Future

I just stumbled across a great article about ethical banking. We can call it socially useful banking or green banking or whatever, but it’s all about a bank’s role in society and the scheme of things. Are banks doing the right or wong things? My gut feeling is that banks have been doing the wrong…

I was reflecting on the fact that we work in our silo. Our silo is banking or FinTech or InsurTech or WealthTech or RegTech or whatever. What about HealthTech, FarmTech, PharmaTech, GovTech and all the other industries digitalising? What about if we linked them all together? That’s what future trends are indicating: an integration of…

There’s a movement to use data to track and trace every human on Earth. It’s an inexorable movement which citizens are allowing as they sleepwalk into George Orwell’s vision of 1984. The Ministry of Data brings together every bit and byte of your life, and monitors your activities. China has been leading this march towards…

1948, 1984, 2030 We talk a lot about FinTech. Some of us then break it down and talk about InsurTech, WealthTech, TradeTech and more. But do we ever zoom out? What about just tech? What about just a digital world? It’s funny as I see HealthTech, FarmTech, GovTech and more, and sat back the other…

I’ve recently shared a couple of quotes from years ago that gained a lot of social media traction. First, in 1953, Mark R. Sullivan of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph said: “In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It will require no dial…

I’ve been watching the headlines related to Joe Biden’s pick for the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OCC is an interesting department, as it can issue national bank charters for US banks, and often runs into trouble. By way of example, under the previous Administration, the OCC tried to…

Talking of Open Banking, I hosted a dinner focused upon Open Banking and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) in London the other night. The conversation was with neobanks and challengers and was an interesting mix of old and young views. For example, someone opened by saying that BaaS and Open Banking has hardly delivered anything. It’s disappointing and clearly…

Making a statement I was intrigued by a news headline that Lloyds Bank is turning bank statements into art. Sounds ridiculous? Who gets a bank statement anymore? We use an app. But then I read the piece and was more intrigued as yes, it’s been created with an artist. The artist is Paula Zuccotti, who…

I haven’t blogged much about my friends from Hangzhou (China) lately, as it is all in a state of flux, but what I can say is that the will of the people – President Xi – appears to be strong. If you haven’t seen the latest nuance, Ant Group are now sharing customer data with…

For years, people have argued that you need branches to serve customers for more complex transactions: to serve people who are uncomfortable with digital access; to serve young people getting their first mortgage; to serve retailers and small businesses with their cash needs; and so on and so forth. Baloney. To be honest, I’ve advocated…