Opinion

I have no academic papers or historical research view on what I’m about to post, although I will find some, but I was reflecting on my discussions of revolutions in humanity.  In particular, the second age of humankind, when we invented money as a control mechanism. Before this seismic change, money didn’t matter.  We shared beliefs…

I’ve blogged about how I see leadership in the developing (developed now) economies of China and India, and the new innovation models of emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, but  not quite in the way in which I see them now. The more I think about it, we have three major FinTech models, each with their…

I was recently asked a set of questions by .BANK and duly answered.  The interview is now online so I thought I would share it here … .BANK: In your book, The Future of Banking in a Globalised World, you explore the impact of regulatory change on the banking industry. With the move to less regulation…

A banker and I were talking about the function of a bank.  He gave me the classic view: “A bank is there to take people’s money and lend it out at a profit, whilst ensuring the risk of non-payment is minimised” No it isn’t, I said.  I pushed the view that the bank is there…

Writing more and more about chatbots, robots and AI, I can see a day coming in the not too distant future where we won’t be able to tell the difference between the human and the machine.  That’s not scary science fiction, as it’s now almost science fact.  However, there is still a long way to…

A final word on governments and politics after my Friday blog about corruption, and then I promise to leave this alone, as it’s not something I should talk about here.  But I am going to make one statement:  most people are inherently good. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, the majority of humans are raised…

I often make a keynote presentation – about two or three times a week – and try to change my presentation as frequently as possible so that those who see me two or three times in a month – and it does happen – aren’t bored but, more importantly, to ensure that I’m not bored…

I’ve just returned from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where there were a number of events.  Just a few weeks ago, I was in Bahrain, talking at a conference about FinTech as usual. What struck me is the interest and excitement about FinTech in both countries.  There’s also a lot of competition between different cities…

I wrote a piece recently about the challenges of being a challenger bank.  It coincided with the news that my friends at solarisBank had just achieved a Series A funding round of €26 million.  Neatly, co-founder of solarisBank Marko Wenthin spotted my post and decided to send a reply.  Here is his thoughts on being a…

I recently was hauled up over saying that Western Union (WU) was being disrupted by FinTech.  The words that a reader took issue with are: The high fees of Western Union and other remittance providers were fairly punishing … until FinTech came along Western Union is being disrupted, to an extent, but this person was…