OK, I'm being seriously provactive now, but there appears to be a dichotomy in the world. A schism. A chasm. A catachaschism. You name it, but it's there. It's a BIG HOLE. The HOLE is between those who care and those who don't. It's a HOLE bewteen the sustainables versus the investables. The communists and…
I’m in Moscow today at a forum on cards and payments. The morning was quite interesting and challenging as there is dual language – English and Russian – but translation services never quite translate correctly. For example, as I told my favourite story about turning bankers into zombies, I got the feeling it wasn’t being…
So the week ends with another wide ranging conversation about new business models and new ways of banking, although I still have one question that no-one seems to be able to answer: how much profit does a bank make from payments, and how has that changed over the last twenty years? This question came up…
Things we're reading today include … MasterCard Study: Youngsters Will Be The Catalyst Of Mobile Payment Adoption - Techcrunch Banks in central Europe: A three-horse race - The Economist Bank shares fall on Prudential Regulation Authority's plan - The Telegraph Hector Sants and Andrew Bailey: the men at the helm of the Prudential Regulation Authority - The Telegraph Google Advisor Wants To Be…
Everyone's talking about Facebook becoming a bank in the future, but I don't believe it will happen. Here's why … Just had a long discussion with a bunch of banks about potential disruptions to banking based upon mobile carriers upscaling and innovating, the launch of NFC payments via Android and iPhone, the possibilities of Google…
The next meeting of The Financial Services Club, London, is on Monday 23rd May with leading commentator Graham Bishop discussing whether the EU Fiscal Crisis will force Eurozone Political Union in 2011? As all of us know, the end of the euro would be the end of Europe and only tough collective action from Eurozone…
I find it funny to think about the lengthy discussions of mobile that takes place these days at all the banking and payments conferences I go to. The banks talk about a mobile payments ecosystem and how they have to work closely with carriers, handset manufacturers, retailers, merchants and more to achieve share of this…
In the last of my explorations of building a new bank, here's why the new bank will win. One of the biggest things that constrains existing banks is their past. They were created over a century ago to manage retail transactions in branches over the counter with human tellers and, to a large extent, this…
