Future

For over a decade technology has been transforming the financial world with the rise of the newly integrated markets of fintech. What is interesting is the nuance of this revolution is not playing out in Europe or America, but in Asia, Africa and South Americas. We have seen this since the late 2000s when everyone…

In a letter last week, democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen expressed concerns about bank and fintech partnerships last week, sparked by what looks like the collapse of Synapse. The letter is addressed to the heads of the FDIC, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comproller of the Currency. We write with concern…

I’ve been talking about trust a lot lately, as that’s the basis of why you put money in a bank. You trust them. Why do you trust them? Well, it’s not because of their brand or their branch. It’s because they are licensed and promise to guarantee that they will not lose your money or,…

It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald Trump vs Joe Biden, and Biden looking like a loser. Now, we have Donald…

Everyone seems to be talking about CBDCs: Central Bank Digital Currencies. They are being launched to stem the tide of cryptocurrencies, but it makes you ask: what’s the difference. A CBDC is backed by a government; a cryptocurrency is backed by decentralised democracy. Not much difference there then. The Bank of England defines CBDC as…

I just got a whole new set of tech phrases from a Gartner report. Giving my interpretation, here we go: Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) is a proposed framework for Device Direct connectivity using satellite and cellular communication combination. The framework enables partnership between satellite (specifically low Earth orbit [LEO]) providers and terrestrial mobile operators…

Your morning coffee purchase travels through 15 countries in 0.3 seconds. It’s not magic. It’s a global network of invisible digital pipes and two college dropouts saw their world-changing potential. Two brothers. Meet Patrick and John Collison: the architects of our digital future. 2010: the Collisons spot a problem: Online payments are a maze of…

Many of you have probably been relaxing for the past month and missed the fact that there was a major event in Mumbai: the Global Fintech Fest. It impressed me that they managed to persuade Shri Narendra Modi, Honourable Prime Minister of India, to deliver a keynote on Friday. What did he say? Well, you can…

Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do? Well worth a read but I am biased, but some people aren’t….

My blog the other day about asking what’s going to change is the wrong question was inspired by the quote from Jeff Bezos and this report from Team8: an unconventional view of the future of fintech https://team8.vc/rethink/fintech/2030-and-beyond/ They delve into three areas: What won’t change? What do we believe are the ‘immutable physical laws of…