BANKING EDITION: Banks racing into Gen despite the risks and banks being a GenAI leader matters less than you think! Bank real-time blockchain payments are here and disruptive!
Western banks on the retreat as Asian banks create a new monetary order?
Artwork of the day: Detail from “The Lady with an Ermine,” Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491
Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine is one of the most important works in all of Western art.
In painting “The Lady with an Ermine”, da Vinci created the first modern portrait in the history of art, surpassing the traditions of the time. It was also one of just four portraits of women that Leonardo created in his lifetime, along with the Mona Lisa, Ginevra de Benci and the ‘Portrait of an unknown woman’.
Leonardo “In a sense freed from its frame the subject of the painting, who turned as she is in gaze and gesture beyond the field of vision, is not frozen, as was the custom of the time, in a stiff profile or three-quarter profile, yet is somehow alive.” (Marek Rostworowski)
I picked this painting today because her calm gaze captivated me and brought me inner peace. It is my gift to anyone in banking or financial services facing the pending disruption. Hopefully, it will help them to find peace!
This week it’s banks, banks and more banks
This week it’s banks, banks and more banks!
That’s also why I picked today’s artwork by Leonardo DaVinci, it exudes calm. The same calm bankers will need with all of the disruptive tech and global changes hitting them!
Every story today features banks and shows just how much disruption they face! Three of our articles are about GenAI in banking. You can just feel the GenAI layoffs coming, can’t you?
Still, GenAI is not without risks to the banks deploying it and Singapore’s MAS laid out the major risks banks face with GenAI. Because of these risks being the number one ranked AI bank today doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow!
The other two articles are equally disruptive. The first on blockchain shows how banks implement blockchain for real-time payment networks.
Now there is a lesson for GenAI use in this blockchain story. Blockchain hype peaked around 2017 and it took 7 years for real systems to be built and put to work. GenAI will also not disrupt banking overnight.
The final story is about a new “monetary order” coming out of Asia. As Asia and its banks become more wealthy they will be another disruptor for Western banks to deal with. This is a geopolitical shift of the largest scale.
Articles that caught my interest this week!
This Is How Huawei Shocked America With a Smartphone
I loved this 7 minute video by Bloomberg outlining the cell phone that shouldn’t exist. The Huawei Mate 60 is a breakthrough for China’s chip manufacturing and shows how ineffective sanctions can be.
The Subtle Art of Slow: The CBDC Adoption Journey
I love the emphasis on slow! Many think that CBDC is like crypto where things happen quickly. As a result many pundits, particularly those associated with crypto, claim that CBDCs are failing or having difficulty. The expectations are wrong and not reasonable for national currencies that must work the first time and every time for citizens. They take a while to build. Article: here
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