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Jan 13, 2016

Banks need to become Lords of Data

I have a range of technologies I use, but get frustrated with them all. My Apple Watch is redundant, as is my Microsoft Surface, and I upgrade laptop and desktop every 18 months or so, largely to keep up with the demand for speed and reliability. It could be that it’s because I’m not an…

Jan 11, 2016

Global structures for trusted advice are hard

I was reflecting on something this morning that is endemic to both banks and technology providers. How do you provide great service to global clients? The issue is that most companies are split into three structures: product, process and customer. Product is the back office manufacturer; process is the middle office focused upon operational excellence;…

Jan 8, 2016

An optimists view of bitcoin in 2016

I said yesterday that bitcoin would be superseded by a corporate-backed digital currency, but not all would agree. Therefore in the spirit of fairness, a great article appeared on Coindesk last week by Tuur Demeester and I decided to finish this week’s predictions series on his views of what will happen with bitcoin this year….

Jan 7, 2016

10 Fintech predictions for 2016

There are a lot of Fintech forecasts out there but two of the best I spotted were by David Gyori and Pascal Bouvier, so I decided to take the areas I agree with most to provide a few headline Fintech predictions for 2016 of my own: #1 PayPal will be a primary acquisition target in…

Jan 6, 2016

Where will banks invest in technology in 2016?

Late last year SourceMedia released findings of a survey of US CIO’s that found the major focus for spending in IT in banks in 2016 would be on security systems. The only area of decreasing spend was on desktops. Interestingly most US bank CIOs will be spending more on branch technologies this year. In a…

Jan 5, 2016

The Top 10 challenges for investment banks in 2016

Accenture have produced a nice infographic and more, detailing the top 10 challenges for investment banks in 2016. Due to my limited wifi connectivity, I’ll just give you the headlines here but, if you have time, it’s well worth copying and pasting this link to learn more https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-top-ten-challenges-investment-banks-2016.aspx So here’s the top 10, and there’s…

Jan 4, 2016

2016 banking predictions

That’s not 2,016 banking predictions, which could be good, but banking predictions for the year 2016. Happy New Year. As is usual at the start of the year, I normally make a bunch of predictions about what will happen in retail, investment and transaction banking … but this year is not usual so I’m not…

Dec 18, 2015

The Top 10 Blog Posts of 2015

As it’s almost holiday time, I’m going to stop blogging for a while, so here’s the final blog post of 2015 and it’s the ten most read blog posts of 2015. In at number 10: #10: After the glitch, RBS closes GTS (or how a global bank becomes a national one) I was surprised to…

Dec 17, 2015

2015: Fintech, Fintech, Fintech

Yes, 2015 was the year that the Fintech bubble exploded. It hasn’t burst yet, but it’s clear that Fintech is the word of 2015. Everyone is talking unicorns, start-ups, disruption, Fintech and yet this is nothing new. I often say that I’m only known in the Fintech world because I’ve worked in technology in finance…

Dec 16, 2015

2015: putting data in context

The other big trend in 2015 has been the noticeable move of banks away from Big Data to Data Analytics. Some say it’s all about the Small Data, but it’s more about the Context of Data. Contextual Data is what PayPal brought into when they acquired Modest and it’s detail. This year, I’ve been surprised…