I’ve recently been wowed by series such as House of Cards (Netflix) and The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), and am really blown away by The Crown (Netflix) and The Grand Tour (Amazon). I’m blown away not because these are good internet shows, which they are, but by the budgets being spent on them….
I’m a big fan of Kraken, the digital currency exchange in California, as it’s my main exchange for investing in digital assets. If you want to know more, checkout their general overview at the end of this blog. I’m also a fan of their blog, which regularly sends me interesting stuff and they’ve just launched…
We had a meeting of the Financial Services Club in Oslo last night, talking about the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) and Open APIs (Application Program Interfaces). It was a fun meeting and covered the in’s and out’s of closed versus open APIs, the implications of allowing Trusted Third Parties (TTPs) access to the bank’s…
I’ve blogged a few times about GAFA – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon – as the worrisome Gang of Four. Sure, we can worry about them, but the thing is to stop worrying and do something. Australian banks decide to stop Apple by taking them to court; British banks would rather partner with all of them;…
I’ve blogged a lot about digital identities, but failed to cover an in-depth review of the largest identity program in the world: Aadhaar. It’s been very remiss of me, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment and now seems to be that moment. Aadhaar is well known for those in the identity field, but…
Building upon Friday’s discussion of how the system treats the poor, there are interesting movements afoot at the Brookings Institute. If you’re not familiar with Brookings, it is one of America’s oldest Think Tanks and provides independent research into social sciences, particularly economics, governance and foreign policy, for the US Government. The Institute has a…
I recently opened an investment fund for blockchain start-ups in partnership with Life.SREDA, who produce a report on the state of FinTech twice a year. The latest report, almost 300 pages of analysis, provide more insights of the first half of the year in FinTech [Money of the Future 1H’2016 and Chinese, Korean and Japanese…
There are a number of base blockchain platforms that are important in the payments sphere, with the three leading players being Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. These are the base development platforms, rather than a payments service per se, and choosing which to use is intriguing as they all offer something different. Bearing in mind that…
