I've recently been saying that the Uber of Finance is not a company, but the Blockchain. Many people have tweeted and asked what I mean, so here's the explanation. Various stories appear about money but the first mentions appear to date back over 12,000 years ago, when ancient tribesmen in Antonia swapped Obsidian stones to store value. What…
I talk about M-PESA and mobile financial inclusion a lot. It’s high on the agenda of many governments and charities, most notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who claim that the world’s poorest nations will see an uplift in their wealth faster than any other nations over the next fifteen years thanks to mobile…
I often sit and think about the claim from my bitcoin friends that they’ve invented money without government. I’ve blogged about it quite often too. The reason it is of so much interest is that if the blockchain and bitcoin can circumvent the financial system and the banks, then we really are in transformational times. …
I introduced the business model debate about banks yesterday, as the discussion always comes back to the new competition. Who are the new competition? Are they the upstart fintech startups or are they Google, Amazon and brethren? The answer is it’s both, but I wouldn’t worry about Google, Amazon and co as much, as they…
I regularly talk about the business model of banking and how it’s changing. The business model is based upon three things: Manufacturing, which runs the product and services innovation and administration centres in the back office; Processing, which focuses upon operational excellence in processing orders from front office through back office; and Retailing, where the…
I was talking about the internet of things again today, and realised that I have a grand vision of the not too distant future where everything communicates with everything. We have chips as tiny as nanodots inside every brick, pavement slab, tyre, wall, ceiling … you name it. We have more intelligent chips inside car…
In this world of choice that emerges from the integration of new technology models and old financial models, we see hybrid systems emerging that bring together the best-of-the-best. A great example was announced today, as Metro Bank and Zopa join forces. The deal allows deposits from Metro Bank retail customers to use P2P lending as…
As the internet reinvents commerce on this planet, it’s interesting to see the two things that enter the innovation mix: simplicity combined with connectivity. When you think about the Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Amazon and more, you realise that they have all simplified some complex things from sharing to finding. Google’s home page has stayed…
I was flicking through the Economist this week and was surprised to see a big quarterly special all about Fintech. Wow, this stuff is hot, hot, hot. That’s what the magazine makes clear: From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of…
