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I need to shut up about Ant Group, as I’ve blogged a lot about them lately. However, with an IPO coming up and news coming out daily almost, it’s hard to ignore some of their activities. One activity that really hit me when it was released in July was the rebranding of all of their…

I recently saw the announcement from Santander of a foreign exchange service called PagoFX. It’s a service that goes head-to-head with TransferWise and is an interesting example of fighting back. As a result, I asked Victoria Yasinetskaya, CMO at PagoFX to tell me a bit more about what’s happening and she kindly wrote this piece for…

A while ago, I wrote about the IPO and whether you should invest. It’s still coming, but the valuation of the company is now even bigger. 15 percent bigger to be exact. That will make Ant’s IPO the biggest ever in history! Not bad for a month’s work. Interestingly, I was interviewed in the run…

I first started blogging about smart mobile wallets in earnest in 2014. Back then, the mobile network operators were starting to get active and to try and bring the M-PESA and other experiences to the modern world. But no one wanted them. Six years later, mobile wallets are still pretty dire in most of Europe…

I’ve realised over the last few weeks that my FinTech Karaoke is generally having a dig at bad bankers. It’s easy to have a go at bad bankers or, as the 99% call them, banksters. It’s because there’s a lot of bad practices historically in banking from ripping off customers with hidden fees (PPI); signing…

[A longer version of this blog appears here, explaining why so many songs are anti-bank] During lockdown, Spotify has found that the song Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is the most popular song of the summer. It makes us feel good, even though the song is over forty years old (stop…

The main blog discussions this week include …. True innovation comes from collaboration This week is a bit different on the blog as I’m going to introduce you to one of my other businesses: Nordic Future Innovation. Nordic Future Innovation (originally Nordic Finance Innovation) is a venture I  started almost ten years ago with Iren Tranvag. We…

This week’s blogs are inspired by our global connector Marisol Menendez The final interview with our Nordic Connection Festival companies is with the winner, Meniga (I was not a judge!). I spoke with Bragi Fjalldal, CMO & VP Business Development, about what the company is doing these days, particularly with sustainability. Tell me about Meniga….

This week’s blogs are inspired by our global connector Marisol Menendez In the second of this week’s interviews with firms who were winners of our Nordic Connection Festival, I spoke with Siam Choudhury, Co-founder and CEO of Pliance, an anti-money laundering solution. To begin with Siam, tell me a bit about what you guys get…

This week’s blogs are inspired by our global connector Marisol Menendez As mentioned, this week is a little different and, in the first of three interviews with entries in our Nordic Connection Festival during the summer, I interviewed Davyde Wachell, founder and CEO of Responsive AI … Tell me about Responsive and what you guys…