Grid

I saw an article the other day: Top 10 startups offering ‘banking as a service’ in Europe by Silicon Canals. It’s an interesting article that completely misunderstands what Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is, as most of the firms listed are companies offering just an API or a few APIs. 11FS did a better job here, with their…

Carl Howard asked me to look at the challenger and neobanks we discuss today and those of twenty years ago … Have you ever done a piece comparing Smile, IF and FD with latest challenger banks. The cynic (cynic moi?) in me feels intuitively there’s an interesting story there. — Carl Howard (@carlfhoward) August 18,…

After the last two blogs, various comments highlight other questions, with the commonest one being: will any of these new banks make a profit? The answer to that is yes. Some already are, such as Shawbrook, OakNorth, Aldermore … the ones you hear less about. Monzo, Revolut, N26 and others are more sexy because they’re…

Someone asked me about the other challenger and neobanks after yesterday’s blog. I guess we focus upon Monzo, Starling and Revolut, because they are the front-runners. But there’s also Aldermore, Atom, Tide, Tandem, Lintel, Metro, Monese, OakNorth, Zopa and more. Well, I don’t have enough time to write about all of them and I know…

Over the past week or two, the neobank and challenger bank sector has been issuing financial reports. If you haven’t noticed: WHERE WERE YOU? Monzo got a particular hammering for warning that the coronavirus pandemic could impact the company as a going concern. Some argue this is just accounting and auditing speak to warn of…

The main blog headlines are … What’s next, after digital? I was invited to do a keynote for a Canadian conference the other day, but on a subject different to my normal digital stuff. The theme was sustainable finance. I decided to take a different tack and talk about my other big passion: purpose-driven banking….

So, the worst thing imaginable happened today. We had a power outage. I didn’t realise what that meant until it happened. I then realised that I was only maintaining my semblance of sanity during this lockdown thanks to having an oven, a laptop, the internet, power. When the power outage occurred, it suddenly dawned on…

I’ve spent so long dealing with the world opening up, and travelling it, that I find the developments of recent times saddening. First, the globalising world started to creak and break in the 2010s thanks to the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) that began in 2008. Second, the integration of countries and economies…

I was invited to do a keynote for a Canadian conference the other day, but on a subject different to my normal digital stuff. The theme was sustainable finance. I decided to take a different tack and talk about my other big passion: purpose-driven banking. Here’s the presentation and transcript. Trust it makes sense ……

During the summer we performed some extensive research, released today. Details below: Download the Survey Report and View the Video News Release The survey is available at no charge and can be downloaded by providing a few basic details about yourself. View the video news release as well.   Bank and FinTech Execs Report Strengthening…