Mobile

Another presentation that was enlightening was delivered by Jean Claude Gaga, CEO of RSwitch Ltd, the national e-payment switch of Rwanda. Jean Claude gave an overview of how Rwanda is moving towards a cashless economy and I was particularly interested as I chair Dot Finance in Kigali each year, and so it gave me a…

There were lots and lots and lots, literally, of focus upon mobile and financial inclusion in my Sudan conference. I guess because only 4% of the adults who live there are banked. You heard me, just four percent. There are over 20 million people of working or retirement age in the country, so that’s just…

I grew up with America as the dream. However, in the past two decades, China has become the second world superpower, whether the Americans like it or not. This is not me having a love thing for China. It’s just a fact. The Americans don’t like it. Google China as a superpower and most US…

A long time ago, a man would go to work whilst the woman would stay at home. Thanks to a generation of change, women and men now work and no one has to stay at home. A long time ago, work was a place you went to and home was a place you rested.  Thanks…

I really enjoyed a recent article on CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor). If you don’t know them, CGAP is a global partnership of over 30 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP’s mission is to improve the lives of poor people by spurring innovations and…

One company that is seeking global domination is Ant Financial. The company has an open stated intention to reach two billion users by 2025.  The way in which they’ll achieve that is through local partnerships, and many of those have been started already: Ant Financial invests in Thailand’s Ascend Money as part of global expansion…

The British Bankers’ Association released their The Way We Bank annual report last Thursday. It was interesting. Here are the key highlights: Over the past five years customers’ activity on banking apps rocketed by 354%, with apps now an increasingly popular way to access current accounts rising from 21% of access in 2012 to 61%…

It’s a decade since the iPhone launched.  Steve Jobs unveiled the new phone on January 9th, 2007. The first iPhones were made available to the grubby hands of the public on June 29th, 2007, exactly ten years ago today.  This was originally just for American consumers with the UK, France, and Germany following in November…

We had a great meeting of the Financial Services Club this week with guest keynote Derek White, Global Head of Customer Solutions for BBVA reporting directly to the CEO, Carlos Torres Vila.  Derek is responsible for the drive to transform the customer value proposition, including global product and design, customer experience, launching new products and…