Grid

I’ve blogged a lot about digital identities, but failed to cover an in-depth review of the largest identity program in the world: Aadhaar.  It’s been very remiss of me, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment and now seems to be that moment. Aadhaar is well known for those in the identity field, but…

Building upon Friday’s discussion of how the system treats the poor, there are interesting movements afoot at the Brookings Institute.  If you’re not familiar with Brookings, it is one of America’s oldest Think Tanks and provides independent research into social sciences, particularly economics, governance and foreign policy, for the US Government. The Institute has a…

I don’t often highlight the Financial Services Club’s forthcoming meetings, but felt it worth just noting a few upcoming specials.  Join the Club if you want to come along: Financial Services Club England September 6 Future Applications of the Blockchain Technology – Leanne Kemp, Founder and CEO, Everledger September 20 The Refugee Crisis is also an…

Here are our key posts for the past week … How the system crushes the poor Building on yesterday’s discussion of the digital divide turning into a human divide*, I find it intriguing how we talk incessantly about financial inclusion and how technology will bank the unbanked.  It is our dream.  But is it just…

Building on yesterday’s discussion of the digital divide turning into a human divide*, I find it intriguing how we talk incessantly about financial inclusion and how technology will bank the unbanked.  It is our dream.  But is it just a dream? The reason for thinking this is that poverty and inclusion is yet another area,…

I love the predictions of scientists, but they’re often wrong.  The internet has a litany of stupid predictions from IBM’s President saying that there’s a worldwide market for about five computers to The Atlantic predicting that, by the year 2000, we would no longer be engaged in wars. The latest predictions are that, thanks to improvements…

I didn’t realise until the other day that the Bank of England has a blog Bank Underground.  Finally, a boring old British bank with a blog.  Not a consumer bank of course – none of those blog – but a good old central bank. The Bank makes clear it’s not the opinions of the institution…

I recently opened an investment fund for blockchain start-ups in partnership with Life.SREDA, who produce a report on the state of FinTech twice a year.  The latest report, almost 300 pages of analysis, provide more insights of the first half of the year in FinTech [Money of the Future 1H’2016 and Chinese, Korean and Japanese…

Apparently, I am a miscreant.  I am the one guy who managed to break PayPal.  What?  OK, here’s the story.  The next 2,000 words tell the story but, if you’d rather miss that and cut to the chase, jump to the end. Most of my customers wire me the money.  American customers are more of…

Here are our key posts for the past week … Applying Blockchain to Clearing and Settlement I’ve talked a lot about blockchain, but not much lately about the use cases, of which four stand out in terms of real activity: Clearing and Settlement, Trade Finance, Payments and Digital Identity.  I thought I’d do a deeper dive…