Innovation

I stumbled across this clip the other day of Jeff Bezos on The Tonight Show twenty-five years ago. Jay Leno asks him how the company can be worth billions when it consistently makes losses. Jeff Bezos laughs along but then says: “we are a famously unprofitable company, but we are investing in the future”. We…

My blog the other day about asking what’s going to change is the wrong question was inspired by the quote from Jeff Bezos and this report from Team8: an unconventional view of the future of fintech https://team8.vc/rethink/fintech/2030-and-beyond/ They delve into three areas: What won’t change? What do we believe are the ‘immutable physical laws of…

There’s been a meme going around for a while now that America is great at invention and innovation; Asia is great at industrialising and maximising America’s inventions; and Europe is fantastic at blocking all of it through regulations. The Eurocrat regime rules. What’s the reality? Well, it certainly is true that America led the way with…

July 4 is always when my American friends give Britain the middle finger and proudly celebrate Paul Revere’s midnight ride that led to Independence Day on July 4, 1776. Great … but what about bank independence day? Most central banks, including the Federal Reserve, are independent of government control. Why and, more importantly, why is…

I just got a report on trust from The Institute of Business Ethic’s (IBE’s) (attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2024 survey) in business and politicians. Headlines? Only 14% of 2067 UK adults polled trust that politicians behave ethically in 2024. Charities, businesses, media and politicians, have all experienced a three-point decrease in trust from 2023. Corporate…

Whilst I was in South Africa, they couldn’t help talking about Rugby  (could they?). You may remember that South Africa won the Rugby World Cup last year* for the second time in a row – a rare feat – and are the top-ranked world rugby team right now. So, it’s not surprising they would talk about…

A few people got excited about Affirm working with Apple Pay to embed BNPL (buy now, pay later) in their services. As reported by CNBC: Apple device users will be able to tap into buy now, pay later loans from Affirm for purchases Affirm will surface as an option for Apple Pay users on iPhones…

I was talking with a friend about growing up. Back in my day, as the old farts say, I had cash and a bank account. I had one bank account and that was it. During the years, I moved around a bit, switched accounts between banks, but cash, cheques and card was it. Then a…

“AI, powered by quantum computing, is going to put financial crime potentially on steroids.” It’s not my quote. It’s actually a comment made by David Duffy, CEO of Virgin Money (now Nationwide) after visiting Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle. From my side, this is an area that’s been worrying me for a while, ever since the…

You may not have spotted it this week, but there has been a number of major strategic changes and moves by fintech leader Stripe. I’ve followed Stripe since their founding in 2010, and use them as a poster child of change in finance and technology, as demonstrated by their fast cycle growth from a company…