All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
The invisible workforce: Why service staff are the real infrastructure of digital banking
How the people behind the screens protect customer confidence, operational continuity, and the moral reliability of retail banking, writes Dr Gulzar Singh
UK budget – financial services sector reaction
Financial services sector reaction to the budget is predictably mixed but assuredly more considered than the majority of political comment with the Opposition leader dismissing the measures as ‘a smorgasbord of misery’
Entries closing soon for RBI Asia Trailblazer Awards 2026
Only 14 days remain for banks across APAC to enter the RBI Asia Trailblazer Awards 2026, with submissions closing on 10 December
How financial services tech has lost sight of the humans behind apps
Dan Scholey discusses the current technological developments in financial services which, he believes, are inadvertently overlooking a critical element: the human customers at the heart of it all
AI meets instinct: Why the human relationship still defines real estate lending
With AI already transforming UK real estate lending as more than 85% of lenders now use AI to streamline operations and enhance decision-making, Daniel Austin assesses the implications for the sector
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The great balancing act: Why fraud prevention must move upstream
With banks under increasing pressure to deliver seamless digital experience while tightening financial crime controls, Thara Brooks explains why there is a need for ecosystem-wide collaboration
The merchant economy: How integrated payments are re-architecting banking
Dr Gulzar Singh explains why the next decade of growth will belong to banks that master merchant ecosystems
October in European tech venture: Scaling trends, emerging patterns
Expert analysis from Zubr Capital’s Oleg Khuaenov provides investors, founders, and policymakers with a data-informed look at how capital flows and collaboration models are evolving across Europe
Building smarter deals in a fragmented world
Balagopal Ravibalan outlines how a ‘deal operating layer’ can help banks cut time-to-market, reduce revenue leakage and improve oversight and explains what the next step in intelligent automation looks like
Q3 UK current account switching up by 7% y-o-y
Account switching rises in the latest quarter but YTD switching is down by 20%. In the latest brand-by-brand numbers, Nationwide records the highest net switching gains, ahead of Co-op, Monzo and HSBC