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Shaping the future of finance

With no funding, you can’t fight

As you know, I don’t like entering the political sphere too much as it’s way too controversial, but I’ve just got around to watching the BBC Panorama programme aired on February 19 about Hamas’s secret financial empire. It’s fascinating and, unfortunately, only available on the BBC iPlayer, as far as I know. It’s well worth…

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea

I’ve just had several incidents with traditional banks digitally that made me realise they really are faced with big issues. You may have noticed this in my recent blogging, but here are three specific insights that illustrated the point. The first is the fact that I keep having to open the bank’s app to find…

The Finanser’s Week: 18th March – 24th March 2024

The main blog discussions this week include … The Dunning-Kruger effect, as inspired by a bank robbery I had never heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect until the other day. Inspired by a bank robbery, Professor David Dunning worked out that people sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of confidence. Some are hugely confident and…

The Dunning-Kruger effect, as inspired by a bank robbery

I had never heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect until the other day. Inspired by a bank robbery, Professor David Dunning worked out that people sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of confidence. Some are hugely confident and competent whilst, at the other end of the spectrum, they are hugely confident but completely incompetent. How…

BaaS is nothing new … it started over thirty years ago

Way back in the 1990s, we all talked about object-oriented architectures and modular computing. In the 2000s, I called it Banking-as-a-Service, BaaS, and started presenting the idea around the world. The difference between the 1990s and 2000s was cloud and mobile smartphones. This change was the tipping point from fragmented systems to open platforms, and…

The pros and cons of digital identities

Thirty years ago, I presented at a conference with the theme being the end of cash. Thirty years later we are all gradually going cashless. Twenty-five years ago, I presented at a conference, with the view that bank branches weren’t needed. Twenty-five years later, most bank branches are going, going, gone. Twenty years ago, I…

You’ve been Goxed again!

Way back in 2012, I invested £1,000 in bitcoins on Mt.Gox, the Japanese-based exchange that was the most popular platform at that time for trading in said currency. Then they got hacked and went bankrupt in 2014. You may remember but, just in case: Launched in 2010, it was handling over 70% of all bitcoin…

We are all virgins of technology

A long time ago, before most of you were born, I worked with Dr. An Wang, a visionary. Wang created Wang computers, a company that blossomed quickly into a global firm thanks to word processing. Word processing? Yes, word processing. What it allowed was the replacement of typewriters with computers, and companies loved it because…

The Finanser’s Week: 11th March – 17th March 2024

This week’s main blog discussions include … How the Wirecard story unravelled: an interview with Dan McCrum who broke the truth I’ve been following Dan McCrum, the investigative journalist with The Financial Times, for quite a while. He’s the guy who broke the Wirecard story, even though it could have meant quite a lot of…

eToro shows why old banks just don’t get it

It’s not just AI that’s hot, but there is still the metaverse, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and more. So, I’ve been friends-ish with Yoni Assia, the co-founder of eToro, for many years. The story of eToro is pretty amazing actually. If you’re not familiar with it, you can find a summary over here…

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