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It doesn’t sound quite as scary, but I was thinking about the cashless world and realised that: In case you cannot see the words: In space, no one can take your money Do you ever see anyohne paying for anything in the sci-fi world? We are reaching that point where money becomes meaningless, and it…

I tweeted the other day how many places are now cashless. This is definitely true in most Northern European countries. In Poland, I haven’t used a banknote for two years or more. In the UK, I went to the theatre and they told me they wouldn’t take my banknote (by law, they have to, but…

I just had an interesting and lengthy dialogue. After booking flights a while ago, the flight operator cancelled one leg of my flight. Instead of flying to Las Vegas for five nights via Frankfurt, I was now flying to Las Vegas for two nights and then back to my layover city Frankfurt for three nights….

I’ve felt European for most of my life, as the UK joined the EU back in 1973. Free travel and movement across borders, that grew from nine states to twenty eight, introduced a glorious period of open integration. Integration of trade and commerce and then, latterly, money and finance. The grand plan of the euro…

The last recession of any major size was 2008. Fourteen years ago! The iPhone had just appeared and we had just started discussions around the concept of cloud computing. Oh, and FinTech wasn’t even talked about. Fourteen years later, FinTech is getting over $200 billion investment a year, and the world has changed a lot….

The main blog discussions this week include … Is Goldman Sachs letting Apple down? There’s a good old challenge in banking that, in recent years, has been growing. The challenge is to name the bad guy. Sometimes the bad guy is a hacker; other days, it’s a rogue trader; another event points the finger at…

There’s a good old challenge in banking that, in recent years, has been growing. The challenge is to name the bad guy. Sometimes the bad guy is a hacker; other days, it’s a rogue trader; another event points the finger at an employee with a fat finger; but, more often than not, the bad guy…

What is the four-pillar model? It’s a system created years ago to allow plastic card systems to work. The system connects merchant to consumers via an acquiring bank and an issuing bank. Well, maybe it’s not that simple. Let’s let MasterCard explain it: What is interchange? Interchange is a small fee typically paid by acquirers (retailer’s…

We often talk about banking being plumbing, using smart pipes for delivery to the door. Some even comparing banking to sewage. I think I prefer plumbing. It sounds better. The thing is, how often do you think of changing your utility provider? Changing electricity, water and gas is not at the top of our agenda….

Talking of Brexit I found it amusing that, when I posted a tweet the other day, people interpreted it in ways I didn’t expect. The tweet just made clear that Brits are nine times more likely to be scammed by criminals than Germans, as we are a major card-based nation. Just in case you cannot…