Humour

Jul 15, 2015

How one country gets through six Mount Everests of cash a year!

I’m such a sad banking geek that in my two hours off here in Seoul I ran around to the Bank of Korea’s Money Museum. Yes, I really am that sad but hey, it was near the hotel and the only thing I could do within walking distance apart from shopping. Yes, I really am…

Jul 6, 2015

Something better change

A true story. The year is 1990 I’m travelling and getting the last train home. Arriving at the station, I discover the last train has gone. Darnit. I’m homeless for the night. OK. Let’s find a hotel. I look for the nearest telephone box. Luckily there’s one at the station entrance. In the telephone box,…

Jun 26, 2015

The Top Ten Quotes About Banking Of All Time

One of the social communities I’ve joined was having a discussion about the greatest literati quotations related to banking the other day. It was so good that I thought I would share here, especially as it’s Friday … “Once more into the branch dear friends”, Henry the Fifth Branch Manager, William Shakespeare “We cross our…

Jun 15, 2015

My favourite banking screw up stories

There are so many examples of banks messing up customer accounts around the world that it would be tough to know where to start … except that as I live in Britain, that’s pretty good place to begin. There media here love to regularly report banks messing up, and so here are some of my…

May 7, 2015

Job titles, acronymns and the corporate boa constrictor

So we’re having a meeting the other day and my friend was a little upset. He’d just been promoted in the bank to become the Director of Digital Payments, Innovation and Strategy. We all noted that he was now the lead for DPIS and congratulated him for taking DPIS. For some reason he took offence. …

Apr 30, 2015

If banking were a movie, which movie would it be?

So it’s late at night and we reach that point in the evening where it’s almost embarrassing. I love you man. You’re my best and only friend in the world, y’know what I mean? Having gone past the point of talking about whether the Pope is really a money launderer and Obama is actually a…

Apr 17, 2015

My favourite 419 scam email: Bernie Madoff needs my help

I get a lot of spam and scam email most of which is deleted but, as it's Friday, I thought y'all might appreciate the phish that follows … —–Original Message—– From: Benard Madoff [mailto:midoffnyc@madoff.com] Sent: 08 April 2015 13:54 To: me Subject: Help me Make a difference Hello Dear I am Bernard Madoff the…

Mar 16, 2015

Do you work for a monkey tree organisation?

I’m often asked about how to implement a digital bank? What are the top tips? My response is that every company is different, with no two banks the same. Some are evolutionary and try to tinker with the current company structure; some are revolutionary, like mBank, and radically reorganise the current structure; whilst some are…

Oct 31, 2014

Ryanair Bank or Private Bank? Your choice!

I’ve talked for some time about component based banking but what about component based pricing? Bank pricing is the most opaque part of the industry, and the part that irritates customers the most. Customers get charged high fees for unauthorised overdrafts as this funds free bank services for those who don’t go overdrawn. Banks focus…