Grid

I’ve recently had a couple of interesting visits to the Middle East and Africa, namely Riyadh and Cairo. Both are keen to highlight progress in fintech, which is interesting as they are two cities that have been on my radar but a little behind others like Dubai and Lagos. So, I was interested in what…

This week’s main blog discussions include … It’s all about trust Building upon my blog about Revolut the other day, and their need for a banking license, I’ve been accused many times of coming back to a theme that you can only be a bank if you’re a bank with a license. Why do I…

For over twenty years, I’ve predicted the end of the ATM, cash and cards. Finally, many of those predictions appear to be coming true. It is certainly true of cash versus card … … and now it is turning out to be true for card versus wallet … Admittedly, the second picture is from a…

“AI, powered by quantum computing, is going to put financial crime potentially on steroids.” It’s not my quote. It’s actually a comment made by David Duffy, CEO of Virgin Money (now Nationwide) after visiting Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle. From my side, this is an area that’s been worrying me for a while, ever since the…

I’ve recently been seeing more and more about eugenics. Eugenics is a supposed scientific way to develop the perfect human, immune to disease and designed to live long and prosper (as Spock would say). A more formal definition comes from The National Human Genome Research Institute: Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial…

Talking about trust, the other side of the coin is what is the bank doing to protect privacy? Increasingly, due to regulatory concerns, banks are becoming government spies. They are watching our every move and reporting it. This recently cropped up on my personal radar when the bank became my interrogator and grilled me about…

Building upon my blog about Revolut the other day, and their need for a banking license, I’ve been accused many times of coming back to a theme that you can only be a bank if you’re a bank with a license. Why do I keep coming back to this theme? It’s all about trust and…

This week’s main blog discussions include … There is no next big thing in banking I’ve been trying to think of the next big thing. Someone asked me on a conference call: what’s the next big thing? I’ve always been on top of the next big thing. Whether it’s the metaverse, AI, blockchain, cloud computing…

It’s all about the difference between an emoney provider and a bank … I’ve been having an ongoing debate with a Revolut fan about the fact that they have an emoney licence, as an EMI (Electronic Money Institution), and that they are not a bank in Britain. It’s part of the ongoing debate about their…

You may not have spotted it this week, but there has been a number of major strategic changes and moves by fintech leader Stripe. I’ve followed Stripe since their founding in 2010, and use them as a poster child of change in finance and technology, as demonstrated by their fast cycle growth from a company…