Future

Sometimes you debate stuff and a realisation comes. I had one of these today. When futurists talk about the future, they generally based their opinions on forces of change, known colloquially as PEST. Political, Economic, Social and Technological change. So I was having this debate with a friend about the …

I’ve been noticing that there are more and more issues arising with the big internet giants. Unlike in China, where the companies are working with governments, the big Western giants work outside government control. That creates issues, particularly in Europe where government does not like to be out of control. …

You’ve got to love all these challenger banks (née neobanks née digital banks née mobile banks née whatever banks) appearing. There’s lots of chat about the British ones led by Monzo and closely followed by Starling, Atom and Tandem, but there are many more. In the UK there’s Revolut, Zopa, …

We are regularly being bombarded with unicorn news. Some rise and some fail. We hear about toxic corporate cultures and ousted CEOs on some occasions, with WeWork being the latest to get caught in the pre-IPO crossfire. In case you’re not aware, their CEO and founder has gone and now …

Now that’s a contentious title for a blog, but purposefully so. Old banks can compete in the new world if they’re smart … it’s just that so many of them are dumb. Dumb with data, as I’ve blogged before. To illustrate this, I have three examples. The first is that …

I just got into a debate with a friend about the future of the world. Dangerous to get into a debate with a futurist, but hey, I upset her. My premise is that the world is globalising and will continue to do so. Brexit, Trump, trade wars, Syria, Yemen and …

It’s been interesting to watch the development of Facebook’s Libra project. As I expected, regulators hate it and are asking lots of questions about it. Most seem to want to ban it. And now PayPal has dropped out of the original founding team, with Visa and MasterCard rumoured to follow. …

I don’t get The Financial Times editorials these days. Last month, they published a ridiculous article about challenger banks eating the banker’s lunch – which I covered here as being the crumbs off the table of the banker’s lunch – and this month, they publish a totally contrary view that the …

Being conference season, there were many announcements in the past week about headlines companies wanted to gain with their innovations. One of the main headline grabbers for me came from R3. These included: Mastercard partners R3 … R3 and Infosys complete blockchain trade finance trial Wells Fargo’s Stablecoin ‘Faster, Cheaper’ Than SWIFT …

I’ve been reflecting for a while on the shift of power from America to China, as those who read my musings will know. This is typified by the latest Netflix offering American Factory, backed by the Obamas. It shows the cultural clash between East and West and the rise of …

During my writing about a purpose-driven bank, I tried to find good examples of what purpose-driven actually means. Googling the question the number one result is from the Plato Project, who outline eight great purpose-driven organisations. The list is: Whole Foods “With great courage, integrity and love,” reads the higher …

I was a bit agog and aghast at the recent announcement from 192 US CEOs, who said that stakeholders are now more important than shareholders. This focus upon stakeholders has been an emerging trend for over the past quarter century and here’s what these great US leaders said: Statement on …

There’s a comment that has stayed with me for a long time. It goes along the lines of if you’re earning $10 million a year then spending $10,000 is only the same as someone who earns $100,000 a year spending $100. It’s just relative. This often strikes me as I …

I was recently asked by Volante Technologies to consider what being a digital bank means, specifically for a commercial bank and, even more specifically, the bank’s payments and treasury services. After all most of the focus on digital banking and digital payments has been in the retail sector, where consumers …

I was talking with a senior banker, who told me that he was in charge of the Artificial Intelligence program in the bank. I was impressed as he is part of the executive leadership team of the bank and not the CIO. We have invested widely across the board in …