Technology

I was talking the other day to a colleague about the phenomenon in Asia, India, Africa and South America taking place with mobile payments and the lack of take-up in the USA. Why is this, I wondered? Then  got my answer, although it isn’t a singular factor but a combination of factors. First, there are…

Lots of people talk a good talk about the internet of things and how my washing machine could now make purchases but my question is: what would my washing machine want to buy? More powder and some salt maybe? A replacement for the dish that just broke? An intelligent washing machine buying things on the…

I’m often asked how bitcoin works, where to buy them and how does it relate to blockchain and differ from ethereum, etc, etc. I was going to write a blog about it but Daniel over on Invest in blockchain beat me to it. He has also kindly let me republish his blog here, so here we go…

Unless you have been asleep for the last year, you cannot have failed to catch the buzz around bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum’s Ether and Ripple’s XRP. There are even some coins that were created as a joke that are getting significant investments, such as Dogecoin. Dogecoin was created as a way to…

In my blog yesterday, I talked about the technology titans being liked and potentially trusted with money, but I still don’t think they will open full-service banking. Instead, I think they will focus upon full-service information. The reason I say this is that they don’t want to be banks, it is not core, but they…

I spotted two stories about BBVA that appeared yesterday. The first was in the Financial Times with BBVA Chairman Francisco Gonzalez asking the G20 to take action against the big internet firms, saying “authorities [need] to bring order to this massive change” that could “pose risks to financial stability”. He warns that groups such as…

I’ve written a lot about Ant Financial – they’re a 30,000 word case study in my new book – mainly because they are the first payments platform to focus upon global reach for financial inclusion. That is not to say that I am ignoring the other platforms: PayPal, Stripe, PayTM and such like. In fact,…

I was recently recorded on Roger Edwards’ podcast talking about FinTech, cryptocurrency and corporate change. Roger is a marketing strategist focused upon the insurance industry, and produces regular podcasts about said subject.  You can checkout his website here, and here’s the low-down of our chat: On the show this week, I talk to leading commentator and…

Finally, just over a week ago, Open Banking came into the UK and Open APIs into the European Union. I am sure you all know what this is all about by now but, just in case, it is the regulations that force banks to share data through APIs – plug and play software – with…

Taking of moving from the concept of a Universal Basic Income to money without government to tokens to credits, I’ve been reading a fascinating book recently on Star Trek’s economics called Trekonomics. Released in 2016, I thought it would be some frivolous Trekkie’s drooling over the wonder of the Federation’s Galaxies but, instead, it is…