March 19, 2019

The Irish Invasion (of Fintech)

March 19, 2019/ The Financial Revolutionist

Last century saw not one, but two British invasions when it comes to music, but a different sort of invasion has sprung up lately from Britain’s near neighbor, Ireland. This one isn’t sonic-based (though we’d be remiss if we didn’t note our love of The Pogues), but rather focused on fintech. The Emerald Isle has been exporting an impressive array of financial technology over the past decade or so, and indeed has become one of the global hotspots.

March 13, 2019

A fintech review of SXSW

March 13, 2019/ Financial Revolutionist

Your Financial Revolutionist was at the SXSW (or “South By”(SX) to those in the know) festival last week, and as always, it was an experience. The event is one of the biggest in the world, with some 70,000 people descending on Austin, Texas for the week-long business and cultural shindig.

February 14, 2019

Five fintech conferences in Q2 for hobnobbing with VCs

February 14, 2019/ The Financial Revolutionist

Industry conferences can often be a great way to network with peers, catch up on the latest trends and – if you’re startup seeking funding – hobnob with venture capital firms that may be looking to invest in the next big thing. But not all conferences are created equal; when you only have a few moments to give your elevator pitch you want to be in a setting where you can get in front of as many potential investors as possible.

November 09, 2017

Guest Opinion: The Digital Evolution of Stock Trading

November 09, 2017/ Guest Contributor

Some people in life you don’t forget. For me, one of these people is Shawn Dorsch, president of Clear Market Holdings, an electronic trading company. I first met Shawn at Art’s Barbecue in Charlotte, NC, after he agreed to be a mentor to our company. Shawn has the impressive skill of switching contexts effortlessly. One moment, he would be explaining to us the intricacies of the stock market. The next, he would be on the phone with an investor in Tokyo, rattling off Japanese.

November 03, 2017

Guest Opinion: Innovation Davids vs. Scale Seeking Goliaths in Payments

November 03, 2017/ Guest Contributor

Malcolm Gladwell turned the biblical story of David and Goliath on its head by noting that the giant was actually much weaker than his opponent. So why, as Gladwell asks, do we continue to tell the story the way we do? Maybe it’s because we’re built to root for the underdog while fearing the giant. I think the same dynamic is at work in the payments field, with tech start-ups the traditional Davids and payments processors the Goliaths.

October 27, 2017

Guest Opinion: Our Dangerous Innovation Blind Spots

October 27, 2017/ Guest Contributor

Just the other day, I was on the phone with an entrepreneur I met at a start-up event. During the course of the conversation, he told me that he was relocating from Houston to the Bay Area. In fact, he was literally driving as we spoke. His main reasons? A lack of mentors and a support system back home. In the course of the next three short months in California, on Castro Street, he was able to meet investors, mentors, and people that he otherwise did not have access to, one of whom became the CTO of his company.

January 20, 2017

Guest Opinion: Predictive Analytics in Financial Services

January 20, 2017/ Guest Contributor

When the big data boom grabbed headlines in the early 2000’s, it was because the high-tech industry allocated R&D efforts to develop new data-driven applications for their businesses. Out of these developments came the rise of predictive analytics.

September 23, 2016

You Can’t Have Two First Priorities

September 23, 2016/ Gregg Schoenberg

In his recent testimony before the Senate Banking committee, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf accepted accountability for the phony account scandal that overtook the bank under his watch. He also made it perfectly clear that encouraging employees to cross-sell products and services to existing customers will remain core to the bank’s strategy. As Stumpf said ...

July 15, 2016

Guest Opinion: Marvin Chang

July 15, 2016/ Guest Contributor

Unless you’ve been on a strict media fast of late, there’s no way you could avoid seeing the blizzard of commentary about the Pokémon Go craze taking over much of the world. Augmented reality and its promise to change customer engagement through gamification can be seen in this offering from Niantic Labs, which has millions of people running around their communities seeking to...