Future

I recently met a start-up bank.  They were depressed.  Having submitted their third proposal for the bank, the regulator was still pushing back.  This felt familiar.   Having seen so many new start-up banks in Britain, I was familiar with the start-up process.  It involves hellishly detailed documentation showing effective plans, governance and funding.  The first…

I grew up in an era of Ska music with the Specials, Madness and The Selector being regulars on the University circuit.  One song that brought back memories of this era played on the radio the other day: Ghost Town. The main line repeated throughout the song is This town … is coming like a…

I’ve regularly got into confrontations with digital currency people, especially those who are believers in bitcoin, by saying things they don’t like to hear.  First it was my comment that you can’t have money without government.  They believe the currency is beyond control because it exists on a global network.  My contention is that money…

I have a keynote coming up on May 19 in Amsterdam with The Next Web, who I regularly write a column for now.  Here’s my latest one: I’m delighted to be speaking at TNW on May 19 in Amsterdam.  I wanted to talk about Digital Human, the theme of my next book, but the guys want me…

I have no academic papers or historical research view on what I’m about to post, although I will find some, but I was reflecting on my discussions of revolutions in humanity.  In particular, the second age of humankind, when we invented money as a control mechanism. Before this seismic change, money didn’t matter.  We shared beliefs…

I’ve blogged about how I see leadership in the developing (developed now) economies of China and India, and the new innovation models of emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, but  not quite in the way in which I see them now. The more I think about it, we have three major FinTech models, each with their…

Writing more and more about chatbots, robots and AI, I can see a day coming in the not too distant future where we won’t be able to tell the difference between the human and the machine.  That’s not scary science fiction, as it’s now almost science fact.  However, there is still a long way to…

I try to generally avoid making political commentary on the blog as it’s not appropriate. This is a blog about technology and finance, not the economy and politics.  Every now and again the two come together such as with Brexit and Donald Trump.  Equally sometimes they cannot be avoided as the politics impacts the financial…

I was listening to a financier talking about FinTech the other day, and claiming that they are all sustaining innovations and not disruptive.  They were referring to Clayton Christensen’s innovator’s dilemma discussions, where Professor Christensen points to different markets that were destroyed by disruptors.  Those markets include the American car industry, destroyed by cheaper Japanese…

I often make a keynote presentation – about two or three times a week – and try to change my presentation as frequently as possible so that those who see me two or three times in a month – and it does happen – aren’t bored but, more importantly, to ensure that I’m not bored…