Unfinished Business September 1, 2020 Back in 2015, I co-founded a challenger Bank called Starling with a super smart group of people (plus me) with different talents – mine was technology – and with a common drive, determination and goal ‘to change financial services for the better’. I think we went a long way in achieving that aim, helping people [...]
Bitcoin Is Here To Stay August 25, 2020 At a time of economic uncertainty, I’m certain about one thing: Bitcoin is here to stay. How can I be so confident? In its short life, Bitcoin has already been counted out numerous times. There is even a website that tracks each of its obituaries. However, each time it has come back stronger, and most [...]
Being in the right place to do something exciting August 18, 2020 Compliance is often called the most boring job in Banking. The common misconception is that the Compliance Officer’s role is to slam down the rule book on any lucrative ideas the Bank’s employees may have. Called the “hall-monitors” of the bank, being inherently risk-averse is deemed as a necessary characteristic to work in Compliance and [...]
Cryptocurrency and blockchain can help solve many problems for the unbanked and the financially excluded August 11, 2020 Successful British entrepreneur Richard Ells has been around computers and coding from a very early age, and at age 26 he launched an internet business that would later win him an award, but it was not until he launched cryptocurrency start-up Electroneum in 2017 that he felt he could help make a difference in people’s [...]
Blockchain technology will only reach its full potential through industry cooperation July 21, 2020 Blockchain has come a long way since I first entered the space in 2011. Back then, altcoins were all just forks of Bitcoin, the same code with some cosmetic differences here and there. These days, we have multiple generations of blockchain with entirely different systems, each with varying and exciting capabilities. There has been a [...]
Are Brokers ready to rule Crypto? July 14, 2020 As the crypto market matures and large cryptocurrency exchanges amass deep liquidity, brokerage firms–prime brokerages included–are ready to enter the market, setting the stage for the next phase of industry growth. When it comes to traditional financial markets, brokerages have long offered essential services to customers. Whether it’s full-service investment brokers providing investment advice and [...]
The case for decentralized finance July 7, 2020 Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has become a trending topic over the last year in the Blockchain world. This trend that started in the Ethereum ecosystem is now beginning to grow on the RSK Network, its Bitcoin counterpart, and other open Blockchains (Ethereum Classic, EOS and Cardano among others). This new use case promises to turn crypto [...]
Future of Finance: Community-Centric Wealth Management For All June 30, 2020 Growing up in the 80’s Anthony and I were dreamers of unicorns, cyborgs and other magical creatures. As young adults working in the financial industry, we were told to stop dreaming and to just execute. But how can you innovate if you are not allowed to think outside the box? After a decade of learning [...]
Interoperability and regulation: the key to DLT mass adoption June 23, 2020 If we were to rank all emerging technologies for their power to transform the world, DLTs (distributed Ledger technologies) would be right up there. And, among the many different types of innovation, blockchain would probably be nominated as the most significant because of its potential for creating secure, real-time communication networks with the ability to [...]
The digital asset inflation hedge beyond gold June 18, 2020 The extent of money supply increases needed to facilitate stimulus packages by sovereign central banks to counter the negative effects of the current crisis will dictate the inflationary pressures that ensue. Current world currencies are driven in a large part by expectation value and when confidence wanes there is a flight to alternative stores of [...]
