Twenty years ago, I was working on re-engineering projects. Most of the time I was getting exasperated because the banks wouldn’t take on the big projects, like the mortgage process, as it went across too many divisions. That’s big risk in their view, as it meant disturbing the structure of the organisation. So, we would…
Someone made an interesting comment about Google this week: banks can attack Google’s soft underbelly. What? Google? Soft underbelly? And banks can attack it? You must be joking. The presenter (Conor McAleavey, Chief Innovatoin Officer with Leveris) went on to outline what he meant and, as he talked about it, I thought there may be…
I’m hearing murmurs of a financial crisis rising again. It’s just rumours and gossip, but sometimes there’s no smoke without fire. My forecast for another major global financial crisis was that it wouldn’t occur until the 2040s but, as James Dimon noted, a financial crisis generally appears around every seven years. Not a big one,…
Expanding on yesterday’s discussion of how MNOs are sweeping up business for the underbanked and unbanked, Igor Pesin of Life.SREDA posted a lovely update giving even more detail. Here is how he saw things … Fintech in Rwanda: the place where Telcos are surpassing Banks in the financial sector Telcos dominate in the financial sector…
During the discussions at Dot Finance Africa, there was a very interesting dialogue about the mobile network operators (MNOs), with panels featuring Airtel and M-PESA. It was interesting to hear them talking directly about how they focus upon the customer experience and their singular objective of convenience. Both MNOs talked about customer convenience. The convenience…
I’m being asked this a lot as the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have increased ten-fold in the past few weeks. Good for those who have some. Bemusing for those who don’t. There are a range of factors driving the rise in cryptocurrency prices, particularly the craze for Initial Coin Offering (ICOs). An ICO…
I recently had exposure to two industry reports that are worth bringing to your attention. The first is the Innovate Finance research into Industry Sandboxes. Commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK regulator, the aim was to identify how Industry Sandboxes, rather than Regulatory Sandboxes, can help to create new services in finance….
Last Friday, I presented a new theme around the Semantic Bank to the The Next Web audience. I also wrote a bit about it the other day here. I thought I would expand a little more on the background to the Semantic Bank by talking in more depth about artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning, which…
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…
