News & Updates

As I mentioned in my last post, just a month ago, my schedule for June was centred around a quite a lot of travelling. Couple of trips into London, then a week in Singapore followed by a few days in Lisbon, Portugal.
Singapore was a required trip for a confidential matter, all I can say is that the trip was successful and the objectives accomplished.

Lisbon was specifically for banxlocal.uk as we’d been shortlisted for the Finextra Euro Banking Association (EBAday) awards. It was a delight to put banxlocal on the global stage like this. 1400 delegates from the top banks in the Eurozone is quite an audience. Whilst we were not selected as outright winners, the reception from everyone on the floor to what we are doing was amazing. Everyone I spoke to, whether CEOs of established banks or startups like us operating in the fintech and banking arena, recognised that accessibility is a huge challenge and the solution banxlocal has addresses so many parts of the overall picture.

Looking forward, I have a slightly calmer agenda as we head into the summer, so as I write this on the longest day, I’m optimistic that I’ll bring great rewards from the effort spent with all the traveling!

We’re already two thirds of the way through May, and there is much to do before the month is out.

The usual disruption of bank holidays means that May does tend to fly past, especially in Guernsey as we have an extra bank holiday (Liberation Day) on the 9th.

The next couple of weeks though are busy, with a trip to London for banxlocal.uk to meet with some new partners and prospective investors, and lots to do with various other projects also.

I continue to receive new opportunities and am working specifically on a couple of exciting crypto projects just now. These mean that I’ll be off island quite a lot over the coming weeks.

Travelling for my work is something that I generally enjoy, but what I really need to do is get some travel plans together for a holiday, as the way this year is going the summer will be over before I know it! (I know, it’s not summer yet!)

More updates soon!

It’s always an interesting time of year, dependant on how the Easter and other religious holidays fall. This year we’ve have a couple of good clear weeks between them, and things have really moved on for me in this time.

I spend much of my day working on https://banxlocal.uk but being an entrepreneur means that I have other irons in the fire. Not least the mentoring and advisory work I do. Envestors is a platform that I specifically enjoy. Their investment opportunities appeal to me, but more so I enjoy connecting with the founders and entrepreneurs.

My main focus sits between sales, finance and technology. I encompass a wide range of disciplines between these key areas. Whether it’s go-to-market, marketing, tech development or forecasting.

It’s always good to meet new founders too. One thing I’m always amazed by is the breadth of oblique angles people look at things from. For example, I’ve never even considered that tattoos could be ‘non-vegan’ – I don’t have a tattoo and I’m not vegan, but when I heard about this ‘niche’ I was amazed that I’d not even considered it! Of course, in commercial terms maybe it’s limiting from the aspect of addressable market, or achievable sales. however, the niche is such that it needs consideration!

Having spent 18 months on banxlocal.uk I’ve finally realised that all good things come to those who wait, whilst we went ‘to market’ nearly a year ago, we were not ready and that, now, is plain to see. I will now say that we are now ready and will be attracting significant interest and our widening net of investor interest is going to make for an interesting few months ahead!

Until next time!

When I met the founder of banxlocal.uk (or at least the founder of the concept that has evolved into this project) I was acutely aware of the access to cash and financial exclusion issues on the UK’s high streets because of my time serving as a district councillor. The legacy banks have deserted the high street, leaving holes that potentially could never be filled.

banxlocal.uk does fill this gap, simply by bringing the new and innovative banks to the high street. Opening branches and reinvigorating the local economies.

Think about it, the high street economy NEEDS footfall! Banks provided that, people came into their town centres to do their financial transactions, for example switching savings or taking a loan or getting their holiday money, and then whilst there probably bought a coffee, a bunch of flowers and maybe some shoes they saw in the window of the shoe shop as they walked by.

Fast forward to so many towns now, the shoe shop, florist and coffee shop are seeing reduced footfall since the banks closed, so they then in turn look for alternative ways to sell, perhaps online (good luck coffee retailers!)

From a personal perspective banxlocal.uk has become a labour of love. I believe that change is possible, fundamentally, and I sincerely believe that the retail banking space (including service to SME’s) needs a shake up!

I’m posting this specific update for many reasons, firstly to get interaction from anyone out there passionate about the reversal of the trajectory I can see, then to engage with financiers who care, and whom I can easily demonstrate the multiples achievable through our hybrid model. But most importantly (to me) I want to change the world! The greed of the banks has been demonstrated time and again with bail outs and such like, yet we still allow this to continue where they decimate our communities…

Time for change I think.

Take a look at banxlocal.uk

It’s interesting how the sense of new beginnings affects our mental state. Seeing in 2024, despite a heavy cold and fever, brought with it a feeling of change that can only be psychological, but feels like something changed.

It was a slow start to January, the effects of the surgery I had pre-Christmas, plus a heavy cold/fever left me feeling physically drained, but nevertheless, inspired to get the year underway.

A trip to the UK for meetings on various topics, notably a few big strides for banxlocal, has meant the last two weeks of January have definitely made up for the slow start.

I have several new projects to get excited about, mostly tech related but one I’m especially pleased about is a property investment opportunity.

I’ve had a few minor successes already in terms of my investor/founder matchmaking, and am excited also to announce that I’m enrolled as an Associate Advisor for Envestors – which is something new and very interesting for me. I’ll update more on this in the coming weeks and months.

The positivity runs on, and with a few business trips and significant meetings on the horizon I’m ready for 2024!

I can’t say I’ll be sorry to leave 2023 behind, whilst a lot has happened and many new and exciting things have come from this year, it’s been hard work generally.

The year started badly for personal reasons with my wife’s health scare, and this I think caused my attention to be deflected (understandably) – which led me to playing ‘catch up’ on so many aspects of business.

I write this now having just had a minor surgical operation myself, which does mean that I’m offline really until the new year now. A welcome rest if I’m honest.

Positives from the year though are many. banxlocal.uk has taken much of my time, with the progress and shaping of the project really coming into its own now. I’m really looking forward to this playing out as we are poised and ready to start building and making physical progress.

My work with LeaseTeq AG has been good, and now the Series A is successfully across the line, attention can turn to the development into new territories and new technologies.

CoEfficient is unrecognisable this year (in a good way) the strides made in shaping the proposition, introduction of the partnership programme, the successful onboarding of many new clients really shows that hard work pays off.

I’m very excited for 2024 on various fronts, including developing Alnistar into a clearly defined consultancy, and starting our recruitment for the skilled business advisory team planned. I’m also going to be announcing a new property opportunity early in the new year, working with a US based developer.

I’ll write again early in the new year, but if you’re reading this, I hope you get a restful and happy festive break and are ready for a quick start in 2024!

After the unseasonably warm ‘late summer’ weather that we enjoyed up until Mid-October, the last few days have changed and we’re now really at the ‘business end’ of the year!

Since last posting, I’ve taken the wraps off the banxlocal.uk project, and successfully presented this at Tekex, in Guernsey.

The project is gathering pace and we’re in full flow with developments and discussions around partnerships, investment and our roadmap.

Bringing a service delivery channel to the retail banking space is exciting, if complex, but as we build our team and advisory board out, we’re attracting specialists who can really contribute to the delivery.

Our website will go live in the next couple of weeks and we’re now engaged with a wide variety of interested parties.

In other news, several other interesting projects have crossed my desk and whilst the investment landscape is still slow, there are ‘green shoots’ of optimism starting to reappear.

November will be a month of travelling to various meetings and appointments which I’m optimistic will set what has been a very disjointed year straight and see the results the efforts put in deserve. Exciting times!

The summer months have been a period of consolidation this year, often summer is a frustrating time when people are away and business stalls, but this year I have been in a position to close some ongoing projects, take stock of my position and come out of the other side with a much clearer vision for the future.

This future starts now, in the same way that September sees the school academic year start, and I too have the feeling of a ‘new year’ in my work.

Notably my work has now some very distinct threads, and I have committed much of my time to one project in particular. Currently listed as ‘Stealth Mode’ on my Linked In profile, I anticipate being able to open up on this exciting project in the coming weeks, and certainly by the time we get into October and my next update.

Taking time off in August is not something I have tended to do historically, but given the patchy weather it was good to kick back and head off to the sunshine for some days, and certainly now, with the clarity this break provided, I can see clearly what the steps to success look like as we head towards year end!

The months of May and June saw a huge amount of activity for me, and culminated with a much-needed holiday in Spain.

The workload saw some successes in several of the projects I’m working with, and indeed saw me becoming involved in a variety of new markets and sectors.

Notably, the tokenisation of real-world-assets was a key portion of my work. This is a sector of particular interest to me and the world generally right now. Bringing assets on chain is seen as possibly the most practical usage of blockchain technology, serving to offer provenance for the items in way not seen before.

I also took time to broaden my knowledge in the space, blockchain, crypto and the wider remit of fintech are such fast moving environments keeping abreast of new ideas, developments and use cases is all important.

Equally with regulation and compliance moving at pace in the various jurisdictions I operate in, keeping up to date with this has been integral to my workload in the past weeks.

Summer now beckons, and I’m expecting a flurry of activity in the coming weeks.

After the dramas of the family health scare in February, I omitted to post an update during March at all as I’ve been super busy trying to reorganise the priorities in my life.

Now it’s mid-April and I’ve reached the point where I understand better what I need to do, and importantly, how to achieve this.

My work is important to me, and I love the ebb and flow my typical week takes jumping from meetings, topics and projects from call to call, but now I have some clear hours’ worth of project work ahead of me and my focus is on completing this effectively.

Research is such an important part of business, and I see often businesses failing in this area which ultimately leads to them failing generally.

It’s never been more important to understand the customer, and a business that doesn’t keep up with these demands and needs will not only struggle to retain its clients, it will also fail to attract new.

I had to travel a few times since my last update, into England a couple of times and then to Switzerland and Italy. Every time I travel I come home with new perspective and ideas. It’s always nice to be home again, but immediately I am I am thinking about where my life will take me next.

Opportunities are out there when you are in the right frame of mind to notice them. I think the months of February and March 2023 will go down as testing my ability to remain positive, and now we’re into April optimism and discovery await!