Grid

Conservative MP Eddie Hughes has just written a 36-page white paper extolling the benefits of blockchain for Britain, which was published yesterday Unlocking Blockchain: Embracing new technologies to drive efficiency and empower the citizen, by FREER. FREER is a major new initiative from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA, a UK think-tank dating back to…

I found an interesting article about Open Banking the other day (via FinTech Insider News). Its title is: Open Banking in the UK; a disaster in the making? no wonder it intrigued me. However, I clicked the article open and the first paragraph read: When the CMA Order went live on 13/1/18, aside from the…

I often relate the story that the first FinTech firm I ever met was Zopa. Zopa launched in April 2005 and presented at the Financial Services Club on March 30 that year. They talked about an eBay for Money and connecting savers and borrowers. No one got what they were talking about, although everyone does…

I present a lot around the world, and I am always delighted and honoured when a conference asks me back for a second visit. It reaffirms that you were ok the first time around and so a second bite is delightful. One such moment occurred last week at The Point, the conference for PaymentsNZ, the…

The main blog headlines are … When the bank knows you’ve been hacked (before everyone else) You may have seen that Ticketmaster just announced that thousands of customers worldwide may have been affected by a hack. If you didn’t here’s the low-down (via ABC News) The company said its British business, Ticketmaster UK, identified malicious…

You may have seen that Ticketmaster just announced that thousands of customers worldwide may have been affected by a hack. If you didn’t here’s the low-down (via ABC News) The company said its British business, Ticketmaster UK, identified malicious software on a customer support product which was hosted by a third-party supplier Inbenta Technologies. Around…

I bet you were wondering why I hadn’t written an Ant update recently. Well, I thought it was getting too much … but then I just arrived in Hong Kong and the hotel has kindly given me a copy of Fortune magazine with the headline cover page talking about the battle between Alibaba and Tencent….

I keep asking dumb questions like: if the tech giants give away payments, lending and credit for free, how will banks make money? As I’ve regularly blogged, the tech giants don’t want to get into banking per se, but they do want to encourage more traction through their platform by making buying and selling easier….

For some time now, I’ve been reflecting on a conversation about Monzo. It relates to my write-up the other day on new bank thinking, and that Monzo are clever with data. Using Google Map APIs and other services, they enrich my transaction statement so I know when, where and what I was doing when I…

ANNOUNCEMENT – LONDON, UK: JUNE 25 2018 Back in 2003, Andy Coppell and I conceived the idea for The Financial Services Club, with the objectives of: Promoting discussion among senior people working in Financial Services, who were interested in better understanding the likely future direction of the Market; Enabling networking on a face to face…