Payments

I had an interesting experience in Lebanon recently, where the accepted currency is the Lebanese pound or the US dollar. In fact, the US dollar is preferred as, since the civil war in the country, the Lebanese pound has been tied to the US dollar at 1500 Lebanese pounds per …

I really enjoyed a recent article on CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor). If you don’t know them, CGAP is a global partnership of over 30 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP’s mission is to improve the lives of poor …

I talked earlier about the homogenization of the world as we are all become globally connected, seeking global brands using a global language through global platforms.  I truly believe that will happen, as it’s the natural outcome of the fourth age of humanity where we become digital humans, but there’s …

One company that is seeking global domination is Ant Financial. The company has an open stated intention to reach two billion users by 2025.  The way in which they’ll achieve that is through local partnerships, and many of those have been started already: Ant Financial invests in Thailand’s Ascend Money …

I spend a lot of time talking with my friends in Turkey, particularly since the big change in climate after the protests last year.  Nevertheless, from a financial markets point of view, it’s a fascinating place.  One of the first to be contactless and, more recently, one of the first …

The British Bankers’ Association released their The Way We Bank annual report last Thursday. It was interesting. Here are the key highlights: Over the past five years customers’ activity on banking apps rocketed by 354%, with apps now an increasingly popular way to access current accounts rising from 21% of …

I’m boarding a flight yesterday and murfing (mobile surfing).  Flicking between Facebook apps, twitter, bank account, BBC news and more.  Suddenly I spot a new ICO – Initial Coin Offering – for a new bank.  From Wikipedia: “An initial coin offering (ICO) is a means of crowdfunding the release of a new cryptocurrency. Generally, tokens …

I recently hosted Nick Ogden, the founder of WorldPay and serial entrepreneur, at our Nordic Finance Innovation meetings in Stockholm and Oslo.  Nick is now launching the first new UK clearing bank for over 250 years called ClearBank.  I’d heard a few rumblings about ClearBank, but hadn’t really go the …

I’ve written a lot about Ant and Alibaba, but not so much Tencent, even though QQ social networking in China was a hot, hot topic a few years ago.  It was the first social platform to launch its own currency and, with 300 million users, was quite interesting.  Things have …

I saw a really interesting presentation in Kigali at the Dot Finance Africa FinTech Summit from Yasaman Hadjibashi, Chief Creation Officer with Barclays Africa (soon to be something else). She began with a discussion of the make-up of Africa: By 2050, it is expected that the population will double from 1.2 …

Expanding on yesterday’s discussion of how MNOs are sweeping up business for the underbanked and unbanked, Igor Pesin of Life.SREDA posted a lovely update giving even more detail.  Here is how he saw things … Fintech in Rwanda: the place where Telcos are surpassing Banks in the financial sector Telcos …

During the discussions at Dot Finance Africa, there was a very interesting dialogue about the mobile network operators (MNOs), with panels featuring Airtel and M-PESA.  It was interesting to hear them talking directly about how they focus upon the customer experience and their singular objective of convenience.  Both MNOs talked …

I’m being asked this a lot as the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have increased ten-fold in the past few weeks.  Good for those who have some.  Bemusing for those who don’t.  There are a range of factors driving the rise in cryptocurrency prices, particularly the craze for Initial …

I recently had exposure to two industry reports that are worth bringing to your attention.  The first is the Innovate Finance research into Industry Sandboxes. Commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK regulator, the aim was to identify how Industry Sandboxes, rather than Regulatory Sandboxes, can help to …

I’ve regularly got into confrontations with digital currency people, especially those who are believers in bitcoin, by saying things they don’t like to hear.  First it was my comment that you can’t have money without government.  They believe the currency is beyond control because it exists on a global network.  …