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10 predictions for 2017

There are lots of predictions being made for 2017.  After all, it’s that time of year.  So, having reviewed whether mine were right or wrong at the end of 2016, my first blog for 2017 is to make 10 predictions for 2017. Rather than making this a long and detailed blog update, it’s just 10…

Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars …

I’ve written a bit about space this year, because it’s getting really interesting.  It’s also because I’m a frequent flyer and can see how our world of transport has changed so, so much. When I was little, my grandparents lived in a small village in North Devon.  They had lived there their whole lives, except…

Blockchain is dead, long live the Blockchain

I’ve noticed a great deal of schadenfreude related to the R3 bump.  Lots of people saying that blockchain is past its sell-by date, R3 are bust and distributed ledgers are dead.  I think it’s related to the journalists who, having delighted in bigging up blockchain big time for the past two years are now relishing…

Global networks need global finance

I’ve recently been wowed by series such as House of Cards (Netflix) and The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), and am really blown away by The Crown (Netflix) and The Grand Tour (Amazon).   I’m blown away not because these are good internet shows, which they are, but by the budgets being spent on them….

What do retail customers want?

I blogged the other day about too many banks and that there’s not a big enough market for forty of them here in Britain.  It made me think about what do customers really want?  We talk about digital, apps, mobile and more, and yet the average customer … are they bothered?  I suspect that many…

Reboot the bank’s boardroom NOW!

Bye bye banking job for life Many of the banking folk I meet have been with the bank as man and boy, woman and girl.  It’s a job for life.  Funnily enough, I’ve never known one of those jobs.  I guess it’s because I work in tech, and many of the tech firms I’ve worked…

Which digital currency will win: bitcoin or ether?

I’m a big fan of Kraken, the digital currency exchange in California, as it’s my main exchange for investing in digital assets.  If you want to know more, checkout their general overview at the end of this blog.  I’m also a fan of their blog, which regularly sends me interesting stuff and they’ve just launched…

Look at financial inclusion for innovation

I guess in concluding this weeks’ thoughts, I’m left reflecting on a similar idea to the one I blogged a couple of weeks ago about a world turned on its head.  This time it’s a different take on the same conundrum.  We live in the developed economies complaining about legacy; developing economies are just excited…

Who’s going to win the US election?

Today is the US election and what a terrible choice they have.  You would think out of 320 million people to choose from, that they could have come up with a better two than these two.  Anyway, I’m not American and it’s not my position to comment on these things, but I did pick up…

A glimpse into the future, last part: space money

A final thought on the future from a banking perspective.  So we will be colonizing Mars by 2040 according to Elon Musk.  Why?  Because this planet is not going to sustain the population it has emerging.  When I was born there were half the number of people on Earth that there are today.  Some say…

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