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I hadn’t realised the significance of Stripe’s recent press release until I stumbled over the Stratechery write-up over the weekend. Stratechery points out that Stripe has gone from a simple merchant checkout API to a platform of platforms. The significance of that? Well, think of the Amazon of finance: that’s …

The main blog discussions this week include … It’s beginning to look a lot like banking … I wrote this the other day for Channel News Asia: FinTech firms may look like banks soon The gist of my thread is that, due to Ant Group offloading all of their risk …

This is the fifth in a series of blogs about the elephant, which represents the economy, and the bird, which represents the future. The elephant is still here. He’s too big for me to get rid of him. And he’s very difficult to deal with as he’s big and smelly. …

I was struck by a comment made on LinkedIn that most media miss what’s going on in the rest of the world. In this case, it was a comment about Starling Bank getting plaudits for being the first challenger to be profitable. What it should have said is the first challenger …

I wrote the other day about machines becoming human, and said they would not be … but what if they were or, more importantly, what if machines stopped needing humans? This is the dystopian future of Terminator and more, where humans become redundant and we create our own destruction and …

I wrote this the other day for Channel News Asia: FinTech firms may look like banks soon The gist of my thread is that, due to Ant Group offloading all of their risk to banks, the authorities are now stepping in to say that any innovator, even one as big …

As bitcoin’s pricing goes up and down as usual – almost $18,000 today (who bought a few for a $1?) – it seems like the world is moving towards cryptocurrencies, as they are now respectable. They’re not respectable in the eyes of governments and banks … Bitcoin has no role …

The main blog discussions this week include … Is Google going head-to-head with banks? We talk a lot about Big Tech moving into big banking … but then we have talked about that for years. Now, with the revamped strategy for Google towards payments and finance, is Big Tech finally …

We talk a lot about Big Tech moving into big banking … but then we have talked about that for years. Now, with the revamped strategy for Google towards payments and finance, is Big Tech finally making its move into big banking? If you didn’t catch the announcements, here’s the …

We have terrible moments of human strife and suffering. Wars, famine, pandemics, earthquakes and more. People dying, parents and friends lost, grief and tears, a world that could not be worse … … But for some, it’s good times. There’s always money to be made out of a crisis. I …

I’ve been talking quite a bit about CBDCs lately. CBDCs? Central Bank Digital Currencies. Central banks worldwide are looking at digital currencies as a great new future. Instead of letting citizens move to bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, have ours. Well, that’s the idea anyway. China was leading the way here, …

The lockdown pandemic has been interesting from a financial markets’ perspective. First, people withdrew as much cash as they could, worrying that things would be bad, and cash was king. It wasn’t. They didn’t need the cash. They didn’t spend it. In fact, I was particularly struck by this chart …

It’s 2020 and, since I was born in 19-whenever it was, I cannot think of a more challenging year. We are being forced to isolate, stay indoors, go nowhere and stay well. As I’ve blogged a few times, that’s good news for digital but bad news for humanity. I think …

The main blog discussions this week include … Brace yourself for the Great Unlock Way back in March 2020 – what month is it now? – I said that lockdown would be a challenge for all. Obviously. Now, so many months later – what year is it now? – it …

I still haven’t managed to get rid of the elephant in the room. In fact, it’s worse now, as he’s moved into the bedroom in the evenings. It makes it really hard to sleep. Yes, I need to sleep on the bed too, but find it hard to sleep as …