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There is absolutly no need to use a blockchain for this problem. unfortunately, many people look for problems that blockchain can solve, as opposed to look for solutions to solve the problem.... This is one of those very examples...

I think any such "body" has to be set up with Open Finance in mind, not just the limited view which is Open Banking. 

The benefits of a stable, resilient and performant API infrastructure is key to long term success and innovation within the finance sector. Open Banking is just a start to provide a sort of open infrastructure - but until it evolves into Open Finance, the benefits are pretty negligble in terms of driving better customer outcomes.

One of my big issues is the constant focus on APIs and the way in which these APIs must be implemented. The sequence etc etc and sheer volume of the "standard" leads to variation in the implementation of the standard, which is what we have seen. APIs in this direct consumption model are dated now, we should be looking to move to an event pattern model for Open Finance and away from directly connected APIs.

In doing so, the actual implementation of delivering the real-time infrastructure and the data resides with the bank. This can be unique to each bank and fit better with their IT strategy. From a standards point of view, standards become focussed on the "data" delivered in the event, which will be far less open to interpretation making the integration standard between banks much easier to consume. This is where we need to be to really deliver a true Open Financie environment which will then deliver real benefits to customers.

But since SEPA isnt instant 24x7 is this really instant?

From pure experience, Scum fall and the vast majority of hybrid models simply dont work. The main reason they dont work is that the waterfall elements take far too long and are often seen as a large body of work (project). This means there is very little iteration and almost zero feedback loops.

The time at this phase massively delayes the ability to build product - and once into an agile scrum type environment, there is little feedback - again causing delays and often what is built is an interpretation of the "spec".

Once at QA typically in a hybrid model we fall back to waterfall again depriving the process of any true feedback loops. All in all, a hyvrid model does little more than get certain aspects of process understanding agile concepts, but unless you get full end-to-end buy in, the vast vast majority of benefits that agile brings are simply lost.

As ever this is far too late. Why would I want a card that would only really work with certain acquirers, unless they believe they will get all the major acquirers globally onboard? This could be the case, but by 2022 this will be highly limited.

All this at a time when it is pretty clear that the way the card schemes operate is a legacy model. Just as the Eurozone looks to introduce new card schemes, alternative payment rails are gaining traction and even Visa and MasterCard are looking at alternative models...

I have never been concerned regarding talent within FinTech. The reality is we have a real wealth of talent in the UK and thats before we start looking at the talent that comes from uni which is often untapped. 

Talent is global, the way FinTech companies work is often in a way that supports remote working. So talent can realistically be anywhere in the globe and be accessed. We need to get that into our mindset - talent doesnt need to now be physically attracted into the UK, rather it needs to be attracted to UK based companies...

I understand the concepts behind this, however, i feel that all too often we forget what constraints could be introduced. For example, clouds are not equal, not equal in terms of their underlying infrastructure capabilities, management options, technologies and therefore the capabilities you are able to build upon will be varied. By trying to impose interopability at this scale you are essentially saying that you cannot take advantage of an innovation any one specific cloud provider can offer you, therefore you could well fall behind competitors as they look to take advantage.

This is commonly seen in Finance and FinTech. As an industry we need to be mindful that technology is moving at an ever increasing rate, a rate that pulls away from Finance and even FinTech more each year. We need to be looking at the real challenge, and that is legacy systems, finance lack of understanding of the cloud or more worryingly - financial services based companies feeling they must own everything in order to be accountable. These are the areas that need addressing most if we wish to see financial institutions and fintech do well, to innovate and to provide improved customer outcomes.

I think paying moneygram to get up and running and using the service is one thing, it is quite missleading in terms of the narrative surrounding ripple and xrp. However, there is nothing overly shaddy about that, but raising funds in this fashion, if proven to be fact, that could well land ripple in some waters they would want to avoid.

It seems real fiat liquidity is really what everyone wants, even those who start using ODL, they want the fiat to incentivise them to use it....

Struggle to see security (or privacy) and google in the same sentance

Yes Azure allows you to "bring your own" now to solve this too. However, the challenge is still there re some of the underlying telecommunications for certain payment systems....However, it will all change over time.