Future

As mentioned last week, the CIO’s role is changing from running an empire of maintenance engineers to organising a distributed development organisation. The change in the role is one from a hierarchical control structure, where everything is proprietary and internal, to a flattened organisation that is open and broad. Much of the developments will come…

I was talking with a technology firm the other day.  They offer everything from cloud to core systems.  Their issue is that the competition wins every time.  Not IBM.  Not Accenture.  Not TCS.  Not FIS.  Not SAP.  Not any of the big names you could mention in such areas.  No, their competition is the CIO….

I love the predictions of scientists, but they’re often wrong.  The internet has a litany of stupid predictions from IBM’s President saying that there’s a worldwide market for about five computers to The Atlantic predicting that, by the year 2000, we would no longer be engaged in wars. The latest predictions are that, thanks to improvements…

WARNING WARNING WARNING This is a semi-technical blog update and it is rather long (20 minutes read). If you don’t like dealing with bits and bytes, you may want to turn away now. I’ve been meaning to also write a blog update on all things about blockchain for a while, but just haven’t had time. …

I was having a debate yesterday where a bank executive was asking me about what the hottest things in FinTech are right now.  My answer was machine learning (AI) and blockchain.  There are others such as contextual commerce, voice recognition and digital assistants, but machine learning and blockchain are top of mind. His response was…

The Bright Future The year is 2030.  Europe grows from strength to strength, after the harmonisation agreements between the German Finance Minister, the European Central Bank and the European Parliament for the clearance for Quantitative Easing and bailout funds for Italy in 2018.  This was a turning point in the Union as the clear support…

I can remember a few years ago that the UK pound was almost at the level of being valued at $2.  Two dollars to the pound.  Amazing.  I brought a lot of American stuff that year.  Yesterday, I bought something and it was $1.30 to the pound.  Shoot.  The dinner for $100 that a few…

We spend much of our time berating the banks and beating them up, but it’s not always the case.  Every now and again, I like to write about the specific good that banks do.  For example, 5 of the top 10 Charitable Companies in the USA are banks: Wells Fargo (#3), Goldman Sachs (#4), JPMorgan…

I was piqued by Victor Matarranz’s [SEVP Head of Group Strategy and Chairman’s Office, Banco Santander] presentation at MoneyConf last week, mainly because he began by talking about Fintech 1.0 versus Fintech 2.0. Fintech 1.0 he defined as the emergence of peer-to-peer lenders and new payments companies between 2010 and 2014.  During this time everyone…

The UK has had a long weekend considering the consequences of the Brexit. Chris Skinner has had a long weekend considering the consequences on London, the banking industry, Fintech and more … and I have to say that I’m quietly positive.  I don’t think we’re going to see the meltdown the doomsayers are rumour mongering,…