The true meaning of Open Banking
A year ago I blogged about invisible banking and that I have some issues with it, namely that the bank brand disappears and the customer finds it too easy to spend without thinking. Now, I read more and more about embedded banking, contextual banking, frictionless banking and more, and I think people have got this…
Women in FinTech: do you care?
I’ve written quite often about Sexism in the City and am intrigued by discussions of diversity, or the lack thereof, in both banking and technology. Google and more have been told they’re not hiring enough women, and Amazon’s AI engine recently trained itself to ignore women’s applications based on historical hiring. So, I thought I would…
Are banks customer focused?
I’ve talked a little about TechFin in the past but, in my presentations, I talk more and more about TechFin versus FinTech. FinTech is doing what we’ve always done, cheaper and faster and better with technology. TechFin is reimagining everything with no idea of what’s been before with technology. It’s a very different approach. A good…
How to be a Unicorn (Part Two)
As mentioned yesterday, Marko Wenthin is contributing this week on how to become a FinTech unicorn. In Part One, he talked about fund raising. In part two, he focuses upon the challenges that then follow. How to be a Unicorn (Part Two) If you manage to get some investors interested the next challenges appear. The…
How to be a Unicorn (Part One)
Marko Wenthin, co-founder of solarisBank, recently contributed to my blog and, as a mate, has sent some great insights about starting up a FinTech firm which I thought I would share of FinTech banks last week. How to be a Unicorn (Part One) After announcing a whopping 300M$ D-round at a 2.7 Bln USD valuation N26 has…
Infrastructure and Incentive: Making Cashless a Reality
I often reflect on how quickly China is moving towards being cashless, as are parts of Africa and much of India. I then realised that it is a strong mix of simple infrastructure and strong incentive. In the case of M-PESA in Kenya, there was no method of making payments from city to village, except…
Technology is business
Another interesting nuance of the FinTech Bank is the integration of business and technology. I’ve referenced this a few times, but wanted to be explicit that these banks think technology is business and business is technology. This is clearly demonstrated in their microservices team structures and agile thinking. Auditors, compliance, financial and marketing people sit…