What does Kamala Harris think of crypto?
It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald Trump vs Joe Biden, and Biden looking like a loser. Now, we have Donald…
Do we need CBDCs?
Everyone seems to be talking about CBDCs: Central Bank Digital Currencies. They are being launched to stem the tide of cryptocurrencies, but it makes you ask: what’s the difference. A CBDC is backed by a government; a cryptocurrency is backed by decentralised democracy. Not much difference there then. The Bank of England defines CBDC as…
What are the hottest new tech trends … Digital Twins
I just got a whole new set of tech phrases from a Gartner report. Giving my interpretation, here we go: Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) is a proposed framework for Device Direct connectivity using satellite and cellular communication combination. The framework enables partnership between satellite (specifically low Earth orbit [LEO]) providers and terrestrial mobile operators…
The secret sauce of Stripe’s success
Your morning coffee purchase travels through 15 countries in 0.3 seconds. It’s not magic. It’s a global network of invisible digital pipes and two college dropouts saw their world-changing potential. Two brothers. Meet Patrick and John Collison: the architects of our digital future. 2010: the Collisons spot a problem: Online payments are a maze of…
“Half of the world’s real-time digital transactions happen in India”
Many of you have probably been relaxing for the past month and missed the fact that there was a major event in Mumbai: the Global Fintech Fest. It impressed me that they managed to persuade Shri Narendra Modi, Honourable Prime Minister of India, to deliver a keynote on Friday. What did he say? Well, you can…
Intelligent Money is now audible
Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do? Well worth a read but I am biased, but some people aren’t….
What is the future of fintech?
My blog the other day about asking what’s going to change is the wrong question was inspired by the quote from Jeff Bezos and this report from Team8: an unconventional view of the future of fintech https://team8.vc/rethink/fintech/2030-and-beyond/ They delve into three areas: What won’t change? What do we believe are the ‘immutable physical laws of…
What’s going to change in the next ten years is the wrong question
As a commercial strategist* (I don’t like the term futurist), I am always looking for what might change tomorrow. Most of the time I’ve been right and, if you don’t believe me, checkout this link: https://thefinanser.com/2020/12/what-is-the-future Today, most of the big things that are changing are political (new governments in USA, UK, France …); economic…
America’s digital banking landscape
I realised today that I’ve talked lots and lots about Asia, Africa, Europe and the South Americas banking, fintech and digital state. But I haven’t written much about the USA. So, today’s the day! With a colossal $176 trillion in Household Financial Assets and $128.5 trillion in non-cash payments, the U.S. banking sector stands as a…