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Is Europe failing due to regulations? #Microsoft #IT #Outage
There’s been a meme going around for a while now that America is great at invention and innovation; Asia is great at industrialising and maximising America’s inventions; and Europe is fantastic at blocking all of it through regulations. The Eurocrat regime rules. What’s the reality? Well, it certainly is true that America led the way with…
With great power, comes great threat #Revolut #PayPal
With great power, comes great responsibility. It’s a quote from Spiderman, but actually not. It’s from Spiderman’s Uncle Ben. Well, it’s not tbh. It’s from Voltaire … or is it? Wherever it is from, it’s a great phrase. So, here’s a new one. With great power, comes great threat, and that one is from me….
What’s hot in AI?
I blogged the other day about what’s hot and what’s not in fintech, but what about what’s hot and what’s not in AI? Equally, as I also blogged, AI is not one thing. It’s a million use cases which are all different. So, what are hot use cases for AI? Well, luckily, Allie Garfinle on Forbes, has surveyed…
Every country in the world is being transformed by fintech
I travel the world a lot and am amazed about the wave of changes technology has introduced into banking. In almost every country I visit, fintech has grown from an ember to a burner, and almost every country is being transformed. From Taiwan to Timbuktu, everything is changing. Therefore, just to give one more example…
People buying bitcoins are psychos
I was quite amazed to see an item across my desk last week with the headline: Investors in cryptocurrency are more likely to be psychopaths Seriously? The headline is based on a report of a survey, published in the journal Plos One, who canvassed over 2,000 Americans of whom 30 per cent said they owned…
I bet you’re not dismissing challenger banks now
I remember ten years ago when fintech was emerging from under the hood and challenger banks become a new phrase. Most of the bankers I spoke to back then said they would never be really challenging. Ten years later, the situation is rather different. Revolut has over 40 million customers and is profitable; Monzo has…
How China is feeding America’s drug habit through the Mexican drug cartels via the banks
I find it funny that we talk so much about onboarding, KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering), and yet the whole of that system is broken. Every day in every way, everyone is getting around the system. You may think that account opening is hard. You have to send identification documentation; you have…
Why women get a raw deal from banks
Being debanked is pretty awful … just ask Nigel Farage or Chris Skinner … but what about if you’re a woman? As money controls life, do women get a good deal? Not really. Everywhere around the world, women have less access and use of banking, and yet women are the global influencers of finance. What’s…
A financial offer to die for
I attended a meeting this week presenting a variety of startups and their ideas. All of them were great, but one stood out for me: Fairwill. Obviously playing on the word farewell, Fairwill provides an exit policy for humans … as in death specialists. It sounds morbid but there’s only two certainties in life: death…