Grid

This week, Visa announced something for the USA that really is a non-issue in Europe – it shouldn’t be news, but it was – for Americans at least! Plus –  there were Zombies, (Swedish House) Mafia and a 78 year old bank robber along with big news about our favourite (non) sponsor Elon Musk and…

I’ve been writing children’s stories for a while, and decided to try to apply my childish impishness to the seriousness of banking. That’s a true FinTech approach where we integrate the parent and child. So, here’s my attempt to create an exciting moment in time: Barry Banker and the Market of Doom. Barry Banker had worked…

Some predict that, in the near future, the world will be run by AI robots, even Liverpool football team! The thing about AI is that it is only as good as the input it is given. For example, ChatGPT couldn’t give answers to any questions you ask it, without those answers being previously written by…

I’ve met many FinTech founders and the one thing they have in common is youthful optimism (even those over 30), but I was taken with an article written by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian the other day asking why so many so many under 30-year-old founders face jail. You see the thing about youthful optimism…

As an advocate of digitalisation, I am finding myself more and more conflicted these days. Apps don’t work; settings change; updates mess up my services; processes break and cannot be repaired without a reset; I can’t make a payment as there is no WiFi or mobile data; I can’t get home as FreeNow and Uber…

The World Bank released a free report the other day titled: FinTech and the Future of Finance. It’s an interesting read and I was going to summarise it, when I discovered on LinkedIn that my friend Richard Turrin had already done the job. Here you go: “The World Bank” delivers a great read on fintech and…

When a bank disappears from sight, can it still exist as a bank? The short answer is yes, in an invisible finance world. While I believe that banks and banking will not disappear, I do believe that most banks will. They won’t disappear completely, of course, they will just cease to be something we think…

I once wrote a lot about Islamic finance, but haven’t been back there lately. I also used to write a lot about Hawala, but have also not written much lately. They are completely unrelated, except that both are popular in the Middle East, and both sit in my back pocket as examples of how to do…

I’ve seen so many updates about Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) lately that it’s obviously an inevitability. Maybe … Bear in mind we have CBDCs and cryptocurrencies. Are the two in competition or complimentary? I think that’s a really important question. The question is: which do you trust more? Trust in CBDCs is that, because…

I’ve had a few annoying digital instances recently. The first was a request to complete one-time password verfications … Just did an order online. First, my online retailer asked for a one-time password (OTP). Then my payment processor asked for another OTP. Then my bank asked for a third OTP. But, tbh, I don't mind….