Opinion

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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. …

I blogged in April that banking is nothing to do with relationships, it’s about secrets. It’s more than this though, it’s about trust. Can I trust you with my secrets? This came home to me as, since then, a few people pulled me up over my whining about my bank. …

I’ve seen a few big deals signed this month to get banks onto the cloud, such as National Australia Bank (NAB) switching to Microsoft’s Azure, and Deutsche Bank moving to the Google Cloud. McKinsey expect that cloud usage will rise from less than a quarter of banks business being cloud-based to …

OK, no more politics … unless it’s important to banking, technology and fintech … and back to my usual boring diatribes. There’s been a discussion a while ago about making banking fun, gamifying finance and giving rewards for smart spending and saving. I was an advocate of such ideas, but now …

I got an amazing reply to my post yesterday. I cannot say from whom – that’s part of the thing – but it’s such a good reply, I’m sharing it here. For me, it shows how the internet has changed the world – I can write a blog from Poland, …

I keep saying that I don’t want to be political on this blog – I’m not qualified and it’s not why you read it – but, as a human being, I cannot ignore things like Black Lives Matter, the lockdown approaches of different countries, the suppression of religious groups, the …