Fintech

I tweeted the other day how many places are now cashless. This is definitely true in most Northern European countries. In Poland, I haven’t used a banknote for two years or more. In the UK, I went to the theatre and they told me they wouldn’t take my banknote (by law, they have to, but…

The last recession of any major size was 2008. Fourteen years ago! The iPhone had just appeared and we had just started discussions around the concept of cloud computing. Oh, and FinTech wasn’t even talked about. Fourteen years later, FinTech is getting over $200 billion investment a year, and the world has changed a lot….

I have house insurance for the contents and building. On top of that, I have a specialist insurance policy for my collection of rare things. I recently decided not to renew the latter. Why? Well, the house does have a few rare things inside … but no receipts. The things date back years and, in…

2022 is proving to be a challenging year and, if my experience proves true, is harder than anything since we have seen since the pandemic began. After two years of lockdown, funding is still freely available but harder to find, and valuations are way down on previous years. Nevertheless, according to new data released by…

A PR firm reached out to me the other day, saying: want to hear about a FinTech firm started on a farm? I said yes and, before I knew it, Stable became my new, favourite FinTech start-up. It meant that I soon hooked up in a conversation with the firm’s founder, Rich Counsell. Here’s our chat: Chris…

I shared a post the other day: It inspired FinTech friend and colleague Efi Pylarinou to write a post about it. Efi has kindly allowed me to share the post with you here … Beware of powerful and ambitious Tigers amongst Big VCs We are in the 6th month of the Water Tiger Year and…

Back in April, I shared a guest post by Rostyslav Dyuk, Chairman of the Board at the Ukrainian Association of FinTech and Innovation Companies (UAFIC), regarding the impact the conflict in Ukraine was having on the FinTech scene (followed a short time later by the view from Russia). Rostyslav kindly sent me an update to…

I just had a nice interview with EFMA (now Qorus) about the new book Digital for Good (available here), and thought I would share the interview here. Hope you like it. Qorus- It is not always easy to distinguish genuine leaders from clever communicators. How did you select the different people you gave the floor…

Good friend Ron Shevlin sparked off a great debate about neobanks with his snarky column on Forbes the other day. His basic argument is that neobanks are over. A few choice passages: The 10 leading neobanks in the US grew by a little more than 10 million accounts in 2021, from 23.3 million to 33.5 million, according to…

Some years ago, as an April Fool, a firm offered a free download of a game as long as, in the terms and conditions, you agreed that they could now own your soul. It was silly, but most people agreed to the download with that condition, because they don’t read the terms and conditions. Luckily…