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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…

I participated in a call the other day about financial inclusion and the moderator said that giving people banking was like giving a child the keys to your Ferrari. Without education, they would crash it so, rather than financial inclusion, you need inclusive finance. It was an interesting perspective, and made me think about the…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Who is BIG NUTS ASS? I woke up and, as usual, checked the banking app for any updates or changes. There was a payment received.  Quite a major payment. It came from BIG NUTS ASS*. BIG NUTS ASS*? Who is BIG NUTS ASS*? I have no idea. I…

I was thinking about run the bank, change the bank, and the challenges therein. Part of it was down to a conversation that repeats quite often about it being easier to launch a new bank than change the old bank. Something I’ve argued against regularly. Reason being: what are you doing with the old bank, its…

I woke up and, as usual, checked the banking app for any updates or changes. There was a payment received.  Quite a major payment. It came from BIG NUTS ASS*. BIG NUTS ASS*? Who is BIG NUTS ASS*? I have no idea. I rang the bank. That took a long time. Due to coronavirus, we…

The balance between regulation and innovation. On the one hand, a country wants start-ups to start up in their country; on the other hand, when dealing with financial services, you have to ensure that it is done in a way that protects citizens and society. That’s a delicate balance, as I’ve blogged about a lot…

UPFRONT STATEMENT: I have crypto, but treat it as an experiment I attended an event in 2016 where Elon Musk was the star speaker. It was a good event, and he made sense. He doesn’t make sense anymore. Back then, I wondered if he was the 21st century’s real-life Tony Stark creating life on Mars…