Innovation

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 …

I need to shut up about Ant Group, as I’ve blogged a lot about them lately. However, with an IPO coming up and news coming out daily almost, it’s hard to ignore some of their activities. One activity that really hit me when it was released in July was the …

This week’s blogs are inspired by our global connector Marisol Menendez This week is a bit different on the blog as I’m going to introduce you to one of my other businesses: Nordic Future Innovation. Nordic Future Innovation (originally Nordic Finance Innovation) is a venture I  started almost ten years ago with …

Last week the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, gave a virtual speech at the Brookings Institute on the future of money, technology, payments, digital currencies and central bank digital currencies. It’s an interesting speech, and worth sharing here. Enjoy. Reinventing the Wheel (with more automation) Speech given …

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 …

I was having a chat with someone the other day and lamenting the loss of open travel. My job was reliant on travel, going to conferences worldwide as a keynote speaker. Locked up at home: (a) how am I going to generate keynotes at conferences that don’t exist; and (b) …

I’ve seen a few big deals signed this month to get banks onto the cloud, such as National Australia Bank (NAB) switching to Microsoft’s Azure, and Deutsche Bank moving to the Google Cloud. McKinsey expect that cloud usage will rise from less than a quarter of banks business being cloud-based to …

I blog regularly about what a fanboy I am of Chinese technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. It’s getting a bit ridiculous now however, when payments companies are designing payments for cats and dogs … or maybe it’s not … it’s just an extension of technologies that work for humans. My …

When The Financial Times does what they’re good at – covering financial markets and not technology – then they do produce some fascinating content. Case in point is the latest coverage of JPMorgan Chase’s (JPMC) 2019 results. The bank’s latest results are stunning, with the fourth-quarter profit soaring to $8.52 …

Really interesting interview here with Ana Botin, Executive Chair of Santander, on Bloomberg. It starts with talking about how Santander can make a difference on climate change with Ana claiming that the bank is voted the most sustainable bank in the world. But when the interviewer, Erik Schatzker, asks her …

I just saw an interesting report produced and released by SIX Group that talks about the future of money.  SIX Group run payments and settlement processing out of Switzerland and, unsurprisingly, their view is that the most likely future is that there will be digital everything but still some cash …

I’ve blogged for a while now about the different approaches to Big Tech in China and America. In China, Big Tech is pretty much working hand-in-hand with government to solve society’s issues and police them. People in the West may not like it or understand it, but Big Brotherly Love …

Like quite a few big banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been messing about with doing digital by launching a number of new initiatives. The two of most note are Bó, a new retail bank, and Mettle, a service for small to medium enterprises (SMEs).* What fascinates me …

Bill Gates said in the early 1990s that “we need banking but we don’t need banks anymore”. He was wrong. I hosted a banking seminar in the late 1990s where David Llewellyn, a Professor of Money, stood up and stated that “there will be more change in the next five …

I recently was invited to be the keynote at some innovation awards in Ireland. It got me thinking about what innovation means in finance, so here are the notes from my speech. I trust it’s useful …   Thank you for inviting me here to join you here for the …