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For many years we have had discussions about bank branches and a branchless future. I personally don’t believe in a branchless future, but many do. And yes, there are many branches disappearing, much to the annoyance of those who lose that physical store. For example, America still has a large number of branches (32 per…

The world feels fairly surreal sometimes. I watch the relentless rise in price of bitcoin, ether, litecoin and brethren, and feel it’s just a truly weird moment we’re living in. I’ve never seen assets rising 1000% of, in ether’s case, 5000% in a year. It’s crazy. Alongside this, I see exchanges being hacked on a…

I wrote about the fact that digital transformation does not create greater shareholder value … yet … and then DBS announce that they are the first bank in the world to demonstrate the link between digitization and shareholder value creation on November 17. Interesting, as I blogged about this on November 16, inspired by an article…

This week’s main blog headlines are … Banks could be dinosaurs and some of them know it I have bias. I admit it. I have a certain proclivity to be nice to people who hire me, so this is an upfront statement of subjectivity. I am not objective. Nevertheless, there are certain companies who warm…

I have bias. I admit it. I have a certain proclivity to be nice to people who hire me, so this is an upfront statement of subjectivity. I am not objective. Nevertheless, there are certain companies who warm my heart. They tend to be young, dynamic and often founded in my lifetime. They are run…

There’s a constant buzz about disruption, which kind of sounds like destruction to me. We have to realize that no one is going to destruct or even possibly disrupt banks. No one. It has not happened in my lifetime of working with technology in banks, and I don’t think it will happen in the next…

I spent a day facilitating a series of roundtable discussions focused upon distributed ledger technologies (DLT). I realised that there’s a lot of confusion around the subject. Hell, even I’m confused most of the time even after dedicating hours to the subject. When is a distributed ledger needed? What’s the difference between a distributed and…

I still talk a lot about blockchain, distributed ledgers, cryptocurrencies and more, but often feel it’s falling on deaf ears. The price of bitcoin flies around in the $7,000 a coin bracket, having risen from a tenth of that amount a year ago; and many people talk about blockchain and distributed ledger interchangeably, as did…

I was recently at a Capital Markets conference in Turkey where the main first day keynote speaker is Professor James A. Robinson from the University of Chicago and co-author of Why Nations Fail, a book that changed thinking about what makes for successful countries and what makes them fail. I had assumed that James was going…

This week’s main blog headlines are … Old John Cryan had some code, AI, AI, Oh! There are two big tech topics in banking these days, namely Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain. These two tech titans are changing the back office of banks into intelligent shared structures that will be mind-blowing a decade from now….