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After my blog yesterday, about banks having to move from being control freaks in a proprietary operation building everything to becoming collaborative partners in an open marketplace curating everything, I was asked: “how do you make money out of curation?” It’s a good question, as marketplace curators make money very differently from proprietary product providers. …

I was having a chat with a banking buddy who was expressing his frustration with the fact that their PSD2 developments were not going the way he wanted.  He had found a nice little FinTech start-up with a really neat Open API capability which could be used by the bank in days.  But the Head…

I have had many, many conversations about reaching the millennial customer.  We need to be attractive to millennials?  Millennials think differently, how do we reach them?  Millennials are rejecting banks, is that right?  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The conversation seems to be one amongst older generational people who haven’t realised that the millennials is…

I just got back from the ICEEfest in Bucharest, Romania.  It’s a fantastic expo organised by Dragos Stanca and his team, and was very enjoyable even with the master of ceremonies, Jeff Leach, taking the mickey out of me.  Jeff is an actor and comedian, and spent the whole conference f-bombing the speakers and the…

We had a great meeting of the Financial Services Club this week with guest keynote Derek White, Global Head of Customer Solutions for BBVA reporting directly to the CEO, Carlos Torres Vila.  Derek is responsible for the drive to transform the customer value proposition, including global product and design, customer experience, launching new products and…

This week’s main blog headlines are … The crazy world of crypto currencies and ICOs I’m boarding a flight yesterday and murfing (mobile surfing).  Flicking between Facebook apps, twitter, bank account, BBC news and more.  Suddenly I spot a new ICO – Initial Coin Offering – for a new bank.  From Wikipedia: “An initial coin offering (ICO)…

I’m boarding a flight yesterday and murfing (mobile surfing).  Flicking between Facebook apps, twitter, bank account, BBC news and more.  Suddenly I spot a new ICO – Initial Coin Offering – for a new bank.  From Wikipedia: “An initial coin offering (ICO) is a means of crowdfunding the release of a new cryptocurrency. Generally, tokens for the new cryptocurrency are…

I was invited to talk to some City folks about using data analytics for trading.  It made me pause for reflection, as I’ve been talking about analytics for trading for a long, long time.  Twenty years ago in fact. Back in the 1990s, we were taking about object oriented programming, neural networking for stock picking…

I regularly blog about the same subject, namely CHANGE YOUR CORE SYSTEMS.  Banks do a great job of not listening to me, but that’s because they’ve caught themselves in Catch 22: screwed if I change them and screwed if I don’t.  How did they get into this mess and how can they get out of…

I hosted a banking dinner the other night, where we were talking about the FinTech scene in this particularly vibrant and innovative country.  It was under the Chatham House Rule, so I can’t say too much about who and where this dinner was, but it did amuse me half way through when we were talking…