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Presenting to a group of banking people the other day, the constant question was about risk, return, regulation and compliance. It actually became quite irritating until one person said: “how can we create an innovation transformation culture in a zero-risk company?” It then hit me: these guys cannot do this. It’s too hard. I’ve had…

I was having a chat with some friends about the good old days, where everything was domestic and local. We had passbooks, cheques, cash and branches. Ah, those were the days. Life was simple, money was all in one place and easy to manage. Then the ATM came about and so we moved to cards…

I got into a new debate yesterday, talking with two guys who are formerly with big card companies (shush, you know who), and we started debating the four-pillar model that’s been around for the last half century. The model is the basis of the card industry and involves acquiring merchants, issuing cards through banks, and then…

I found a great interview the other day with Bella Hoare, a partner and director at the world’s oldest privately owned bank, C Hoare and Co. The bank has been run by the Hoare family for 12 generations, and was originally set up as a goldsmiths by Richard Hoare in Cheapside in 1672. Almost twenty…

Trust and money and day-to-day life go hand-in-hand. It’s all about who you deal with, how and the outcomes. Recently, I’ve lost trust with Apple, my bank, my friend and my brother. That’s pretty sad, isn’t it? But who do I trust? David Bowie. David Bowie, RIP. Artist, music man, alien and hero. He was…

I’ve recently had a couple of interesting visits to the Middle East and Africa, namely Riyadh and Cairo. Both are keen to highlight progress in fintech, which is interesting as they are two cities that have been on my radar but a little behind others like Dubai and Lagos. So, I was interested in what…

I’ve recently been seeing more and more about eugenics. Eugenics is a supposed scientific way to develop the perfect human, immune to disease and designed to live long and prosper (as Spock would say). A more formal definition comes from The National Human Genome Research Institute: Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial…

Talking about trust, the other side of the coin is what is the bank doing to protect privacy? Increasingly, due to regulatory concerns, banks are becoming government spies. They are watching our every move and reporting it. This recently cropped up on my personal radar when the bank became my interrogator and grilled me about…

Building upon my blog about Revolut the other day, and their need for a banking license, I’ve been accused many times of coming back to a theme that you can only be a bank if you’re a bank with a license. Why do I keep coming back to this theme? It’s all about trust and…

It’s all about the difference between an emoney provider and a bank … I’ve been having an ongoing debate with a Revolut fan about the fact that they have an emoney licence, as an EMI (Electronic Money Institution), and that they are not a bank in Britain. It’s part of the ongoing debate about their…