I was quite relaxed about the coronavirus thinking it would blow over (no pun intended). Yet, as the days and weeks went by, it’s obviously a lot more serious than first thought. I first thought, Oh, it’s Wuhan. It’s not over here. It will sort itself out. Then we had the Diamond Princess incubating the…
Another day, another conference, another meeting. This time we’re chatting and talking with a group of people from banks, and I’m wearing one of my favourite new t-shirts, emblazed with the message: Just hodl it! Before taking stage, someone asked me what hodl meant. I was surprised. I thought everyone knew what hodl meant. I…
I was taken in by an article on the BBC yesterday due to the headline: ‘I wasn’t allowed to buy my burrito with cash’ The article recounts the story of Nicholas Duggan, a construction worker, who tried to buy his lunch with cash, but the store refused and demanded payment by electronic means. Interesting. Specifically…
I recently posted a whine about HSBC charging 40 percent on overdrafts: Treating Customers Unfairly The fact I wrote this about HSBC gave the impression it was they who were the target. They are, but so are any banks who treat customers unfairly and the blog was meant to be more about the fact that…
When The Financial Times does what they’re good at – covering financial markets and not technology – then they do produce some fascinating content. Case in point is the latest coverage of JPMorgan Chase’s (JPMC) 2019 results. The bank’s latest results are stunning, with the fourth-quarter profit soaring to $8.52 billion or $2.57 a share….
It’s a simple question: what is the purpose of a bank? However, the answers I get are often missing the mark, imho. I get answers like to fund business, to finance progress, to support government, to keep economies stable, to manage risk, to build communities, to allow people to be secure, to enable trade and…
I have often written about how the developing world is leap-frogging the developed world. The reason is that the developing world had no infrastructure in place whilst the developed world implemented their infrastructure in the last century. The developed world has become a legacy world. The developing world is a world fit for today. First…
Someone turned to me the other day, mid-discussion around Facebook and their abuse of customer data, and asked: How did we get here? My answer: Because we let it happen. In the last twenty years, America has allowed big tech firms in Silicon Valley to become monolith giant monopolies of search, media and commerce. And…
A further discussion about data and the key issue of who should have access. During a recent lunch, we talked about how Chinese citizens allow the government to see all of their digital footprint via Tencent and Alibaba, but they do this for a number of reasons. The advantage of an easy lifestyle superapps and…
I’ve blogged many times that so called free banking is a fallacy. It’s something I have blogged about for a decade, and the recurring theme is free banking should be banned by the regulator as it’s only free as long as you don’t go overdrawn. The result is that the most financially challenged group of…
