Grid

So it’s the holiday season and time for some time off. I’m back on January 6th 2020. The only thing I can say is … here’s to a fantastic 2020 … the year of Doing Digital.    “Stop what you are doing and read this book. It will transform your thinking and your business.” Anthony…

At the end of every year I list the top 10 blog posts from The Finanser, to show what’s been of most interest.  Bearing in mind there are over 200 posts a year, these are the ones that really stand out. Like most years, this year’s list includes three guest entries – as I pick…

I write about a lot of things. Around three-quarters is focused on finance and technology, but the rest meanders around life, taxes, government, the economy, global trade, regulatory matters and more. All of these latter areas can probably be summed up right now as: INTERNET ANGER No, I’m not angry with the internet. I love…

I’ve written so much about the Wild West of Crypto that I’m kind of fed up with it but … here we go again. When bitcoin first appeared, I got into trouble. I kept saying that you cannot have money without government, and the libertarians called me a statist. Whatever. However … the older crypto…

The UK implemented Open Banking in January 2018 and now, almost two years later, you would think it’s doing really well. This is why the momentum is building. The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) shared figures that show there are 49 million data sharing requests monthly, doubling in just seven months and up from just…

The main blog headlines are … Traditional banks are suffocating … they just don’t know it yet An interesting lunch discussion about data the other day. It started when someone had picked up on my blog about Ana Botin, where she made the comment: “Why should data be regulated in a different way if you’re called…

As it’s Friday the Thirteenth I thought I’d cheer you up with yet another core systems renewal story. There’s a great article that resonated with me in the Financial Times the other day, talking about ‘technical debt‘. The line that has stayed with me is this one: “Stripe estimates that developers spend about a third…

An interesting lunch discussion about data the other day. It started when someone had picked up on my blog about Ana Botin, where she made the comment: “Why should data be regulated in a different way if you’re called a bank and if you’re called something else … more than two billion people have a digital…

Someone turned to me the other day, mid-discussion around Facebook and their abuse of customer data, and asked: How did we get here? My answer: Because we let it happen. In the last twenty years, America has allowed big tech firms in Silicon Valley to become monolith giant monopolies of search, media and commerce. And…

A further discussion about data and the key issue of who should have access. During a recent lunch, we talked about how Chinese citizens allow the government to see all of their digital footprint via Tencent and Alibaba, but they do this for a number of reasons. The advantage of an easy lifestyle superapps and…