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Really interesting interview with Garry Kasparov in Wired magazine about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the future. Garry Kasparov is perhaps the greatest chess player in history. For almost two decades after becoming world champion in 1985, he dominated the game. Then, in 1997, at the height of his powers, Kasparov was crushed by an…

There’s a growing lament amongst the few, who are worried our analogue world is crumbling around them. They see the loss of bank branches, high street shops, use of cash and such like as the end of their world. They hate the idea of electric self-driving cars and mourn the fact that vinyl and CDs…

I know a few of you have spotted that I have a regular theme these days about sustainable finance, purpose-driven banking, the climate emergency and more. It’s a reflection of the world at large and how people like Greta Thunberg and Sir David Attenborough are making our views of the world change. This is showing…

I guess my discussions of purpose-driven banking are growing. Maybe I just picked up the vibe or created it, but more and more I’m seeing bank CEO’s talking about purpose. Tom Blomfield, CEO and co-founder of Monzo, in Wired magazine: “Why do companies even exist? What are we here for? We have to be profitable…

I was quite relaxed about the coronavirus thinking it would blow over (no pun intended). Yet, as the days and weeks went by, it’s obviously a lot more serious than first thought. I first thought, Oh, it’s Wuhan. It’s not over here. It will sort itself out. Then we had the Diamond Princess incubating the…

The main blog headlines are … Bank Wars, Episode XX: The Rise of FinTech Over the years, a few people have likened me to the Yoda of banking. Yoda is one of the most likable characters in the Star Wars franchise, but I’m not sure if I like the comparison. Yoda is seriously old, speaks…

No one knows. He died in 1965 and, fifty-five years later, no one can say what his view on Brexit would be. But the question is being raised in The Independent this week (first of a five part series). They quote a few speeches by Churchill post-war and his views on Europe which, if anything,…

We had our first 2020 meetings of Nordic Finance Innovation last week. The theme was digital transformation and its implementation, and was co-hosted by our partner Swedbank. One of the slides struck me as particularly noteworthy. It came from a presentation by Stephan Erne, Chief Digital Officer at Handelsbanken, in reference to artificial intelligence (AI)….

I bumped into a real API marketplace the other day. Just what I’ve been looking for … … but not sure why they’re opening physical stores pic.twitter.com/NaUUiyQ4lK — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) February 17, 2020 It gained a few nice comments like: “So people could stock up on spaghetti code and sandbox toys” from Alex Kuznetsov;…

Another day, another conference, another meeting. This time we’re chatting and talking with a group of people from banks, and I’m wearing one of my favourite new t-shirts, emblazed with the message: Just hodl it! Before taking stage, someone asked me what hodl meant. I was surprised. I thought everyone knew what hodl meant. I…