FiBD: The FinTech Bullshit Detector
I’ve been wondering for a while how so many companies can be starting up something in the same space, and how are they surviving? The reason for mentioning it is that we keep hearing these numbers around how many billions are being invested in FinTech, bitcoin, blockchain and such like, and yet I cannot see…

The Catch 22 of Banking
I realised the other day that financial markets are confused. On the one hand, we spend all of our time criticising banks for being slow to change, inflexible, lacking customer focus and being greedy and, in some cases, fraudulent; on the other, many reckon that challenger banks are not that at all – they’re just…

Could Trump and May be the new Reagan and Thatcher?
I guess I’m an optimist and, in a world of pessimism, it’s an interesting place to be. I say a world of pessimism as all I’ve seen since the Brexit vote and Donald Trump being President-elect is negativity. A constant stream of we are screwed appears in my Facebook feed, and everyone seems to think…

Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars …
I’ve written a bit about space this year, because it’s getting really interesting. It’s also because I’m a frequent flyer and can see how our world of transport has changed so, so much. When I was little, my grandparents lived in a small village in North Devon. They had lived there their whole lives, except…

Go Fintech or go home (and don’t be Techfin)
I’m relaxing and thinking. A bad combination. Just had several sessions with different conferences on Brexit, Open API’s, PSD2, Open Sourcing, Open Banking, Innovation and more … and it all seems like such drivel. One of the sessions was asking the question: is it time to drop the curtain on innovation theatre? Yes, for gawds…

Global networks need global finance
I’ve recently been wowed by series such as House of Cards (Netflix) and The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), and am really blown away by The Crown (Netflix) and The Grand Tour (Amazon). I’m blown away not because these are good internet shows, which they are, but by the budgets being spent on them….
























