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Our trade organizations need to grow some. Most are too keen to maintain their friendly relationship to government. Providing feelgood soundbites to pad out govt press releases isn't really fighting fintech's corner. 

More government gaslighting. To balance the Chancellor's PR...

Reeves' first budget created a hostile environment for entrepreneurs and wealth creators in the UK.

GDP is now declining month on month. Inflation is now rising. Unemployment is now rising. The cost of servicing government debt is spiralling. Fundamental long term issues on welfare costs and the inexorable growth of the public sector are not being addressed.

Entrepreneurs now face higher costs to employ people in the UK. More constraining employment laws will arrive shortly. 

Personally entrepreneurs are derided as not being 'working' people. They are demonised for investing their time and risking their capital. The rewards for their efforts are consumed by increased and new personal taxes. Labour's approach is demotivating the successful individuals who actually know how to make growth happen in the frontline of business.

These are not the ingredients for sustaining London's position as a centre of fintech innovation.

Its unlikely talking about cutting red tape will turn things around for the UK.

In its first twelve months the Labour Government has turned the UK into a hostile environment for innovators and entrepreneurs. The cost of employing people has increased, personal and company taxes have increased, and the burden of employer's responsibilities is shortly to increase further. 

All the while, both the cost of financing the government's debt burden and unemployment have also increased. The economy has stalled with no plan and no understanding of how to achieve growth beyond borrowing further money to pour concrete. Very 1930s.

Labour has no empathy for the motivations of modern wealth creators, nor any understanding of the risk/reward equation that drives the people who actually make growth happen in this country.

That's a pretty damning headline for UK banks and the tech vendors that serve them.

Does anyone know if the Chancellor investing her own pension and that of the rest of the cabinet into one of these so called mega funds? 

Is anyone out there still believing anything Rachel Reeves says?

Is that the same Chancellor who spent her first 100 days talking down UK entrepreneurs' positive mindset with her message of economic doom to serve her party's political aims? 

Is that the same Chancellor that promised not to raise National Insurance tax? And then raised National Insurance tax.? Zero trust from here. And don't get me started on how chnages to employment rights and a four day week will improve UK productivity?

Is that the same Chancellor that utterly destroyed her relationship with small and medium-sized  business owners (which represent 2/3rds of UK GDP) by defining them as not being 'working' people? Any fintech entrepreneurs out there, not working?

Is that the 'cut & paste' Chancellor who can't do her own research or come up up with her own original thoughts?

Is that the Chancellor who is sitting inside an echo chamber fuelled by divisive 1970s class hatred, surrounded by people with *zero* experience of actual wealth creation, or generating growth through taking personal risk on board? Or even simply having ever worked in the private sector?

Anyone with any experience of being in the frontline of business knows that this Chancellor and her budget are crushingly bad for UK fintech entrepreneurs, risk takers, growth enablers and innovators. 

With this Chancellor there's no understanding, no empathy, no concept of a fair exchange of risk and reward.

See you in Singapore. Or Dubai. Or the US. 

Martin Whybrow - the longtime commentator on the banking systems marketplace - has posted his own recollections of George Koukis here.

Its not rocket science but I like this story from NatWest (everyone likes a league table). All banks need to up their game in turning scams, phishing and other security risks into accessible, popular topics of conversation among mainstream audiences. Communicating risks or dangers is counter-intuitive for banks but is the best way to educate consumers to better protect themselves.

Massive respect for Anne Boden. Always loved her atypical fintech disruptor approach - no t-shirt, no ponytail, no techbro attitude - just solid experience from deep inside the operational side of banking, and a healthy focus on getting to profitability. 

Wondering how many startups will have had a wake up call moment about the implications of the FSC deposit guarantee limits and will now be looking to spread their business banking arrangements from a fintech/neobank, and into a big, dull, safe, too big to fail, old school bank.