Opinion

The CEO of Australian bank Westpac says that we could all learn something from the airline industry. I agree, so here’s a learning story from United Airlines. Last week, I was having a moan on twitter about them. It’s an experience that I’m going to share, but this is not whining. It is how to…

Someone asked me about getting return on investment in fintech. The discussion is about how many firms are actually delivering on their promise. So many unicorns are loss-making firms, and billion-dollar valuations on million-dollar revenues seems like a lot of hype. One article typified this feeling: High-society fintech under pressure to perform for billionaire backers in…

I was recently asked to write an essay for the Center for Financial Inclusion, as part of a series looking at the ingredients to get this right. They gave me the topic of getting the infrastructure right. Here’s what I wrote: Getting the Infrastructure Right for Financial Inclusion The world is being dramatically transformed by…

I keep seeing headlines about Amazon opening a bank, challenger banks pulling the crown off the incumbent banks heads, the end of old banks, the disruption of the system and the end of all traditional financial services. I guess some would say that I fall into this camp and, on occasion, I do write things…

I have one slight concern as we go cashless, having experienced it myself. You cannot go cashless if it does not include everyone. I had this experience in China. Arriving on a Sunday lunchtime at the Holiday Inn Express hotel, I successfully checked in and had a nice room with an empty fridge. Downstairs, being…

We talk about platform companies, and many use the famous TechCrunch quote to illustrate this: Uber,  the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening. Something…

I blog a lot about banks needing to change and adapt. I do not blog about the end of banks and I do not predict that banks will be destroyed. I do predict that banks that do not change and adapt will be destroyed, and I do predict that banks that have not fully embraced…

I’m often asked how I got into FinTech. It’s an interesting question as I’ve been involved in Finance and Technology all of my life. Back in the day, it wasn’t called FinTech. It wasn’t cool. It was just boring old tech in banking. Interestingly, for almost a quarter century, tech in banking was all about…

It’s interesting that the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) sparked by Lehman Brothers collapse in September 2008 sparked the FinTech revolution, according to some. I personally think FinTech was bubbling away before the GFC but, certainly, the GFC led to massive investment focus upon changing the system (almost $100 billion since 2010). Equally, the collapse of…

I recently did an interview with my American friend Jim Marous over on The Financial Brand. It’s a good interview so I thought I would post my answers here. Feel free to comment! Your newest book, Digital Human, is obviously an outgrowth from your two previous books, ValueWeb and Digital Bank. What is the biggest…