Opinion

Talking of partnering, many years ago, I was assigned the role of negotiating a contract with a partner for a large technology firm. The partner specialised in the insurance markets, my focus at that time, and we got into the game of contract wording. For quite a while, it was if you do this then…

I encounter lots of banter about platforms, marketplaces and ecosystems, and do wonder in the flippant way people use them interchangeably whether they really understand what they are talking about. I’m sure many do but I’m also sure some people throw them into the conversation like a buzzword bingo game. Add AI, blockchain and open…

Over ten years ago, I started blogging about cloud computing and financial services. Many banks dismissed the idea back then as “the regulator wouldn’t allow it”. Then the regulator did allow it in some countries, but banks were confused about the regulatory position. For example, if they use cloud services for customer data and the…

Looking at the world of the future, we all wonder what will happen to work. Will we still have jobs? Will all the dumb jobs disappear so we no longer have call centres (replaced by chatbots and avatars); accountants and auditors (replaced by AI algorithms); Uber drivers and hotel check-in staff (replaced by robots); and…

I’ve blogged a few times about Facebook planning to launch a currency … Will Facebook become the world’s central bank? If Facebook launch a cryptocurrency, will US government shut it down? … and the fact that most regulators won’t like it. In fact, there are already questions being asked in US Gov about their plans,…

My mate Ron Shevlin is on good form these days. He’s written quite a few columns on Forbes that are clickbait: Customers don’t want digital banking The FinTech fast follower fallacy (which I spotted just after writing this yesterday) His latest created quite a twitter furore and was targeted at Monzo’s launch in the USA….

I was having dinner with a friend the other night, when he asked me: “what do you think about the fast follower strategy?” I said it was stupid and doesn’t work. He then added that the major bank he’s working with are proud that this is their strategy. Now, here’s the funny thing. That strategy…

In my presentations I regularly talk about legacy Europe and America and leapfrog countries from China to India to Kenya to Colombia. The reason the latter countries are leapfrogging Europe and America is that they didn’t have a large, ingrained existing infrastructure for payments and financial transactions in place until this century. Meantime, most of…

I annoy a lot of people. I don’t mean to. But anyone with a description of ‘troublemaker’ is going to annoy someone. What’s interesting is the different reactions I get from start-ups, technology firms, banks and internet giants. In general, the ones who seem to get most irritated by me are banks. It shouldn’t be,…

I recently started to worry that people might think I have some sort of arrangement with Ant Financial to publicly endorse them, as I’m such a fan-boy. I talk about what Alibaba, Ant Financial and Alipay is doing in every presentation, blog about them a lot and am thoroughly enraptured by their success. However, I…