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To my readers and friends, I wish you a fantastic holiday season. My only wish is that, in 2024, we can have more peace and love. Wishing you all my very best.

2023 has been the year of artificial intelligence (AI) thanks to the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, acquisition by Microsoft, integration with Bing and mad scrabble by Google, Baidu and more to keep up. This will continue in 2024 and, if anything, become even more of a war between big tech firms and their delivery of…

As usual at the end of the year, I look back and see what was of most interest in the blog over the last 12 months. So, here goes: #10 Will Silicon Valley Bank kill the FinTech industry? “When you’re not working, what do you do to de-stress?” was the last question Greg Becker, CEO…

Over the past decade+ we have seen thousands of fintechs arise. Many are challenging and disrupting, whilst many more are providing and supplying. What is the role of a fintech? My advice is that fintechs are there to fix the things that banks do badly and offer service to those who banks don’t serve. The…

In case you missed it, Vladamir Putin did a media conference the other day and it did not include just the press, but the general public too. Questions like “when will the war end”, “why does my mobile phone say that I’m no longer in the Russian network when travelling to Crimea” and “tell us,…

This week’s main blog discussions include … There were 50 ways to leave your lover … now there’s one more (thanks to your payment app) Over the years, there have been many weird and wacky ideas for banking. There was the G&L Bank in the USA in 2000, targeting the LBGTQ+ community. It was a…

In my head, I often have an argument and, unsurprisingly, I had one today. Today’s argument is around how technology is used in finance and whether it’s a good or a bad thing. Therefore, in the spirit of a good Oxford debate, we have the proposer and opposer. The debate would go as follows (in…

Building on yesterday’s blog, I just stumbled across a podcast called Tech Trends by JPMorgan Chase – everything to do with tech, digital, data and fintech, broadcast by a bank. Fantastic. The first show I downloaded is all about organising data to fuel growth. Interestingly, their Chief Data Officer defines data as the fuel for…

I just delivered a two-day immersive course in digital transformation for a bank and found myself regularly saying digital is the core, data is the asset. It did trip off the tongue nicely, but it also summarised the essence of what digital transformation is all about. You start with digital as the core. You build…

I just had an interview with a journalist via email. It was quite interesting, and wanted to share it with you. The key point being made is that everything we have today – apps, online, cards and more – are going to disappear. Are they? Mobile payments, BNPL, open banking, artificial intelligence – these are…