Songs

During lockdown in the pandemic, I went a bit off script and started singing karaoke songs, with the words changed to focus on banking and payments. It was just a bit of fun to keep me busy at that time. Nevertheless, there are still many moments where I hear a song and think oh, that…

I’ve realised over the last few weeks that my FinTech Karaoke is generally having a dig at bad bankers. It’s easy to have a go at bad bankers or, as the 99% call them, banksters. It’s because there’s a lot of bad practices historically in banking from ripping off customers with hidden fees (PPI); signing…

[A longer version of this blog appears here, explaining why so many songs are anti-bank] During lockdown, Spotify has found that the song Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is the most popular song of the summer. It makes us feel good, even though the song is over forty years old (stop…

Now I’m no Jay-Z and definitely a million miles from a Rihanna, but there is an old saying attributed to Mark Twain that “a banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.” This persists generally as a view around the…

Everyone keeps talking about Big Tech opening banks. Rather than opening or buying banks, most of the Big Tech firms are partnering with them. Apple and Goldman Sachs make a nice pair as does Google, who partner with a variety of banks to offer financial capabilities. Several of the Big Tech firms have danced around…

During my karaoke lockdown challenge, I’ve been surprised how engaged my audience is, from those who encouraged me to do JaJa Ding Dong to a trans-Atlantic duet with Barb MacLean of Islands in the Stream. However, I’ve never been as challenged as I was this week. I got an email from Oriol Ros of Latinia…

There are some iconic lines in films. Stop the world, I want to get off. I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore. Do you want to take the red or the blue pill? I’ll have what she’s having. And, right now, during these lockdown no travel times, it often…

This week’s challenge was created by various tweets between myself and Barb MacLean. She offered to duet with me but, considering I’m here in Poland she’s in Canada, that could be difficult. Anyways, the song we picked was Island in the Stream or, as it is now, Apps in the Cloud. We probably shouldn’t have…

I keep thinking I should give this up, but people keep encouraging me to continue so I will … for the moment. This week’s challenge was given to me by Brian Caplen, Editor-in-Chief of The Banker magazine, a sister publication of The Financial Times and hugely serious and circumspect. Therefore, I was surprised when Brian said I must…

It seems my Karaoke Challenge is proving successful so far, with many readers asking me to cover a song they think would be funny with my quirky twist. Whilst I’m getting all of these requests, I’ll keep up my feeble attempts to entertain until I’m travelling and too busy again. This particular request I couldn’t…