Grid

It made me smile when watching Billions during an exchange between Chuck Rhoades (the Attorney General) and a bitcoin miner in Episode 1 of Series 5 (nerdy). Bitcoin miner: "What's the dollar backed by, since we went off the gold standard?" Legislator: "Roads, the military, industry, the credit of the federal government, that sort of…

I read a lot about consultancies and how they screw their clients and screw them up too. Really? If this is true, why would you hire a consultant? Answer: to blame someone externally if things go wrong internally. The main company accused of these misdemeanours appears to be McKinsey. I guess that’s because McKinsey is…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) are getting more and more active about stablecoins and crypto assets. In a letter to G20 ministers published yesterday,  FSB Chair Klaas Knot Many said that many existing stablecoins would not meet the “high-level” recommendations to be set by global standard setters like the FSB. This is related to the…

Last week the European Central Bank issued a report on the state of digital transformation across European banks, and announced that they were not only interested in this space but would be supervising it. Yay! Disappointingly for me, the report and perspectives fell well short of what I think of as truly digital. Here’s their announcement…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Why the 1% will always be the 1% There’s that line in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others It always makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, as it would be nice if we had an egalitarian world where everyone…

Valentine’s Day often results in a few breakups and this week saw the 2019 marriage between FIS and Worldpay come to an end as FIS announced they will be spinning off Worldpay Merchant Services. Our quizmaster was back on vocals again but rising prices turned our stomachs more than his singing did! Here are the…

There’s that line in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others It always makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, as it would be nice if we had an egalitarian world where everyone was equal … but it’s never going to happen. This struck me when I was…

I blogged the other day about a decade of FinTech failures, but FinTech is not failing, it’s flourishing as demonstrated by the numbers. For example I took note of Innovate Finance’s analysis of FinTech 2022 a month ago. The key headlines are: The total capital invested into FinTech globally reached $92 billion in 2022, a…

The Wall Street Journal reports that Paxos,  a company focused upon stablecoins, has been issued with a notice they are to be sued by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Sources cited by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to sue Paxos for violating investor…

Isn’t the message of the start-up world to fail fast and pivot? Grant Easterbrook, a fintech consultant and former founder of Go Forward, writes on Techcrunch about four areas of FinTech that didn’t live up to the hype and, in his words, failed. I was intrigued by this, as I don’t think any part of…