Regulation

I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF entitled: The Impact of Fintech on Central Bank Governance (you can download it for free). I was particularly intrigued by its opening: Central bank governance is a concept composed of four constitutive and interrelated components: a central bank’s (i) mandate, comprising its objectives (the “why”),…

I was thinking about things that are not being dealt with by banks or fintechs. Surprisingly, there are many things that come to mind: real-time proof of identity to avoid freezing of accounts multiple verifications of a payment to ensure you send to the right person’s account better use of FaceID and similar biometrics to…

When I wrote the Captain Cake series and pivoted to be a children’s author as well as a FinTech guy, a friend said that I should write a children’s book about FinTech, which I did. It’s not something aimed at publication as a book, but thought I would share with you what I came up…

I find so many similarities between what’s happening with COVID and what’s happening with cryptocurrencies. Why? It’s all to do with how they’re regulated. I don’t know about your country, but I’m in between two countries: the UK and Poland. After recently visiting the UK, where COVID rules are so confusing you have no idea…

My yesterday blog about COVOID idiocrasy annoyed a few people. I was accused of writing a common tabloid ranting column, railing against the government. Yea … … so? So? So … so, I wrote it with a point. How are they implementing these COVOID regulations? Who is checking on the people? You may say, but it’s…

Talking about HSBC often drags me into political controversy. For example, when I criticised the bank for not making a stand over the Hong Kong protests, I got a lot of pushback. Frankly, I don’t like to dip my feet into political waters unless forced to and, in the spirit of that thinking, I was prompted…

I’m starting to worry about FinTech as they seem to have fallen foul of regulatory compliance and, as a consequence, customer trust. The biggest challenge for a challenger is to keep customer trust AND regulatory compliance. This is what we are seeing having consequences today. The fact I’m starting to worry about FinTech, as an…

Building on yesterday’s blog where I mentioned Monzo’s issues of client onboarding, I mentioned that, for the past few months, I’ve noticed many tweets from Monzo customers about accounts being closed suddenly, with no explanation. Each time, I’ve shared the information and copied Monzo and asked them to explain. Hey Chris 👋 Thanks for expressing…

Britain has left the EU, but now I read headlines everywhere saying cross-border movements are impossible, Ireland is broken, the City was ignored, our fisherman cannot sell shellfish and so on and so forth. A disaster? Possibly but, on the other hand, everything that is wrong with the EU was illustrated by the Covid vaccine….

I’m very aware that central banks are investigating the use of digital currencies, particularly as they can now see bitcoin gaining more and more traction (Tesla, Square and more committed – next is Apple?), but had not realised how extensive are those investigations. According to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) latest paper, 86% of the…