versus decentralised currencies. The commentary makes it appear like a big battle. I disagree. It’s not a battle or a war. It’s a change to the system based upon progress, development and technology. For example, I don’t see FinTech replacing…

There was an old game called Scruples that asked what would you do in a particular situation. What would you do if you discovered your best friend was cheating on their partner? Would you tell the partner? What would you do if you knew your colleague was stealing from the company? Would you tell the…

I’m worried that the older I get, the more cynical I get. I watch developments of governments, regulators, banks and business, and keep thinking: these guys are corrupt. But corruption is part of our DNA it seems. It’s purely a matter of transparency that will change this. Then I think about our world today, and…

Everyone is talking a lot about the metaverse these days. What is the metaverse? It’s a progression of how we live. My father used to read books as a kid, and the books would entertain him and come life in his head. I grew up with comics and the illustrations would give me hours of…

We teach our children to read and write. It’s a priority. Why don’t we teach them to understand money? Surely financial literacy is as important as basic literacy? Some people get this, and some people don’t, but I woke up to this big time reading a few recent articles. For example, Claer Barrett writes in…

I had a friend who bought a load of bitcoin for around $10 each and then sold them to buy a house. If he had kept them, he could have ten houses today. I have another friend who invested heavily in ETH, the coin of Ethereum. Today, they smile and sit pretty, whilst millions of…

I was really surprised to see the announcement by Zopa this week that they were pulling out of P2P (peer-to-peer) lending. As the company that started the FinTech P2P lending and FinTech buzz imho, how could they? I was angry and annoyed, and then remembered something: Following consultation, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is introducing…

Banking, like most industries, is being challenged by technology. I don’t say disrupted. Music, entertainment and other industries may have been disrupted. I think banking is challenged. But when I look out at the world, what does surprise and possibly amaze me is how some industries are adapting. We’ve seen banking adapt – who needs…

I grew up with a belief that life should be simple. You get an education; you play sport; you get a job for life; you get a partner; you get married; you buy a house; you have kids; you retire; and then you die. Or something like that. These were the key life events. It’s…