Grid

I grew up in a village, miles from the nearest town. I moved to a city in the north after university and then to London for work. I enjoyed my work and yearned to travel. Luckily, my work allowed me to travel. I’ve been to more countries than I care to mention but then, back…

FinTech is reaching parts of the planet that could never be reached before. Actually, it’s not FinTech. It’s the network. By way of example, way back in 1995, I was asked if I seriously thought someone could make a payment from the top of Mount Everest? I said yes, and they did in 2013. Since…

There are five main themes driving where we are today and tomorrow: digital transformation; inequality and inclusion; having a clear purpose; stakeholder capitalism; and digital transparency. The network is connecting us all. This is a digital revolution. We are breaking from the past centuries of industrialising everything to the next centuries of digitalising everything. It…

I grew up as a fan-boy of all things Marvel, and have been delighted with the way the Marvel Universe has panned out for next generations. In particular, Spider-Man has always been a highlight, and I regularly use one of the lines from these comic books: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. Attributed as a…

Having watched the emergence of cryptocurrencies, digital currencies, blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for a decade, I have made a firm view. Most of the people involved in this space are deluded and naïve; most of the people involved in this space don’t understand the system or how things work in the world; and,…

The main blog discussions this week include … We are the Robots I’ve claimed for some time that machines cannot do what humans do, because they have no heart. They purely do what we program them to do. True. Yet if you watch movies from Ex Machina to Terminator, machines can turn to do what…

With one of my financial providers I am an uber, super, mega, gold, wipe-my-ass, top tier client. They usually offer me champagne and free peanuts, and will go the extra mile to deal with me. Very nice (as Borat would say it). Thing is, I haven’t needed to call them for a year – their…

I’ve claimed for some time that machines cannot do what humans do, because they have no heart. They purely do what we program them to do. True. Yet if you watch movies from Ex Machina to Terminator, machines can turn to do what they want to do once we’ve programmed them. It’s all about the…

I had a bit of a twitter spat with my friend Peter Matza, who has a background in corporate treasury. You can follow the thread from here: The total wealth of billionaires worldwide rose by $5 trillion to $13 trillion thanks to digital transformation and government stimulushttps://t.co/DyaBU46xaQ via @paullewismoney — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) May 14,…

Very interesting article on AltFi about FinTech unicorns tripling in value this year. Here’s a few selected lines: In the first quarter of 2021 alone, UK fintechs raised more than $2.9bn in funding, an increase of 331 per cent on the same period in the year before … in June 2020, Checkout.com became one of the first fintechs…