Carving up the Gecko

At Core we’ve been getting more and more excited about insurance – not too worry, we’re not becoming actuaries anytime soon – and the potential for start-ups to disrupt that incredibly boring, but entirely gigantic whole industry. I owe a special gratitude to Thomas Smyth – who dropped into Core on a lark…

Show me the Money

Everyone in the financial services industry is very excited about the digitization of money.  How exciting it would be to forego cash (and those annoying checks), in favor of a more efficient world of commerce and assets.  At the hand of Bitcoin, the argument goes, or Apple Pay, or what-not…

Respek for Babak Armajani

There are, no doubt, many influences that play out on anyone’s career.  No different for me.  One of my most important ones was Babak Armajani.  He died a year ago, today. Babak had nothing to do with financial services for the emerging middle class, economic development, or financial inclusion.  To make…

Next PayDay: Govern Google

I began to explore new solutions for payday lending in this op-ed in the American Banker. The response (at least based on my Twitter feed) has been outspoken, with many perspectives for and against. I thought I’d use the opportunity to go into further depth on my blog. Google Self-Governance on Ad…

2014 Core Challenge Finalists

From almost 50 applicants we have selected the four most innovative ideas for serving the Emerging Middle Class to present to the largest expert audience on June 6th at CFSI and Sourcemedia’s EMERGE Forum in Core’s new home of Los Angeles. This year includes many firsts:  our first bitcoin finalist.…