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I have a range of technologies I use, but get frustrated with them all. My Apple Watch is redundant, as is my Microsoft Surface, and I upgrade laptop and desktop every 18 months or so, largely to keep up with the demand for speed and reliability.  It could be that it’s because I’m not an…

I wake up today with the usual massive dump of emails, two of which looked a bit suspect.  The first is from DHL, saying my shipment is cancelled.  I don’t use DHL and expect no shipment from them, so delete it.  The second is an email from Transport for London with a PDF attachment. It’s…

There are a lot of Fintech forecasts out there but two of the best I spotted were by David Gyori and Pascal Bouvier, so I decided to take the areas I agree with most to provide a few headline Fintech predictions for 2016 of my own: #1 PayPal will be a primary acquisition target in…

That’s not 2,016 banking predictions, which could be good, but banking predictions for the year 2016. Happy New Year. As is usual at the start of the year, I normally make a bunch of predictions about what will happen in retail, investment and transaction banking … but this year is not usual so I’m not…

As it’s almost holiday time, I’m going to stop blogging for a while, so here’s the final blog post of 2015 and it’s the ten most read blog posts of 2015.  In at number 10: #10: After the glitch, RBS closes GTS (or how a global bank becomes a national one) I was surprised to…

Yes, 2015 was the year that the Fintech bubble exploded.  It hasn’t burst yet, but it’s clear that Fintech is the word of 2015.  Everyone is talking unicorns, start-ups, disruption, Fintech and yet this is nothing new.  I often say that I’m only known in the Fintech world because I’ve worked in technology in finance…

Looking back on 2015, it’s obvious that blockchain was the big focus as mentioned last week.  There were other things though, particularly the increasingly intriguing wallet wars.  Mobile wallet wars have been bubbling for a while, with stagnant attempts to achieve something from the likes of O2 and Orange. Let the mobile wallet wars begin,…

I’m often asked how quickly the changes I outline will take place, and my answer is between 10 and 20 years.  The building of the real-time, almost free financial network on the internet using blockchain and mobile will take about a decade at least before it becomes mainstream.  Oh, some go.  That’s a way off. …

Building upon this theme of anonymity it’s worth talking for a minute about the Darknet.  It sounds like something out of Star Wars, but is all about ToR and the ability to surf without leaving a digital footprint.  This is the world of Silk Road, as detailed in the recent case study from Wired, and gives an…

I saw a fascinating presentation by Porter Erisman, author of Alibaba’s World, last week.  Porter was involved in the early days of Alibaba, having lived in China since 1994.  As an American in China it must have been a fascinating experience, and Porter talked about how Alibaba was formed and how it differs to Amazon…