Opinion

I woke up and, as usual, checked the banking app for any updates or changes. There was a payment received.  Quite a major payment. It came from BIG NUTS ASS*. BIG NUTS ASS*? Who is BIG NUTS ASS*? I have no idea. I rang the bank. That took a long time. Due to coronavirus, we…

UPFRONT STATEMENT: I have crypto, but treat it as an experiment I attended an event in 2016 where Elon Musk was the star speaker. It was a good event, and he made sense. He doesn’t make sense anymore. Back then, I wondered if he was the 21st century’s real-life Tony Stark creating life on Mars…

I’m starting to worry about FinTech as they seem to have fallen foul of regulatory compliance and, as a consequence, customer trust. The biggest challenge for a challenger is to keep customer trust AND regulatory compliance. This is what we are seeing having consequences today. The fact I’m starting to worry about FinTech, as an…

My bank shocks me. I know what’s going on, but even then, they still shock me. What’s going on? My bank depended upon offshore services for customer services. Those offshore services were based in India. India locked-down with four hours notice and, as you may have noticed if you watch the news, is now suffering…

I watch the world and comment. Maybe I shouldn’t. This blog began as a blog about finance and technology and I rarely want to leave that space. But lockdown, the pandemic and more has made it more of a commentary on life and the world and not just finance and technology. So, I woke up…

Money Rebellion I’m finding the world a bit surreal – is it just me? Locked down for a year; totalitarian states; governments attacking people; governments killing people; black lives matter; wars rising; tensions rising; demonstrations on the streets; no concerts, entertainment or hospitality … the list goes on. Meantime, there are basic issues that still…

Building on yesterday’s blog, it’s an interesting moment in time. The old world structures reject cryptocurrencies whilst the new world structures accept them en masse. This was typified for me by a couple of headlines the other day: UK Bank NatWest Bars Businesses That Accept Crypto Signature Bank Goes Head-to-Head With Silvergate in Bitcoin-Backed Lending…

Building on my AML – or is that MAL? – blog, I was thinking about the cost of compliance and all of those 1000’s of people working in such functions. Then I was thinking that they are completely ineffective. I always remember presenting to a big conference of risk managers at a major European bank…

I was talking with an AML guy this morning. That’s anti-money laundering, for those unfamiliar. AML. Might as well call it MAL, as in the French word mal, as AML is bad. It’s really bad. It doesn’t work. So, why bother? Well, banks have to bother as governments have rules about who can bank and…