Banking in Africa has become a prime example of necessity breeding ingenuity. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, Africa’s regional banks turned their focus closer to home and embraced technology as a means to reach the hugely diverse unbanked populations of the region. With a virtually untapped market, relatively unburdened by out-of-date computing…

Since banking has transitioned from somewhere you go to something you do, people expect to access all their accounts through many portals and platforms. Whether they access their accounts through the branch, atms, computers, tablets or smartphones, they want a unified experience. They also want to access different accounts through the same universal access point….

Financial Advisers emerged in the US in the 1970s, but hit their stride in the 1980s with new professional designations, associations and regulation emerging to create an industry that is just over 300,000 persons strong. The US alone manages more than $13 Trillion in Assets under Management (AuM) in Mutual Funds, and the US Stock…

Apologies to William Gibson from whom this quote is taken, but this week’s Breaking Banks is all about the disruptive future that is coming fast upon the banking sector. This week we speak to two global leaders and futurists who have enlightening views on the forces that are driving change in the consumer front-end of…

Not since the printing press has a new media been as disruptive as the internet. Because it is about connection, conversation, and a pure democracy of ideas, it is changing every business model and all ideas about traditional services. The first wave of new media disruption was against old media, but that was only the…

Recently, there are an explosion of apps and tools for personal financial management. With our mobile phones, the access to smart financial data is available at our fingertips, and that raises awareness of our personal financial health. But do these tools replace the need for a financial advisor? Today on Breaking Banks, Brett King hosts…

According to CB Insights, there was more venture and private-equity investment in New York’s Financial Technology (or FinTech) sector in the first half of 2013 than in all of 2012, which was the biggest year on recent record. On a global basis, annual venture investment in the fintech sector has nearly tripled since 2008, with…

This week Breaking Bank$ is going to be streaming live from the New York Google Offices as part of the 2nd Annual NYC Tomorrow’s Transactions Today Un-conference. http://www.nypay.org/event/payments-unconference/ The event is hosted by NYPay. Brett will have Dave Birch, Global Ambassador of Consult Hyperion, Peter Hazlehurst, Chief of Google Wallet and other thought leaders on…

Russia is one of the biggest emerging economies on the planet, and has one of the largest national banking markets in the world, but innovation comes slowly within the banking sector due to massive technology and process issues. However, in the last few years there has been an explosion of innovation through start-ups, new brands…

Bitcoin just keeps making the news. Germany recognized it as a legitimate taxable currency just a month ago, and then the site Silk Road, that trafficked drugs and black market items, and accepted Bitcoin as a currency was shuttered by the FBI. However, with the use of mobile increasing and people’s need to move money…