I consider myself quite lucky that I can travel to many countries throughout the year for business and pleasure. I had the chance to visit Athens after almost four years for a weekend and lately I was in Istanbul for a week. One of my latest observations is that emerging countries, such as Greece and…
Hardware, software, capital and regulations are the key challenges for most of the fintech startups and regulation remains the most important external factor that could potentially lead the whole idea to be stillborn if not correctly assessed and addressed. When the regulators are not very cooperative and do not want to take any risk, then…
We spent our holidays in Sri Lanka over the Christmas and this is the fifty-fifth country in the world that I’ve visited. It is an island country which is located south of India and has recently become open to tourism, since the civil war ended in 2009. We made a big mistake by booking the…
I was in Bali a couple of weeks ago for the second time in my life. It is one of the few things that I really regret that I have been so close to Bali in the last 3.5 years and this has been only my second visit. Many people have asked for recommendations for…
I managed to read 25 books in 2016 and I hope to finish two or three during my Christmas break. During 2016, I read the books listed below. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall Focus by Daniel Goleman Homo Sapiens by Yuval Harari Homo Deus by Yuval Harari Startup…
I was honoured to give a short lecture on wealth management last week in Beijing at Renmin University. It was my first time in Beijing and I wish I could have spent more time discovering the city, but giving a short lecture was definitely more accommodating. This has been my second teaching experience; my first…
Each thematic area of the fintech ecosystem is important, but I believe that infrastructure will determine the fintech industry’s future. Data is becoming more important every day, as is privacy. In addition, it is not possible to build a system and expect people to use it without proper security measures in place. Enhanced encryption and…
After reading Yuval Harari’s book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind early this year, it was almost impossible not to read his next book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow as soon as it is published and I can get it. Homo Deus is the second book written by Harari and talks about the future of…
The world’s largest fintech hub opened in Singapore on 10 November and I was honoured to be at the launch. Singapore’s deputy prime minister and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, was the guest of honour at the opening ceremony. His speech was full of insights regarding the stance of the Singaporean…