Numbers

When you have your basic needs covered – food and shelter – what do you need then?  According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s our psychological needs – love, belonging, self-esteem. This is exactly where digital plays into our hearts.  Our love and belonging is in Facebook and Baidu, which is why these are so…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been hearing about a War on Cash.  The war, as illustrated by India’s recent demonetization, is not on cash itself but on the illegal use of cash and, by association, the fraudulent creation of cash.  Both fraudulent notes and coins along with large cash denominated amounts transferring…

I recently was hauled up over saying that Western Union (WU) was being disrupted by FinTech.  The words that a reader took issue with are: The high fees of Western Union and other remittance providers were fairly punishing … until FinTech came along Western Union is being disrupted, to an extent, but this person was…

I blogged a year ago about TechFin, the incumbents’ view of applying technology to existing banking services, versus FinTech which seeks to transform the financial system.  That has become one of the top search terms to find my blog, as it turns out, mainly because my blog entries are the first to be returned when searching…

I blogged recently that there is around $1.6 trillion of money laundering globally and less than 2% is caught by the financial system.  That’s a stunning amount and makes you wonder why our system is so awful.  Much of it is down to the fact that account openings depend upon physical documentation and human checks. …

There was an interesting article in The Independent last week about the big banks becoming bigger since the financial crisis hit.  The article notes that the big American banks control 70% of all US assets, and that this figure has increased 40% since 2008. In the lead up to 2008, parallel to increasing debt levels,…

Building on my challenger bank discussions, there’s some interesting points coming out of a new report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (or Playing the Wrong Cards as they’re now called, after the Oscars) on challenger banking.  It’s well worth a read, especially as they found that having branches is more important than mobile apps.  The survey showed…

Seven years ago, the first new retail bank in almost a century got its licence to open: Metro Bank.  Now, there are so many new banks starting up in Britain (and across Europe) that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with it all.  There are app-only start-up banks (Atom, Monzo, Starling, Tandem); foreign exchange payment cards (Revolut, SuperCard); personal…

I was reflecting on a friend of mine who runs a FinTech start-up.  Their company was on a funding round, and struggling.  They struggled so much that they ended up having to lay off a load of staff, cut budgets and defer income.  In fact, they reached the point where they would only survive another…