Future

It’s funny how things go around and come around again. For years, I’ve been bemused why banks cannot merge and be successful across borders. There have been almost zero European bank mergers of any size that are cross-border and the few that exist – Santander, Unicredit, Nordea to name a few – have all found…

As someone focused upon the future, there are a few futuristic cities that astound me. Dubai is one, as I go there every year for a winter break, and recently visited the Museum of the Future. That already sounds strange, as museums usually host the memories of the past, not the future. The museum was quite…

On Monday, the crypto-president of America takes office. Bearing in mind that I’ve said several times he will be the crypto-President it is interesting that, in the last few weeks, he will be more than this. He will be the Big Tech President. Here is why. We live in such interesting times. Digitalisation has creeped…

Donald Trump’s administration is expected to turn the US into a crypto-friendly hub using a range of changes to tax policies. Here’s the best guess of what that means. For some time I’ve talked about Donald Trump’s ambition to be the crypto President and, as his inauguration on January 20th approaches, it makes you wonder…

A final wrap-up of the big trends of 2025 is obvs to talk about fintech. Looking at the big fintech trends, probably the best place to start is with Simon Taylor’s 111 page report (ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN PAGES!!!). Simon and his BFF Jev at Sardine note a number of developments, such as the fintech hyperscaler….

I got a whole load of payments predictions for 2025 … just a shame that it was no one paying me! Seriously though, a lot of people shared a McKinsey report that focuses upon this area, released around Sibos 2024, that opens with: “The tantalizing vision for global payments has long been that they’d be safe,…

I wanted to make this a short blog update on tech changes in 2025, but it’s incredibly long and, unsurprisingly, nearly all about AI. If 2023 was the year of ChatGPT and 2024 AI, this is the year of Agentic AI. What’s the difference? Well AI has so far been pretty much a pull technology. You…

I was tempted to include this in the economics section, but the focus is different. The focus here is on your company, its staff and work. Economics is focused upon countries, markets and investments. The two are different. Nevertheless, it is hard not to cover the same things, as almost all business predictions seem to…

Welcome to 2025! As usual, at the start of the year, there are a whole raft of predictions as to what will happen. I used to write my own personal predictions and review them at the end of the year but now, with so many predicting so many things, I’ll leave to the panel of…

I asked the question: What’s a cash machine for if no-one uses cash? in the 1990s. As the guy heading up the strategy for cash machines for a major cash machine company beginning with N and ending in R, it was a good question to ask. Thing is that no-one took the question very seriously…