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It’s interesting how trends rise. Over the past few years, I’ve been writing a lot about the impact of ESG and AI on banking, so it intrigued me to see a new survey of over 300 bankers about what’s new in banking. Key findings of the report include: Emerging innovations such as AI are cited as…

I haven’t written about Ant and Alipay for a while, but did notice this press release the other day which is significant. The company is is now creating a payment ecosystem for Asian e-wallets. It’s not just Chinese. It’s everywhere Asia. Take note: Ant Group Introduces 10 Asian E-Wallets to Chinese Mainland in Major Expansion of…

I was asking the other day whether it is better or worse that my children play video games rather than watch movies, and the reaction was: time moves on. It surely does. The gaming industry is now bigger than Hollywood and music combined, so what do I know? According to a report by SuperData Research,…

A few people got excited about the news this week that Mercedes-Benz had launched in-car fingerprint payments in partnership with Mastercard. I didn’t. In fact, it still amazes me how little we have developed since my days at NCR, then owned by AT&T. This was the 1990s and AT&T had this fantastic set of adverts…

I saw an interesting comment the other day that got lots of shares, likes and clicks: fintech founders MUST have some experience in banking or financial services background first before they are funded. Many fintech neophytes destroy so much value not out of deliberate actions but just pure ignorance. Funnily enough the person making this…

I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which states that: “if the use of fintech grows rapidly outside of the regulated sector, it can generate risks to market conduct and integrity”. Shock, horror! And so? “New fintech developments might quickly become systemic due to network effects (for example, when…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Can you answer these four questions? It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have…

It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have a cat? Pork bellies or Orange juice? They are probably too cryptic for…

I just got a copy of Gartner’s emerging risks report for the second quarter 2023. A summary of the report is below but, before you read that, the charts speak volumes. First, we talk about PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technological – forces for change. Right now, unsurprisingly, most change forces are based upon economic…

When Open Banking launched in the UK, it got a drubbing from the media (I blogged about it). The issue is that the media and banks believe that sharing your financial data will compromise your security. That attitude still persists today, which is why Open Banking hasn’t really taken off. By way of example, five years…