Innovation

2012 didn’t really see any new technology outcomes. I look around the house today and see an iPad, iPhone and other things, but nothing essentially radically new from 2012 that’s big and different.  But something is about to happen that will change things fundamentally.

The #1 buzz phrase that everyone has grown to hate (especially Ron Shevlin) is Big Data.  Sure, you may hate it, but it is still pretty important, as I blogged a wee while ago. A second area that has become so over debated that it is dull is Mobile. Add …

The #1 buzz phrase that everyone has grown to hate (especially Ron Shevlin) is Big Data.  Sure, you may hate it, but it is still pretty important, as I blogged a wee while ago. A second area that has become so over debated that it is dull is Mobile. Add …

I was asked to give a pre-dinner speech by SAS for a group of Chief Risk Officers (CRO’s) in Amsterdam recently. Here’s the speech. Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  I wasn’t sure how to start this evening, and decided to begin with the collective noun for a group of CRO’s.  You …

It’s taken me a while to work out why  social media and stuff is such a fundamental change for banking, but I finally think I've got there and it's clearer. It started with the rise of blogging and social media such as YouTube. I still retell the story of McKinsey’s …

It’s taken me a while to work out why  social media and stuff is such a fundamental change for banking, but I finally think I've got there and it's clearer. It started with the rise of blogging and social media such as YouTube. I still retell the story of McKinsey’s …

As mentioned yesterday, the regulator tries to keep up with the banks who try to keep up with customer, and I said that banks often innovate too slowly. There are many examples of this, but the one that I come back to regularly is Chip & PIN. Chip & PIN …

I was talking at a conference and a regulator was on the panel.   The panel chair asked him: “should we think about innovation first or regulation?” and he responded by saying: “It is not a question of regulation or innovation.  I would rather ask the question: why do we need innovation …

The European Central Bank (ECB) has just issued a report on Virtual Currency Schemes, with case studies on Second Life and Bitcoin (both previously covered in depth here). In the report, the ECB calls Bitcoin “the most successful — and probably most controversial — virtual currency scheme to date.” The ECB goes …

This week has been fascinating with lots of discussions about branch versus no branch and financial advisor versus product seller. I was going to leave it at that, but feel one final blog post worthy of discussion and this is about the role of social media. We all talk about …

I’ve blogged about the cash machine of the future before, with BBVA coming up with the idea of side-facing screens. Very nice too.

I’m speaking at a conference on the future of payments today for one of the world’s largest suppliers of payments terminals. They asked me my views on the future of the point-of-sale, and I said that it would disappear. Not a good position to take when you’re the keynote speaker …

More conversations about mobile payments with a wave of news this week: Google, Carriers, Credit Cards Unite on Mobile Payments Committee How Cheap NFC Changes the Mobile Payment Race What Square’s Starbucks Deal Means For Mobile Payments And An Apple iWallet My Mobile Payments floats operations in Britain Deutsche Telekom …

Someone made the comment that I would not receive any business from the five banks named yesterday with the biggest mistakes, so I thought I would rectify that by picking on five good things that banks are doing. It’s harder to find, because it is less reported, but there are …

I liked what Hillary Clinton said about data in yesterday's blog: “Data not only measures progress, it inspires it.” The reason I liked it is that it brought me back to the basics of what I do in banking: data leverage. There’s an old chart we used to knock around …