Future

I’ve been amazed at the rise of superapps in China. Alibaba and WeChat allow you to socialise, ship and buy anywhere, anytime. It came home to me when I was shopping in a Chinese store and my Chinese friend said: let me just check the price of this on Taobao. She found it was a…

I’m watching the news. We’re all locked down. Britain just introduced £5,000 fines for unnecessary travel whilst the TV correspondents interview their counterparts in Dubai who say that they get massive fines for not wearing face masks. What is going on? It’s a really weird world where you are punished for going outside. In some…

I joined a Clubhouse discussion the other day – Clubhouse? What? – and discussed Chinese FinTech and its impact on the rest of the world. I really enjoyed the conversation and it was nice that my friend Sophie Guibaud summarised it afterwards. I asked her if she would let me share it here on the…

The two perennial debates we have in banking are a future that is cashless and branchless. Cash is going down, but is not eradicated; branches are closing fast, but still here. Are they necessary? I raise this as I got two reports from strong and trusted sources in the past week, one that said branches…

Building on this discussion, I got into an online argument with someone who accused my views of being generational, e.g. old people want face-to-face, young people don’t care. They argued that sex will be better in virtual worlds and no one needs to go out anymore. They believe we can live in a purely digital…

Arriving at the venue, I spot a good friend. We shake hands and hug. Then I see another friend I’ve missed. We hug and kiss. 1999? 2019? 2022? The conference network disappeared in 2020, and it’s now trying to come back. How I miss those networked days. Some say we don’t need them. Some say…

I’d just written my two pieces last week about non fungible tokens (NFTs) … WTF is an NFT? NFTs show why banks must focus upon digital asset management … when I spotted a fellow blogger and colleague who I respect, Sebastien Meunier, had written about them too. In Sebastien’s case, he writes that they’re a…

A lot of our history in the future will be digital Our future is digital. Just as we look back today and enjoy our physical inheritances of books, music and art, we will look back tomorrow at our digital inheritances of books, music and art. The only difference is today it is digital, not physical….

I’ve noticed that Wal*Mart has recently been hiring bankers. Goldman Sachs’ bankers to be exact. Goldman Sachs Marcus’s bankers to be more specific. Bloomberg Omer Ismail, the head of Goldman’s consumer bank [Marcus], is making a surprise exit to the fintech, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The world’s largest retailer made a…

Salesforce released their research report, Trends in Financial Services, near the end of last year. I had the chance to sit down with Rohit Mahna, Senior Vice President of Industries Advisors for Salesforce, to discuss the report and the shifts happening right now in the industry. Hi Rohit. Can you give me the background on…