Payments

It’s a big week of FinTech in Asia with Money 2020 China and the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) all taking place in the same week. One of the headlines emerging from SFF was an interview with Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. The headline is from a Bloomberg interview and reads: Ripple Is Aiming to Overtake…

I was recently asked by TSYS to write a piece celebrating ten years of payments changes, as they are celebrating their ten year birthday of ngenuity, TSYS’s payments magazine. So I wrote something. Here’s your starter for ten: To commemorate the past 10 years of ngenuity, we wanted to look back at how the landscape…

There’s been an interesting but hidden trend taking place. It started in China with Tencent and Alipay and has now gone global. The phenomenon is called QR codes. QR, or Quick Response if you prefer the longer form, is a code that originated in Japan in the 1990s, and has gradually grown from a system…

Venezuela is the latest country to spin into hyperinflation, showing the same signs as the meltdown in Zimbabwe that created the 100 trillion dollar note. Hyperinflation, as defined by economist Philip Cagan in the 1950s, is when a country sees inflation rates rise by more than 50% per month. Wow! Luckily, I’ve never been exposed…

I know I’ve written a lot about China and the Chinese internet giants for the past couple of years, whilst leaving out much of what’s happening in the USA. It’s not to say the USA is boring, but it’s not innovating at the speed, rate or scale of the Chinese internet companies. By way of…

I spotted a chart the other day showing the millions of dollars lost on cryptocurrency platforms … Source: The Wall Street Journal Since 2011, there have been 56 cyberattacks directed at cryptocurrency exchanges, initial coin offerings and other digital-currency platforms around the world, according to Autonomous Research, bringing the total of hacking-related losses to $1.63…

I haven’t blogged about cryptocurrencies and blockchain for a while, as it’s been a bit too much for a while. There’s massive coverage everywhere, but what’s the reality? The reality is that a lot of this is nascent change. There are young tycoons making millions, whilst naïve bandwagoners are losing millions. From a $20,000 end…

Whilst in New Zealand, I had an interview with the country’s most respected business paper: National Business Review. The subsequent article is behind a paywall but, as they sent it across to me, I feel it’s worth sharing here. The battles for the future of fintech The future of financial services will be decided in…

I found an interesting article about Open Banking the other day (via FinTech Insider News). Its title is: Open Banking in the UK; a disaster in the making? no wonder it intrigued me. However, I clicked the article open and the first paragraph read: When the CMA Order went live on 13/1/18, aside from the…

I present a lot around the world, and I am always delighted and honoured when a conference asks me back for a second visit. It reaffirms that you were ok the first time around and so a second bite is delightful. One such moment occurred last week at The Point, the conference for PaymentsNZ, the…