FinTech Future: It's Burgers, not Bitcoins

The other day I was watching my daughter playing with a group of children at her nursery. I didn't quite follow the rules but it was a picture card game with the apparent objective of winning as many cards as possible.

After a short while a couple of smug-looking kids (you know the sort!) had mastered the game and accumulated the majority of the cards to the obvious disdain of the rest, including my daughter.

Blockchain to replace Swift?

It is interesting to compare the agendas of current annual events with those of one year earlier. For instance, in April 2014, Swift’s London Business Forum had no mention of bitcoin or blockchain. Roll forward one year and it was standing room only for its ‘What is the Future of Money?’ session with speakers from an array of companies that probably no one had heard of twelve months earlier (in part because some of them weren’t around then): Coinstructors, NXT 2 Pay, Innovate Finance, COLU and Epiphyte.

Sibos: day two round-up

@Swift

Day two of Sibos continued the theme of collaboration, with more focus on standards, market infrastructures and new technologies under the spotlight.

Sibos: day one round-up

@Swift

Sibos 2014 kicked off in Boston with the focus inevitably on regulation, standards and the build-up to the much anticipated plenary which revealed Swift's pricing strategy.

Bitcoin: If it keeps moving, regulate it

Bitcoin: If it keeps moving, regulate it

IBS recently noted the reluctance of existing banks, suppliers and regulators to engage with bitcoin and other virtual currencies (VC), but at least it hasn’t suffered the same fate of the Liberty Dollar in the US, which was stamped on by the FBI in 2007. Its computers were seized, its currency, backed by $7 million in gold and silver, was confiscated and its founder was eventually found guilty of ‘making, possessing and selling his own currency’.