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Japan has so much culture, tradition, beauty and … downright weirdness. I spent the weekend in Tokyo and noticed lots of unusual sights: kimonos, kabuki, maple trees and such like.  Then there is the night life, the lights, the music and the karaoke.   People compare Japan to Britain: it's an island nation with a…

So there we go, another year, another SIBOS. It’s been an interesting one, with many calling it the Zen SIBOS as we had a lot of time and space. Or some did, as I don’t think I had any time.  The week flew by and before we know it, we’re on the flight home. The…

The other thing I did this year was collect some of the specials being given away by exhibitors.  Here are a few of the best. Smartstream's iPod speaker: XSP's wireless mouse: Sake (various, this one is from NEC Decillion): Euroclear's travelbag: Romanian Wine and Panpipes from Allevo: iPad cases (this one is from ANZ and…

As I walked around the exhibit hall and conference centre this week, there were many amusing moments.  Here are a few. Changing batteries: Still constructing that China Bank: The power of networking: Lion around: Innotribe: enabling collaboration …. This system needs a reboot: Come on.  One of us must know how this works: Waiting for…

The final keynote at SIBOS 2012 is Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and Chairman of the Yunus Centre. I blogged a little about him earlier, but here’s the full speech: I got into banking by accident and, at the beginning, had no idea what I was doing.  I was a teacher.  I got forced…

The final innotribe session is underway,  playing to a really packed crowd. It's no wonder as this is the startup challenge and innovator pitches, showcasing the work of the 15 most innovative software companies providing solutions to banks in 2012. That's 15 companies selected from around 450 that applied, so these guys really are the crème…

There are few people you meet in life that are inspirational, but I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few.  I won’t namedrop, as most of them you won’t know, but many of the most inspirational business people I’ve met are in the innotribe stream. Today, we were all a little starstruck therefore when even…

So, at the end of a very long third day of SIBOS, I attended the final session on mobile payments which began with Laurent Desmangles of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) presenting some slides on their view of how the mobile space is developing. Laurent quite rightly made the assertion that cards would still be…

As mentioned, I attended two great sessions, so here’s the next one: can transaction banking survive in this world of regulation? A good theme and one that I was really keen to hear about, particularly as David Wright was part of the panel.  David was instrumental in the European theatre during the development of MiFID…