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I seem to find myself travelling all over talking about innovation and meeting start-ups.  It’s the start-up economy, and there’s probably been no better time to be young, hopeful and visionary.  Thinking back to my younger days, leaving university, the idea of creating my own company was unheard of.  Everyone was encouraged to get a…

I had a realisation this week.  The realisation is that banks have always been hot on technology and innovation.  If you don’t think so, then just checkout this blog from April 2008 – eight years ago – where I talk about the rise of innovation in banking.  The context was talking about how banks had created a…

We had two Financial Services Club meetings on the same night this week: one in London where Chief Executive of the Payments Council Maurice Cleaves talked about the landscape future for UK payments markets; and one in Warsaw where Lukas Dzuroska presented the top ten trends tracked in research by EFMA over the past year. …

I spent a day working on a bank’s digital strategies the other day.  It was a fascinating day and, as is the norm with some of these offsites, a scribe artiste was scribbling my ramblings on a chart.  The summary I like so much that I thought it was worth sharing here. So what this…

Our main stories of this week includes … The natural order of society is that the system dictates the system Building on yesterday’s discussion of how Fintech firms will eventually become banks, I think a lot of people overlook the humanity in the network.  What I mean by this is that there is a natural biological…

Building on yesterday’s discussion of how Fintech firms will eventually become banks, I think a lot of people overlook the humanity in the network.  What I mean by this is that there is a natural biological function that takes place with innovation, and it reflects how humans relate to each other.  Humans need order to…

A friend of mine at JPM received an internal email the other day.  It was broadcast to all staff and, as it’s all about blockchain, thought I would share with y’all.  It goes like this … Innovative blockchain technology may provide links to improve client experience (Feb. 09, 2016) J.P. Morgan is pursuing a three-pronged approach…

I just had an interesting discussion with a banking colleague who has been investing in start-ups.  He said that many of the firms begin with a belief that they will succeed because they are not a bank. A business strategy based upon attracting consumers by not being a bank, is not sustainable. Once they find…

As David Cameron negotiates a new EU contract in Brussels today, the UK referendum on a Brexit takes place during the summer, with some saying as early as June 23rd.  There’s a YES campaign to stay in the Union and a NO campaign to get out., with the question being: ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a…

There’s been a large number of white papers produced recently about Fintech and Blockchain, so I decided to collate the most notable ones here.  All links are to file downloads and if I’ve missed any, please let me know. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (9 pages, October 2008) The origins of the whole thing in…