Grid

Two headlines really struck me this morning. The first is that Stripe is now valued at over $150 billion – I’ve been following Stripe’s valuations for over a decade (it was just over $9 billion in 2016) … … and the second is that they are thinking about buying PayPal, which would be immense imho….

Returning to the branch discussions, I picked up on Jim Marous’s recent podcast with Bank of America  (BoA) which is headlined: BofA is Building 150 New Financial Centres at $5 Million Each. Here’s Why The podcast focuses on the fact that BoA is opening new branches focused upon advisory services having almost halved its branch…

Reading an interesting research report by Deutsche Bank about AI, where they are saying that we are entering the trough of disillusionment. The hype is over and reality is hitting hard. They enjoy playing with the idea of AI though, and call it: Disillusionment: beauty is in the AI of the beholder Dislocation: AI of…

I was thinking of the move from the rotary telephone to the touchtone phone to the mobile phone. Similarly, the upgrade from gramophone to record player to CD and streaming. These things have changed our lives over decades so that we now take them for granted today. But, when watching movies from the past century,…

This week’s main discussions include … The future is right here, right now In the last day, I’ve been blown away by two developments coming out of China. One is an AI movie sequence that’s only 15 seconds long; the second was the Spring Festival celebration to welcome the New Year of the Fire Horse….

The BBC has run many reports about how people accidentally become money mules through their ignorance: It’s not easy money. This scam wrecks your credit I got quick cash in my account but it was too good to be true I became a money mule by mistake A key point here is that, in statistics…

I got an interesting update on Monday from Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) on the impact that an event has on local community. Their data shows the positive impact that the Winter Olympics is having in Italy: Overseas Visa cardholder visits rose by more than 60%, with the largest share of visitors coming from the…

In the last day, I’ve been blown away by two developments coming out of China. One is an AI movie sequence that’s only 15 seconds long; the second was the Spring Festival celebration to welcome the New Year of the Fire Horse. If you haven’t seen them, you need to, because both show how technology…

I’ve avoided talking about the Epstein files on this blog. The main reason is that it’s appalling how wealth, power and connections can get away with anything they want. The worst part of it, for me, was a report that alleges that Donald Trump watched a 13-year-old girl give birth to a baby girl who…

When the Genius Act was signed off last year by President Trump, I said that it was positioned to keep the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. Now, a new debate arises after Jamie Dimon (Chair of JPMorgan) and Brian Armstrong (CEO, Coinbase) had a spat at Davos. Did you hear about it? Probably…