Opinion

This blog often talks about Elon Musk,  but then it also looks at the activities of Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and more. They all share several things: billionaries, visionaries, autism and a yearning to open a bank or destroy banking. Just four months ago, I asked the question … Q: Can Elon Musk create PayPalX?…

Space … the final frontier … these are the voyages of the challenger bank Trekkie. Our mission: to boldly go where no bank has gone before. Today, we landed on planet Earth and decided to look at financial inclusion, and the role of banks in ensuring everyone has access to an account. In some countries,…

I’ve had a lot of thoughts recently about how much automation can go. In most banks, one or two people look over the shoulder of those doing the work to make sure they comply. If we could get rid of all those people checking the checkers, there would huge savings which made me beg the…

In a land known as Fed, there are two superheroes: AML and KYC. They fly around the world looking for villains attacking the financial markets and aim to zap them. It is a difficult task, and getting more and more difficult every day, but they try … and they fail. In 2009, the estimated annual…

No, this is not Swift, the global bank messaging network, but Taylor Swift who is now a unicorn, worth more than a billion dollars. Bloomberg reports that “the success of the Eras tour — a Super Bowl-sized event spanning numerous cities that has shattered records, sparked ticket frenzies and even caused the equivalent of a…

I’ve noticed many dislikable trends since Elon Musk took over twitter. First, the system is broken. Rebranded as X, which no-one likes, the whole interface has changed. My main access was via tweetdeck, which is now only available via premium subscription, and then it does not work as before. For example, before, I could have…

As a general rule, I try to avoid being too personal in blogging. Sure, this is an opinion-based platform, but it’s boring talking about me, isn’t it? But then, last week, it proved to be a pretty amazing and exceptional week, so I’m just going to park this here. The week began with a trip…

I just got a copy of Gartner’s emerging risks report for the second quarter 2023. A summary of the report is below but, before you read that, the charts speak volumes. First, we talk about PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technological – forces for change. Right now, unsurprisingly, most change forces are based upon economic…

When Open Banking launched in the UK, it got a drubbing from the media (I blogged about it). The issue is that the media and banks believe that sharing your financial data will compromise your security. That attitude still persists today, which is why Open Banking hasn’t really taken off. By way of example, five years…

I was not amused to hear that a UK council is bankrupt. The council blamed an IT system that cost the earth. The IT system was meant to cost £19 million, but exploded over time to a cost of over £100 million. This is nicknamed the Oracle disaster by The Register, but it runs deeper…