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I have been involved in a number of small businesses that have started up over the past twenty years: The Financial Services Club, The Finanser, The Portrait Foundation; as well as some that are bigger: 11FS. Interestingly, every start-up I’ve been involved with has had a terrible time with opening a bank account. Forced to…

Unless you were hiding under a rock last week, you must have noticed the Gamestop story. In case it left you bemused, Simon Taylor of 11FS gives a great breakdown of what happened. Over to you Simon … How Robinhood weaponized the Occupy Wall Street movement What happened with Gamestop is the beginning of economic…

The main blog discussions this week include … Breaking the stranglehold of banking Someone asked me to elaborate on the links between banks, government, the economy and society, and this was well illustrated by the video I shared the other day of James Pierpont Morgan, who founded the JPMorgan empire (see end of this blog…

It’s 2021 and the elephant is really smelly. I don’t think he’s washed since 2019, so I finally managed to persuade him not only to stay in the room, but that he needed to wash and shower. [The elephant represents the economy and this is the eighth conversation with him in a series] As we…

I guess I’m not the only one who is sitting at home, watching the world go by and thinking: life is pretty weird right now. Watching virtual concerts and binge watching Netflix series is fine, but you see a nation in meltdown, storming their capital city’s buildings, everyone running scared of a virus and virtual…

Someone asked me to elaborate on the links between banks, government, the economy and society, and this was well illustrated by the video I shared the other day of James Pierpont Morgan, who founded the JPMorgan empire (see end of this blog entry). That all began with learning the banking ropes in Europe; then enabling…

I’ve seen many people struggling during lockdown when their WiFi goes down. In fact, in the UK, TalkTalk and Sky Broadband have seen some big issues with celebrities complaining and those who are vulnerable not only losing their internet access but also their telephone access during lockdown Christmas. Not good. It made me think about whether…

I’m a Simple guy (?), but realised the other day that the consultants, research firms and technology behemoths do a great job of dressing up old ideas in new clothes. This hit home when I was reading the IT priorities for CFOs in 2021 by Gartner. Gartner’s survey asked finance chiefs where they will spend…

The main blog discussions this week include … Omniaccess is the strategic imperative for the 2020s During the summer and autumn of 2020, I ran an online survey of banks and FinTech firms around their view of physical versus digital access to banking. Obviously, in 2020, digital access to accounts has come to the fore…

During the summer and autumn of 2020, I ran an online survey of banks and FinTech firms around their view of physical versus digital access to banking. Obviously, in 2020, digital access to accounts has come to the fore but what was interesting is that this had not been a priority before. 28% of the…