'FinTech' Tag
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Financial exclusion
November 8, 2023Yesterday’s New York Times humanizes the plight of victims of banking algorithm punishment in the world’s largest economy. [read: Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Down Customer Accounts] I, and probably many readers of this blog, have experienced our own frustrating incidents of unexpectedly frozen or closed bank accounts. In my own personal experience, the damage […]
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(K)now to cover (Y)our butt (C)heeks
April 16, 2022Last year a financial institution with which I had been a long-time customer asked me to re-verify my identity by providing two forms of ID. I uploaded a copy of my passport and my driver’s license. After “several business days” of processing, my passport was accepted. As for my driver’s license, on the other hand, […]
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Europe’s challenger bank landscape
September 16, 2019In follow up to last week’s post on my favorite consumer fintech products, here’s an illustration of the challenger banking landscape in Europe.
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Have a good cashless
June 14, 2019Have a good Cashless. That’s the charming slogan of one of my Japanese banks in their efforts to increase cashless adoption among their customer base. Even if somewhat lexically awkward, I would submit that it’s a better slogan than the “War on Cash” cliché we hear often from the U.S. In fact, the push toward […]
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Free Revolut card (limited time)
February 16, 2019In order to be an effective investor in the fintech space I try to be a consumer of every fintech startup I can. Readers of this blog know how big a fan I am of Revolut, ever since their early days at Level 39. Revolut’s interbank rate on currency exchange and versatile cashback metal card […]
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Why Europe should be on Japan’s corporate innovation agendas
January 21, 2018[This post paraphrases an interview I gave last week to Japan’s ITmedia group. The original interview is here.] Over the past decade Europe has witnessed such a dramatic transformation in innovation and entrepreneurship that I submit that the region now represents one of the most compelling areas of the world for investment from Japan. This […]
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Japan fintech startup infographic
September 19, 2017Eighteen months ago I wrote about how bullish I was for venture investment in Japan’s fintech sector. Since then, a proliferation of new fintech startups have emerged, in parallel with Japanese VCs becoming much more active. An investor friend of mine even joked that we might now be approaching “peak fintech” here. He said this […]
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Incumbent banks: startups are coming for you
July 7, 2017In my previous post I wrote about the sparsity of financial services and products from incumbent banks for small businesses that act globally. This chasm has grown as the increasing proliferation of globally-minded startups face a retail banking sector that is stagnating for reasons of inflexible business models, obsolete systems, and corporate inertia. Fortunately for […]
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Global startups hamstrung by local banks
June 30, 2017In countries with developed financial systems, small and medium sized businesses have long been at a disadvantage for banking services relative to large firms and even relative to consumers. In this piece and the one that follows I’ll review some of the basic business banking services on offer which I’ve experienced firsthand as both an […]
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I’m bullish on Fintech investment in Japan. So are a bunch of CVCs.
July 8, 2016Now that I’ve had an opportunity to meet many of the key actors in Japan’s burgeoning Fintech sector, I’m bullish on this market for both innovation and venture investment.
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A European perspective on Japan Fintech
April 7, 2016Yesterday I was unexpectedly invited to join a live broadcast at the Tokyo Bankers Association discussing Fintech. It appears that many of the market dynamics affecting the financial sector in Europe are similar in Japan, so I touched on these. While one could argue that the landscape for European Fintech startups has reached saturation levels […]
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The lifecycle of a Fintech startup
February 5, 2016I couldn’t resist re-publishing this Financial Times characterization of the Lifecycle of a Fintech Startup (If you pitch my Fintech partner, be prepared to respond to a question about which phase you’re in !):