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A lot of discussion at the United Nations, where I’ve been all week (blogging about that next week), has raised the question of Libra, the Facebook digital currency. I’m avoiding calling it a cryptocurrency, as it’s more a stablecoin that is focused upon transactions, which is why it has Visa, …

A few years ago, I posted a guest article from Philippe Gelis, co-founder and CEO of FX firm Kantox, on Why FinTech Banks will rule the world. It was very popular and made my top ten posts of 2015, and Philippe has been kind enough to let me share another …

I often talk about the world changing thanks to young people who can code. My examples include John and Patrick Collison, Stripe, who were 19 and 21 when they started their business; Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, who were in their mid-20’s when they created Venmo; Nicolay Storonsky, who was …

The next day, the grandson came to visit his grandfather again, and immediately returned to the conversation of yesterday. Grandson: Granddad, you know you were talking about how money and banking used to be. Well, I think it’s a lot better today. Granddad: How so, lad? Grandson: Well, a good …

Being raised on Monty Python, an old sketch popped into my head (The Four Yorkshire Men) and led to a thought. A grandfather and grandson are at the dinner table … Grandfather: Ah, when I was a lad, life was very different. Grandson: In what way, grandad? Grandfather: Well, we used …

The main blog headlines are … How can you be AI with DD? No, I don’t mean Attention Deficit Disorder, which would be ADD, but I mean Artificially Intelligent with Dumb Data. Now, I know I moan on and on about fragmented legacy systems, but I honestly have no idea …

No, I don’t mean Attention Deficit Disorder, which would be ADD, but I mean Artificially Intelligent with Dumb Data. Now, I know I moan on and on about fragmented legacy systems, but I honestly have no idea how a bank could ever be able to compete with an Apple or …

Building on yesterday’s blog about reports that are useful, I just found another one from UK Finance (formerly the British Bankers Association) on how they see AI in banking, released last week. The report is in two parts that address what they see as the two key issues banks face …

An interesting report came out this week saying that UK consumers would access mobile banking apps more often than branches in the next two years. It got covered on the BBC, Sky News and lots of other media, but I was thinking in the next two years? It just shows …

I was talking to a Securitisation conference the other day. Securitisation? What’s that? Well, I could explain but if you don’t know google it and you’ll find it’s one of those areas of financial markets that destroyed economies a decade ago and left us all with a huge debt. Well, …

I’ve been involved in finance and technology for a long, long time. Originally, I was a technologist; then a financial technologist; and now a FinTech guy. However, I see the FinTech piece as being irrelevant. Whether it’s FinTech or TechFin, it’s all still just finance and technology. The difference is …

The main blog headlines are … Platform, marketplace, ecosystem … buzzword bingo! I encounter lots of banter about platforms, marketplaces and ecosystems, and do wonder in the flippant way people use them interchangeably whether they really understand what they are talking about. I’m sure many do but I’m also sure …

I was having an interesting conversation with a guy who had joined a big bank having previously worked in Big Tech. The guy was headhunted by the bank to be a gamechanger (GC), and had been gifted the ability to do almost whatever he wanted when it came to innovation, …

Talking of partnering, many years ago, I was assigned the role of negotiating a contract with a partner for a large technology firm. The partner specialised in the insurance markets, my focus at that time, and we got into the game of contract wording. For quite a while, it was …

I encounter lots of banter about platforms, marketplaces and ecosystems, and do wonder in the flippant way people use them interchangeably whether they really understand what they are talking about. I’m sure many do but I’m also sure some people throw them into the conversation like a buzzword bingo game. …