Innovation

I find it interesting that so many bloggers on Fintech deride the banks for being slow, clueless or stupid.  So many blogs talk about how banks don’t do this, don’t do that; fail at this, fail at that; have no idea, cannot change; are stuck in the past or have their heads up their arse. …

Following our regular weekly interview, the Finanser talks this week with one of Europe’s fastest growing unicorns, Klarna, in conversation with co-founder and Deputy CEO Niklas Adalberth, To begin with, perhaps you can tell me how you and your colleagues came up with the idea of Klarna. Sure.  When we started this company, the entire…

What happens when the cost of payments reaches zero, the speed of payments is instant, and everyone globally can make and take a payment, what happens then? I just had an interesting chat with someone and realised two things: one is that we’re talking about moving away from batch to real-time, and that’s where the…

I was upset to be unable to join the recent debate in New York on digital banking.  The debate was framed around the theme: "This House Believes Fintech Will Eat The Bankers Lunch", and I was going to oppose the motion. It ended up that I was conflicted and had to defer to a far…

The real way to crack the onboarding and criminal activity is to create strong and secure digital identities.  We are moving in that direction, but it’s a long slow process.  For ages now, I’ve written about getting rid of passwords and improving authentication using mobile technologies: Why is KYC so difficult? AML prevention lies in…

In this world of choice that emerges from the integration of new technology models and old financial models, we see hybrid systems emerging that bring together the best-of-the-best.  A great example was announced today, as Metro Bank and Zopa join forces.  The deal allows deposits from Metro Bank retail customers to use P2P lending as…

As the internet reinvents commerce on this planet, it’s interesting to see the two things that enter the innovation mix: simplicity combined with connectivity.  When you think about the Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Amazon and more, you realise that they have all simplified some complex things from sharing to finding.  Google’s home page has stayed…

We think we’ve come a long way with technology, but we haven’t really.  Sure we can now ping a message between a router in Hong Kong and London at the rate of 0.239 seconds speed; we can wear a watch that not only tells the time but takes photos, keeps our diary and tells us…