Breaking down vertical banking silos: Our outdated payments industry should look to Apple and BMW’s supply chains September 24, 2015 We depend on payments as the underpinning fabric of almost every aspect of cross border commerce. Yet the payments industry is still fundamentally built on a model which suited the needs of a world circa fifty years ago, rather than the dynamic, agile, hyper-connected world of 2015. The problem behind this is that individual financial [...]
London can come out on top in the era of job-killing robots September 23, 2015 Scary, scary robots. If you believe the hype, robots are coming for your job, your society and everything you hold dear. A widely publicised report argued that 35 per cent of jobs in the UK could be destroyed by automation and computerisation (which is what “robots” have come to mean in the shorthand of [...]
Why the future of fintech (and financial services) is collaborative September 22, 2015 The UK is fast becoming one of the world’s leading fintech centres. So it was fitting that, last week, investors, consultants, multinationals, startups and entrepreneurs gathered in London’s East End for FinTech Week 2015: an event where attendees could share ideas, network and, most importantly, do business together. The expo focused on how to [...]
Fintech is booming – but where are the insurance tech startups? September 17, 2015 As a technology investor, I spend my days scouring Europe in search of the next big thing. London’s fintech scene has been a profitable hunting ground of late. With the UK fintech industry generating $20bn in revenue annually, it is not surprising that $5.4bn has been invested in British fintech companies since 2010. [...]
London FinTech investment in 2015 has already surpassed last year’s total… and it’s only September September 17, 2015 The cash being pumped into London's financial technology businesses has already surpassed the entire amount invested 2014 as the capital cements its status as the FinTech capital of the world. It's been the most successful year yet for FinTech, netting $554m (£357m) of venture capital investment so far this year, compared to total investment of [...]
From Open-plan offices to FinTech and regulation: Four ways the City is changing September 17, 2015 The City will face a number of opportunities, as well as a few adversities, in the years to come according to a new report by published by the City of London Corporation. Here's a quick round-up of the main changes: Rise of the open-plan office The rise in flexible working, technological changes and cost pressures are [...]
London Fintech Week 2015 events: Who, what, where & when September 13, 2015 Trading apps at the ready; London Fintech Week starts today! With the capital being the biggest force for innovation in financial technology right now, this week of talks, conferences and startup demos will be the world’s biggest business geek-out. The events start at 8:30am each day and finishes late, so try to make [...]
Fintech Week London 2015: It’s startups v banks in Fintech expo drinking session September 2, 2015 Caloo callay, it's nearly London Fintech Week, where startups from Shoreditch to Shadwell will be touting their wares to execs from some of the City’s most high profile firms in a bid to become the next big thing in business. Billed as the “world’s largest fintech-focused expo”, economists, bankers and brokers from companies old [...]
Is this the UK’s next FinTech unicorn? Hank Uberoi of London-based tech startup Earthport slams outdated global payment infrastructure August 26, 2015 Could this be the UK’s next FinTech unicorn? After previous success stories like Monitise and TransferWise leading the way, a UK-based payment platform slamming today’s global payment infrastructure for being “decades” out of date is hoping to disrupt the way companies pay their bills. Hundreds of thousands of international payments are made every day. But [...]
FriendlyScore: This FinTech startup can analyse social media activity to prove creditworthiness August 26, 2015 When you're sharing a selfie at dinner or updating LinkedIn with your latest promotion, you're giving away more than you might think. A London-based startup has taken the huge amount of data we share every day on social media to come up with a way of assessing whether we can be trusted with a loan or [...]