Regulation

In June, the EU put forward proposals for a new Payment Services Directive, PSD3. Having been involved in these developments since their inception in the 2000s, I was intrigued to read the text of PSD3, particularly as the main point bankers made about PSD2 is that they were forced to open up to Third Party…

For twenty years, I’ve been very close to the harmonisation strategies in Europe for a single financial centre structure. From UCITS to MiFID to SEPA and the PSD, it’s all very close to my heart … as it is with David Doyle, a good friend and an EU Financial Services Regulatory Expert (speaking at the…

There is an important thing happening that many may have missed imho. We talk all the time about Open Banking and how that’s developing. Why don’t we talk about Open Regulation? Open Regulation uses APIs (Application Program Interfaces) to tap into banks systems and see if they’re doing things right or wrong. It’s a concept…

Since records began, humans have tried to find a way around the rules. Drive slow, drink less, don’t fight, avoid drugs … there are always a few who want to get around the rules. I grew up in an era of massive football hooliganism. I saw someone stabbed with a knife at a match. My…

There are rules and regulations, and then there is leeway and dodges. It’s all down to how the rules are viewed and how they are regulated that counts. This is the big debate in the UK right now. Party animal Boris’s government has received many penalties for breaking the Covid restrictions they themselves created, whilst…

For most of my time working with banks, regulators were about clipping banks’ wings to suit the market. Today they are all about opening markets and enabling innovation. Jason Butcher, an entrepreneur and a friend, recently posted a picture of a tree on LinkedIn and likened it to today’s financial technology world. The diagram depicted the roots…

After yesterday’s blog How can you oversee a system you don’t see?, Ricardo replied on twitter: So, I investigated how our social media platforms’ algorithms fail, and there are lots of examples. Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook’s algorithm is blamed for the spread of misinformation and divisive content, radicalising users and failing to protect them from some of the most…

I was intrigued by a post from a friend who had worked for a leading fund manager. Her boss was jailed for financial manipulation. In her words: “I witnessed the effect of regulators on an innovative mind. Prior to jail, he was a financial trailblazer in encouraging companies to dream big, much like today’s venture capitalists….

It seems to be a week of guest columns, but that’s what happens when you find interesting things online and in your network. Today’s guest is Piotr Jan Pietrzak, Director of International Development at BLIK, the innovative Polish payment system. For followers of my blog, you may remember that I wrote about PEPSI two years…

I was reminded the other day of a quote by Ronald Reagan: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” He said this in the 1980s about the government’s view of the economy, but let’s apply it to cryptocurrencies. Initially irrelevant but now mainstream, many…