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I’ve got caught in a few discussions recently with people who tell me Ant Financial are Chinese. They’re not. Neither is Alibaba and, if you think they’re just Chinese, you’re going to miss a huge change in the next decade. Ant Financial is an open marketplace of apps, APIs and analytics, that I’ve been describing…

I often talk about my week in Hangzhou last year, writing the case study on Ant Financial for the new book Digital Human, and particularly the words of Jack Ma on how he sees managing the Alibaba platform: Management. The word is there for regular companies. At Alibaba we treat it more like governing an…

A final reflection on the way of the world before getting back to FinTech and banking. Whilst on holiday, we became interested in buying a property in Dubai, and began making enquiries. It soon transpired that this would be a dream, as the average price of a villa on the Palm was over $4 million,…

I’ve been at a few conferences this week, and was amused by an audience poll at one event. The moderator first of all asked: Do you believe that the regulators are in the incumbent’s pockets and protect the industry from new competition? You may find it gratifying that most of the audience disagreed with the…

Just before Christmas, I was interviewed by a Turkish magazine about the future, Turkey and fintech. I thought it might interest folks to share it here … When you wrote your first book about fintech – little was known about it. How much has that changed and have your predictions so far come true? Things…

I’m often talking about digital identity and struggle with the subject. This is because the meeting of ID2020 I attended at the United Nations 18 months ago, talked about the issues of digital identity and poverty, and how the poorest are the most susceptible to human trafficking and slavery: How the system crushes the poor Most…

I’ve blogged quite a bit about adapting to change lately, and will continue to do so as banking-as-usual (BAU) is not an option. It’s similar to standing in the middle of the road. If you stand there for long enough, you’ll get run over. This is as true in banking: if you stop changing, you…

Back in January, I made 10 predictions for 2017. Let’s see how near or off the mark they were: The FinTech buzz continues, but not in the USA (look East) WRONG. According to KPMG’s Pulse of FinTech report, Q3 2017, I’m wrong. Asia was doing ok but nowhere near as strong as 2016, whilst America…