Talking of politics and, after my piece last week about the possibility that Chinese infrastructure could replace our European (SWIFT) and American (Visa) operations Kathleen Tyson, a good friend and member of the Financial Services Club, piped up and said: Don’t give up on the American dollar that easily. She …
Read More »Integrating technology and banking is not easy, especially with acronyms
Some time ago, I mentioned that code is art and, if code is art, how do you attract great artists? Banks are not really seen as a place for an artist. It is like bringing maths and art together. The two don’t mix. Like science and religion, certain academic disciplines should …
Read More »Talking to the elephant in the room
Yes, we’re all doing stuff from our home offices. I don’t know what your office is like, but mine’s quite nice. I like it. Until I noticed a strange smell yesterday. Didn’t know what it was, so I had to look around the room a lot, then suddenly realised … …
Read More »Why I’m fed up with blockchain
I’m winding people up with blockchain this week. As I was doing that, a song came back to me on regular occasion. A song about Blockheads. I went back to the song and re-read the lyrics. It’s about Essex Boys back in the 1970s. Not quite the world of today, …
Read More »The name is Cohen … Stephanie Cohen
There have been two major announcements of women as leaders of banks in the USA in the past month. First, Citibank announced that Jane Fraser would be the new CEO and then Goldman Sachs announced that Stephanie Cohen would head up their consumer and wealth management operations. I noted that …
Read More »Banks cannot avoid politics
It shows what a complex world we live in within our financial markets. We debate whether companies should get involved in politics, but banks cannot avoid politics. Banks are integral to governments and economies and, as such, are a political tool. Equally, banks choose to operate in markets that could be …
Read More »This House believes that companies should avoid politics
There’s an interesting debate about the corporate world: should it be apolitical or take a stance? Actually, in the form of a formal Oxford debating society version of this debate, I should say that: This House believes that companies should avoid politics Our first speaker is Brian Armstrong, CEO of …
Read More »Are our payment systems irrelevant?
I bumped into this article on The Economist the other day, which postulates that the existing financial system could be replaced. SWIFT, VISA, MasterCard and other regional and national systems like BACS, CHAPS, CHIPS, Fedwire and such like, were all created in the 1970s or thereabouts. They’re fifty years old. …
Read More »Change the System (#FinCEN)
I got this endorsement from the one and only Alice Cooper the other day … … it was sent by a friend to cheer me up and it surely did. A lot. Love Alice Cooper. But it made me reflect too on the message: “change the system”. Change the …
Read More »Why are banks so easy to dislike?
I’ve realised over the last few weeks that my FinTech Karaoke is generally having a dig at bad bankers. It’s easy to have a go at bad bankers or, as the 99% call them, banksters. It’s because there’s a lot of bad practices historically in banking from ripping off customers …
Read More »Does management theory work anymore?
After blogging the other day that big banks will never be replaced and they’re just playing a game of Pac-Man, I was watching this two-minute explainer of Michael Porter’s five forces from Harvard Business Review (a two-minute video): The five forces are buyers (customers), suppliers, substitutes, new entrants and existing …
Read More »Does anyone know what a Merchant Payments Ecosystem is?
I just presented to the Merchant Payments Ecosystem conference. I’ve presented there before, and this year was virtual … as are all 2020 conferences. 2020 is the virtual year. I sat and thought about what to present. I have 1,000 slides or more, but I don’t do slides on lockdown. …
Read More »Why big banks get bigger (it’s all about Pac-Man)
I’ve spent a long time writing about how bad banks are with technology and digital transformation … but I’ve never said banks will be eaten by technology. So many other companies and industries are destroyed by technology, but banking is not one of them. I laugh when I read about …
Read More »The 11 P’s of Banking and 4 P’s of the Banking Mix
When I was growing up with learning management skills, one of those I focused upon was marketing and Kotler’s 4 P’s. If you’re not familiar it’s all about product, price, promotion and place. It’s something easy to remember, but then most folks are hard pushed to remember more than three …
Read More »What’s next, after digital?
I was invited to do a keynote for a Canadian conference the other day, but on a subject different to my normal digital stuff. The theme was sustainable finance. I decided to take a different tack and talk about my other big passion: purpose-driven banking. Here’s the presentation and transcript. …
Read More »