Future

Another few articles I’ve picked up this week have focused upon the new generation of consumer: Gen Z. I would call them the iGen but that’s too branded, so marketers call them Gen Z. Who are the Z Gen? As of 2019, the breakdown by age looks like this: Baby …

I’m writing more and more about Facebook launching its own cryptocurrency lately: Will Facebook become the world’s central bank? (March 2019) Will a global platform connect all of our money? (April 2019) This is because they are getting serious about payments and blockchain, after a variety of reports that they …

Three years ago, I blogged about three phases of FinTech. Three years later, I can expand on that theme and talk about five phases of FinTech. The five phases of FinTech are (dates are rough guide): Disruption (2005-2014) Discussion (2014-2017) Partnership (2017-2022) Integration (2022-2027) Renewal (2027+) Phase One: Disruption (2005-2014) …

I was asked to speak to the theme of Banking for Humanity at a conference the other day, and it made me realise that the five areas I’ve recently been blogging about came together nicely. First, there’s financial inclusion which is the theme of Digital Human. The fact that anyone …

I used to blog about blockchain and cryptocurrency almost every day. I stopped as it got too hyped, scammed and boring. In fact, my last blog was about the blockchain hype being dead, but the blockchain dream is still very much alive. Now, most people think that blockchain is something …

I recently gave a speech where the title was FinTech or TechFin?  Everyone had been given a copy of my book Digital Human, and the speech was transcribed. Here it is:   FinTech or TechFin?  Thank you for inviting me to join you here. It is a great honour. I’m a …

I’m sure some people see me walk into a room and go oh no, not him. I have a position, and it’s not popular with everyone. But I don’t care. On my LinkedIn profile, I describe myself as a troublemaker, and no issue, I’m sticking with that. So, boot on …

There were two headlines recently that arrived side-by-side: Will telephone bank passwords become obsolete? Does my new biometric bank card really mean the death of the Pin? Neither headline is particularly news – voice recognition for telephone banking and biometric bank cards have been floating around for a decade (or …

I just chaired a nice session at the Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) focused upon the future of UK FinTech. For some reason, the question they asked us to focus upon was: What is holding the UK back in the global investment landscape? I didn’t really understand why we would …

In closing this Earth Day week, I thought I’d rectify yesterday’s depressing news about banks funding the end of our planet to talk about the banks that are doing the opposite. In fact, there are many initiatives that are trying to create finance for good from community currencies to Long …

I’m not a particularly political person. Opinionated yes. A little bit right and little bit left, maybe. Not necessarily a centrist, true. And I try to avoid writing about politically motivated movements on this blog, except when they impact the banking industry. And today is one of those days. Continuing …

When I talk about FinTech, I often reflect on the first time I encountered what I would, today, call a truly FinTech firm. It was on March 30, 2005, and a newly formed firm presented at the Financial Services Club an idea. The idea was to connect people with money …

I picked up an interesting article from Reuters, about how Asian technology firms are moving into banking in a different way to Europe or America. The article says that Amazon and Alphabet / Google are far more interested in serving banks with cloud and advertising, rather than competing with them, …

Someone said to me recently that most tech Unicorns are more like Leprechauns. A Leprechaun is also mythical and magical but, rather than delivering riches, it just promises riches at the end of a rainbow you never reach. In other words, most Unicorns are offering riches that are as mythical …

I was once again reminded of the stupidity of passwords when locked out of yet another service that I use maybe once a year. When I decided to reset the password, once again my iPhone offered to set up a strong password that it would remember for me. Once again, …