Future

Looking at the world of the future, we all wonder what will happen to work. Will we still have jobs? Will all the dumb jobs disappear so we no longer have call centres (replaced by chatbots and avatars); accountants and auditors (replaced by AI algorithms); Uber drivers and hotel check-in staff (replaced by robots); and…

I’ve blogged a few times about Facebook planning to launch a currency … Will Facebook become the world’s central bank? If Facebook launch a cryptocurrency, will US government shut it down? … and the fact that most regulators won’t like it. In fact, there are already questions being asked in US Gov about their plans,…

My mate Ron Shevlin is on good form these days. He’s written quite a few columns on Forbes that are clickbait: Customers don’t want digital banking The FinTech fast follower fallacy (which I spotted just after writing this yesterday) His latest created quite a twitter furore and was targeted at Monzo’s launch in the USA….

I was having dinner with a friend the other night, when he asked me: “what do you think about the fast follower strategy?” I said it was stupid and doesn’t work. He then added that the major bank he’s working with are proud that this is their strategy. Now, here’s the funny thing. That strategy…

I’m a technology lover. Always have been, always will be. To me, technology is like magic. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke Too damn right Arthur. I love technology. But then I got to thinking about what technology is doing to us. To me and you. To humans. Is technology…

During Money 2020 Europe, I bumped into a chap from Monzo. No names mentioned, but he was buzzing and no wonder. The start-up has just boomed through two million users and is growing at over 60,000 account openings a week or 10,000 per day. Some think that number seems high, but they may have missed…

I was having a breakfast meeting with a banking friend who had recently been through a tortuous experience. His start-up had been acquired by a major traditional bank, and it ended with blood on the floor. The start-up got squeezed into the Empire, and it literally was like something from Star Wars with the start-up…

I’ve been struggling for a while now. My struggle is that I love flying around the world, seeing new places, meeting new people, finding new things … but I hate polluting the planet. This was brought to a head this week in a back-to-back meeting on sustainable finance that made it abundantly clear we’re screwing…

So my snarky little friend Ron Shevlin wrote a piece on Forbes claiming that Americans don’t want a digital bank. As the guy who wrote the book Digital Bank you might think I would take offence to such a statement, but no. I agree with his content, just not his headline. His content states: 10…

Reading about FinTech unicorns and pizzas worth $80 million, you would think that the world was bubbling over with wealth. FinTech investments last year peaked at over $110 billion, more than double the year before, and IPOs for firms like Uber and WeWorks are seeing valuations in the stratosphere. Everything is just yummy, yea? Nah….