ValueWeb

We had a great debate at the Financial Services Club last night between digital money sage Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion, and all things bitcoin master Jon Matonis. The debate was about whether blockchain is faster and cheaper, and it was clear from the start that this was going to be difficult as the question…

I had a realisation this week.  The realisation is that banks have always been hot on technology and innovation.  If you don’t think so, then just checkout this blog from April 2008 – eight years ago – where I talk about the rise of innovation in banking.  The context was talking about how banks had created a…

I often claim that we are going through a revolution in commerce and, every time we go through a revolution in commerce, we go through a revolution in finance. The first great revolution in commerce was the move 5,000 years ago from barter to money.  Money was invented because the barter system broke down, as farming…

There’s lots of discussions about financial markets and their different structures.  Retail and commercial banking are likened to farms, whilst investment banking is a jungle.  Retail and commercial banking have dull products likened to chickens.  Look after them and they produce regular and predictable results.  Investment banking is just full of testosterone fueled animals that…

I have a range of technologies I use, but get frustrated with them all. My Apple Watch is redundant, as is my Microsoft Surface, and I upgrade laptop and desktop every 18 months or so, largely to keep up with the demand for speed and reliability.  It could be that it’s because I’m not an…

I had a really interesting evening this week, moderating an industry roundtable with panel participants including: Cliff Moyce, Strategic Adviser, DataArt Chris Barker, Managing Director, Global Head of Digital & Engineering Services, RBS, Mike Powell, Managing Director for enterprise capabilities, Financial & Risk, Thomson Reuters Scott Eblen, Chief Product Officer, Nutmeg Frank Neumann (COO, Quantstore)…

Having attended Sibos since way back when, I was sad to miss it this year.  I got double-booked to be in Vegas at the Venetian to keynote with BAI RD2015.  Surprisingly, I’ve been back in Vegas (why is it always Vegas, and not Las Vegas?) to speak at Money2020 just 10 days later.  Money2020 is…

During the third phase of the innovation cycle discussed on Friday, the upstart has been noticed by the incumbents and becomes a target to be attacked.  We saw this with Uber from the taxi firms; with Airbnb, it’s the unlicensed sub-letting of properties that hits the news; and with Facebook, the target was privacy breaches….

I keep coming back to this chart, as it typifies a lot of my thinking right now: I mentioned the Uber example of this cycle, which began as a start-up but, as it grew into an upstart, it started to be attacked by the incumbents.  Then the regulators woke up and started to consider the…