2025 has been the year of AI and AI hype from Agentic AI to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) to Robots, chatbots and more but, for me, it has been the year of Deep Fake AI. It all started with the story of the French woman who got duped into a fake AI relationship with Brad Pitt……

You may know Wells Fargo, one of the largest American banks. I know them well, having worked with some of their key people over the years. Their brand is all based around the old Pony Express … Note: stamp is dated 1940 … but you may not know their real history, so here we go….…

Things we’re reading today include … PayPal Applies to Establish Bank HSBC promises to keep all of its bank branches open until 2027 Doha Bank prints digital bond UK Treasury to regulate cryptocurrency under new legislation What you need to know about new UK rules on cryptocurrency Monzo chief pushed out after board rift over……

I was having an interesting debate the other day about how AI will impact banking longer-term. The most interesting angle was that AI will provide knowledge and blockchain (or distributed ledgers, if you prefer) will provide provenance, and that the two combined are a killer partnership. Thinking about it, this gets interesting. So AI can……

Things we’re reading today include … Top five fintech news stories of the week HSBC UK commits to keeping all its 327 branches open until at least 2027 ‘It probably could do my job’: New ChatGPT model catches up with junior bank analysts (one in ten UK banking jobs at risk from AI) London has……

This week’s main discussions include … Little Britain: “A rainy island with a hostile tax system is a hard sell” Many years ago, I was presenting to a country suffering sanctions. No longer able to access the SWIFT network and pretty much excommunicated by most banks worldwide, they were suffering. Of course, they could do……

Things we’re reading today include … Dutch fintech Mollie buys GoCardless for €1.1bn Governing Council proposes simplification of EU banking rules Wall Street is drooling over bank mergers EU banks should reduce their reliance on US Big Tech, top supervisor says Nubank Is Not a Bank, Despite Its Name — and That’s a Problem Fintech……

I spotted a quote this week: “All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer My mind immediately moved to bitcoin and cryptocurrency and, specifically, Jamie Dimon. For years, Dimon has said that bitcoin is a scam and yet, now,……

Many years ago, I was presenting to a country suffering sanctions. No longer able to access the SWIFT network and pretty much excommunicated by most banks worldwide, they were suffering. Of course, they could do nested accounts, where you bury your bank in a pyramid of other banks, but that is pretty complicated, so I……

Things we’re reading today include … Why UK & US Fintech Must Fast-Track Quantum Resilience and AI-Proofing Now UK financial firms face tough new climate risk rules from Bank of England EY’s COP30 Report: How Climate Data Demands Reshape FinTech While Western central banks hesitate on climate, China’s acts How NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC……