Category Archives: Banking

Who Actually Builds Infrastructure? Strategy Decks vs. The Engineering Reality of Core Systems

By | September 3, 2026
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Woman interacting with AI financial assistant on desktop account dashboard

The payments industry has a growing division of labour, and it isn’t between national banks, payment operators, commercial banks and fin-techs. It is between the people who build infrastructure and the people who make slides about it. Every major regulatory shift—ISO 20022 migration, SEPA Instant mandates, Request to Pay, Open Finance—spawns an entire ecosystem of… Read More: Who Actually Builds Infrastructure? Strategy Decks vs. The Engineering Reality… »

Payment Infrastructure as a Strategic Asset: Balancing Sovereignty, Resilience, and Innovation

By | August 24, 2026
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Introduction In today’s increasingly interconnected financial ecosystem, payment infrastructure has evolved beyond a technical backbone into a strategic national asset. It underpins economic activity, enables financial inclusion, and shapes the resilience and competitiveness of entire economies. I hosted at Montran Africa Summit an recent expert panel featuring representatives from SWIFT and central banks and national… Read More: Payment Infrastructure as a Strategic Asset: Balancing Sovereignty, Resilience, and… »

Building a Self-Hosted Family Financial Hub: Wealthfolio, Actual Budget, and Authentik Behind a Unified Services Portal

By | August 23, 2026
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Modern family life comes with fragmented financial tools: checking accounts across different institutions, investment portfolios, retirement funds, kids’ allowances, and subscription trackers. Handing all this data to commercial SaaS platforms often means accepting recurring subscription costs, privacy compromises, and third-party tracking. I was looking also for a way to have a global look on all… Read More: Building a Self-Hosted Family Financial Hub: Wealthfolio, Actual Budget, and… »

Exposing the Wallet to AI agents: Connecting the Wise (TransferWise) API to Home Assistant and Antigravity (agy)

By | June 30, 2026
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Woman interacting with AI financial assistant on desktop account dashboard

In a developer-first smart environment, we bridge physical sensors, AC systems, and mesh radios. But we can go further: connecting financial APIs directly to our terminal workspace. By integrating the Wise (formerly TransferWise) API with Antigravity (agy) and Home Assistant, we can check multi-currency account balances and execute secure payments directly from our terminal or… Read More: Exposing the Wallet to AI agents: Connecting the Wise (TransferWise)… »

The Ultimate Business Travel Packing List: My Guide to a Seamless Trip

By | August 11, 2025
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Business travel can be a whirlwind of meetings, presentations, and networking. The last thing you need is to realize you’ve forgotten an essential item when you’re thousands of miles from home. A well-organized packing list is the cornerstone of a stress-free and productive business trip. Drawing inspiration from a comprehensive packing check-list, I have put… Read More: The Ultimate Business Travel Packing List: My Guide to a… »

Sales tricks I learned from #banking world

By | May 12, 2025
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I was reading lately some materials about sales in banking and it struck me that there is also a “language” specific to selling stuff to premium customers, both companies or individuals. Some of them I knew without knowing that I new them: that is called experience 🙂 Basically avoid all the words related to money,… Read More: Sales tricks I learned from #banking world »

Learn #banking, #fintech and #payments jargon: Lombard Loan in RTGS

By | May 12, 2025
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What is a Lombard Loan? The name ‘Lombard’ comes from a region in northern Italy. The Italian banking houses in the Lombardy Region had a rich history dating back to the Middle Ages. They are famous for first developing and popularizing the concept loaning money backed up by liquid assets. In RTGS context a Lombard… Read More: Learn #banking, #fintech and #payments jargon: Lombard Loan in RTGS »

Learn #banking, #fintech and #payments jargon: Payment V-Mode advantages

By | July 25, 2022
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As I mentioned in a previous post usually there are two channels of sending payments to a Real Time Gross Settlement System: using a VPN network that connects all the participant financial institutions to the RTGS . using a 3rd party network like SWIFT that connects all the participant financial institutions to the RTGS Bellow… Read More: Learn #banking, #fintech and #payments jargon: Payment V-Mode advantages »