Gajraula Should I invest in bitcoin/BTC? I am being asked this question very often these days, and as always I find easier to write a blog post when I see myself repeating the same opinions. And I still believe that “If you don’t have strong opinions, you do not have an opinion.” But first a little […]
Tag: financial services
Investing In Challenger Banks
I am back from a summer sabbatical, it feels good to write with a purpose again, and this time it’s about investing in challenger banks. This blog post has been planned right before my summer vacation, based on first-hand experience. My last one about the topic of challenger banks — it has been an almost […]
“Challenger Bank” Challenges — Getting Customers
I have written in a previous post about the business model challenge facing all challenger banks. Today I am moving to the next big problem – customers. A successful business model describes a way of making money and be eventually profitable, and for a retail bank it also means people, customers ready to use the […]
Moven and the Diffusion of Fintech Innovations
Perpeetum Mobile When I was in 5th grade, at the end of the academic year, just before the start of the summer vacation, our Physics teacher shared with us a “big secret”: he invented a “perpetuum mobile” machine. He went on a rant about how he has it all designed, could not build it because he did […]
Do Cool S*it
I’ve been reading recently an interview with one of the big banks CEO, saying, essentially, that fintech startups have no chance of success, as banks have both the resources and the know-how to change themselves, flawlessly execute their digital transformation plans, and leave all startups eating dust. Of course he is right, as it is […]
Focus on Moven
A word I constantly hear these days is “focus”. It comes in many forms, from advisors insisting the company should focus on this or that aspect of the business, from experts that have focused their career on a narrow field, to behavioral experts explaining that multitasking is “killing our brains” and we should focus on […]
Back to the (Fintech) Future
Another Career Switch I have spent three years of my life as a venture capital investor, talking with over a thousand fintech startup teams, looking for outstanding teams, excellent ideas, and good enough execution – in this order. My previous experience as entrepreneur, software executive, and internal innovation promoter has helped – many times too […]
Competing with Incumbent Banks with a Stacked Deck
In a very interesting piece about a financial services conference, I found out about Victoria Raffe, a former bank regulator in the UK, now an independent consultant, talking about the process of getting approval for new banks in the UK. As someone following closely fintech startups like Moven (and Simple before that) and others that deliver […]
The New Age of Algorithms
I come from an engineering background, for me computers were, for a long time, calculators, a tool to perform either complex calculations, or on large data sets. Otherwise a handheld calculator – standard in my university years – would have been more than enough. Computers were expensive, data entry was a pain, and output was […]
Q&A with SBT Venture Capital
1.What is your definition of fintech? My view is that fintech is a misnomer, but good as a shortcut name. What we really mean is the disruption of financial services through technologies like mobile, cloud, social, big data analytics, crypto, etc — and whatever will be invented in the years to come. While financial services companies […]