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For all the talk about how well FinTech start-ups are doing, I hear two regular laments from bank CEOs. First, why aren’t we valued like FinTechs? and second, why aren’t FinTechs regulated like us. On the first point, it’s quite clear that FinTech start-ups are being valued on potential and not reality. When a Stripe…

The main blog headlines are … Elvis seen opening a bank account in Hawaii As it’s Friday, a slightly more whimsical post. I was amused to see a story floating around the internet yesterday that read like this: ‘Missing’ woman mystery solved A group of tourists spent hours Saturday night looking for a missing woman…

As it’s Friday, a slightly more whimsical post. I was amused to see a story floating around the internet yesterday that read like this: ‘Missing’ woman mystery solved A group of tourists spent hours Saturday night looking for a missing woman near Iceland’s Eldgja canyon, only to find her among the search party. The group…

I hear this a lot, and don’t like it. Many banks say it these days, and they say it to be cool. To be like a start-up. To be like a Silicon Valley angel investment firm. To be like a young, FinTech unicorn. However, there is a massive difference between Amazon, Alibaba and Bank of…

One of the key attributes of many of the firms I’ve talked to about doing digital transformation is that there are lay-offs but, whenever possible, these banks support people to change careers. Sure, there may be significant lay-offs if it is a heavily branch oriented bank as getting rid of thousands of branch staff is…

I was talking with a senior banker, who told me that he was in charge of the Artificial Intelligence program in the bank. I was impressed as he is part of the executive leadership team of the bank and not the CIO. We have invested widely across the board in AI, he told me, and…

I finally hit the nail on the head about why you can’t have money without government. It’s because you can create as open a system, complex a platform, distributed an idea, decentralised a currency as you want but, unlike most industries, without some form of supervisory oversight the whole system collapses. So, when we talk…

The main blog headlines are … We just haven’t got a clue what to do! I was talking with a CXO of a bank. They are actively engaged in ‘going digital’, but she was sharing with me that the bank’s executive team had no idea what going digital means. Being brutally honest, she told me…

I just spoke at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum, a Davos for the Russian world and beyond. Hosted by Vladimir Putin there were stellar guests attending including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, as well as other world leaders and Chris Skinner. Hanging out with the heads of Russia,…

Almost every day, there is an announcement of a new payments innovation. From the success of the likes of Klarna, Stripe and Square in retail payments to the growth of new payment mechanisms like Ripple and JPMorgan’s internal settlement engine, the JPM Coin and the launch of digital currencies from bitcoin to Libra from Facebook,…