Opinion

I had a fascinating conversation the other day, and shouldn’t share it here but hey, it’s my blog. I was talking about my understanding of SWIFT and how Yawar Shah, Chair of the Association, is killing it. I must admit, it had not occurred to me re the politics of SWIFT, until that discussion, as…

Is it just me, or is the world a scary place at the moment? For most of my life, the world has been harmonising, working together to create global trade and destroy barriers. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of China to world trade and the growth of the United Nations sustainability goals,…

This headline caught my attention the other day: Bank loyalty costs savers £1.6 billion a year in missed interest The detail: There’s £246.5 billion ($340 billion) languishing in accounts paying no interest at all … A survey of 2,000 adults across the UK, with 42 percent of respondents stating that they didn’t think it was…

Mark Carney stood up at COP26, alongside Larry Fink (CEO of BlackRock) and Jane Fraser (CEO of Citigroup). Together they announced that the financial industry has pledged $130 trillion of assets to solve climate challenges. Woo-hoo! Thanks. Trouble is that it’s a lie. Larry Fink and Jane Fraser run two companies leading the end of…

I often contact companies due to issues with their services. When I contact them, it inevitably means that something in their digital services has broken. It is then an opportunity to delight and provide a customer experience that exceeds exceptions. However, it normally means anger and annoyance as you wait on the phone for an…

The discussions of today’s COP26 interested me, as it’s all about the money. Today is the day that all of the world’s finance ministers meet to discuss their dedication to climate change. They had this before – in Paris six years ago they promised $100 billion to be given to poorer nations to focus upon…

Four years ago, I was using this slide in my presentations. As I blogged at the time: “Those who recognise that banks are doing 1000 things average, will naturally come together to do 1000 things brilliantly.” The idea was that FinTech start-ups would start to align with each other to create global platforms. The first…

I just stumbled across a great article about ethical banking. We can call it socially useful banking or green banking or whatever, but it’s all about a bank’s role in society and the scheme of things. Are banks doing the right or wong things? My gut feeling is that banks have been doing the wrong…

I’ve been watching the headlines related to Joe Biden’s pick for the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OCC is an interesting department, as it can issue national bank charters for US banks, and often runs into trouble. By way of example, under the previous Administration, the OCC tried to…

My mate Dave Birch wrote a Forbes piece the other day titled Unbank the Banked. I thought it was going to be a story about how banks are ejecting thousands of customers due to poor onboarding. Instead Dave wrote about the unbanked don’t necessarily need banks. It’s a good piece, but there is also the…