What was hot at Money2020 Europe
Last week was Money 2020 Europe week. This year a gathering of 6,000 odd people – and I mean **ODD**– assembled in Copenhagen to talk all things FinTech and stuff. That’s 50 percent up on last year’s first outing and, due to the numbers and a few brown envelopes from the Dutch, the whole shindig moves to Amsterdam next year.
Turkey to be cashless by 2023
I spend a lot of time talking with my friends in Turkey, particularly since the big change in climate after the protests last year. Nevertheless, from a financial markets point of view, it’s a fascinating place. One of the first to be contactless and, more recently, one of the first to offer social retail banking.
The crazy world of crypto currencies and ICOs
I’m boarding a flight yesterday and murfing (mobile surfing). Flicking between Facebook apps, twitter, bank account, BBC news and more. Suddenly I spot a new ICO – Initial Coin Offering – for a new bank.
Barclays Africa and their co-creation projects
I saw a really interesting presentation in Kigali at the Dot Finance Africa FinTech Summit from Yasaman Hadjibashi, Chief Creation Officer with Barclays Africa (soon to be something else).
The Semantic bank
I’m delighted to be speaking at TNW on May 19 in Amsterdam. I wanted to talk about Digital Human, the theme of my next book, but the guys want me to talk about banking and finance and money, as that’s why they asked me. So I’m going to unveil my first meander around The Semantic Bank.
Smart Contracts â From Ethereum to Potential Banking Use Cases
In the run up to the Blockchain for Finance Conference in Singapore 2017, FinTech Network with contributions from Zerado, have produced a whitepaper that looks at smart contracts and how they could improve efficiencies within the banking sector.
Western Union: is the future bright or dark?
I was recently hauled up over saying that Western Union (WU) was being disrupted by FinTech. The words that a reader took issue with are, "The high fees of Western Union and other remittance providers were fairly punishing … until FinTech came along."
Russians launder billions through British banks
I recently discovered that there is around $1.6 trillion of money laundering globally and less than 2% is caught by the financial system. That’s a stunning amount and makes you wonder why our system is so awful. Much of it is down to the fact that account openings depend upon physical documentation and human checks. If we could digitalise the whole process, it could be tightened up immensely.
Considering a Pragmatic Approach to Blockchain Implementation
The current implementations of distributed ledger technology clearly are not the Blockchain that underpins the virtual currency Bitcoin. The tools and platforms such as the offerings from Digital Asset Holdings and R3 Corda are offered as a pragmatic answer to a set of current business, technological and regulatory challenges. By implementing the appropriate use cases, firms can avoid the current challenges exhibited by the Bitcoin example – including scalability, latency and privacy – that make the current public Blockchain model a non-starter for banks.
Four Blockchain Use Cases for Banks
This whitepaper sets out four potential use cases for banks including reduction of fraud, KYC, trading platforms and concentrating on the last use case of payments, in considering the possibility of utilising blockchain technology in banking.
The Semantic Regulator (#RegTech Rules)
A bank has to make a regulatory change every 12 minutes. That’s some task. A bigger question must also be: how can a regulatory check that a bank is compliant with their regulatory changes, if their regulations change every 12 minutes are run to 1,000’s of pages?
Central Bank Governor says Digital Currencies could displace traditional banking systems
The Governor of the Bank of England (BoE) and Chair of the Financial Stability Board and Monetary Policy Committee, Mark Carney, recently gave a speech about FinTech, financial inclusion, and BoE research into Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).
Bank regulations change every 12 minutes
I recently spent a day in a meeting discussing Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) … yawn. Well, it is a bit of a dull area, but highly important. In fact, what gets me is that regulations are the big ticket barrier to change in banking. It’s what protects the banks from disruption and change, as I’ve written before. It’s as John Cryan put it the other day: “Everything regulated tends to continue as it is.”
The AML conundrum solved?
I was surprised the other day when I met Pawel Kuskowski, CEO and Co-founder of Coinfirm, a start-up firm offering Compliance-as-a-Service. Pawel has been trained in compliance and AML, having worked with some of the world’s biggest financial institutions including AIG (Compliance Officer), UBS (Director of Compliance, Compliance and Operational Risk Officer) and RBS (Head of Global Anti-Money Laundering, AML). Why was I surprised? I was surprised by his opening line: “there is around $1.6 trillion of money laundering globally and less than 2% is caught by the financial system”
European banks developing Digital Trade Chain
Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Société Générale and UniCredit recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Brussels, agreeing to collaborate on the development and commercialization of a new product called Digital Trade Chain (DTC).
Applications of Blockchain Technology: To Banking And Financial Sector In India
In this White Paper, we explore Blockchain similarly â as an abstract data structure and development platform to solve generic problems in FinTech.
