It may seem like the financial industry has settled down since the financial crisis, but it is still being reshaped by deep, persisting undercurrents. The big banks continue to adapt to regulatory changes making them less profitable. And just when it looked like Big Tech was fearful of the moat of rules and restrictions surrounding the financial industry, Facebook unveiled its own cryptocurrency. Venture capital firms, meanwhile, have been pouring money into the field, hoping to break into one of the last remaining endeavors that hasn’t been disrupted by tech. Deal makers like Evercore are mounting a serious challenge to top-tier banks by hiring the most talented, connected bankers alive. It’s been a wild ride and it’s only just getting started.
To stay up to speed, check out the people and places below, as the business of money changes faster than ever.
Quartz
- You can follow our Future of Finance stories, where we cover everything from mobile banking in Africa to the Bank of England’s efforts to create a new global electronic currency to replace the dollar.
- You can sign up for our weekly brief about the Future of Finance.
- Check out Matt DeSilva, who is based in Los Angeles and writes about cryptocurrencies.
- Allison Schrager is an economist and self-proclaimed pension geek. She writes about economics and (sometimes) the future of interest rates.
People
- Bloomberg’s Matt Levine brings to bear his previous life as a mergers and acquisitions attorney and Goldman Sachs banker in Money Stuff.
- QED Investors’ Frank Rotman, formerly of Capital One, publishes his musings on his blog, Confessions of a Fintech Junkie.
- Kate Rooney covers fintech at CNBC, James Cook writes about tech and neobanks at the Telegraph, and Ryan Weeks reports on fintech at Financial News. Alastair Marsh and Edward Robinson are on the beat at Bloomberg, as is Anna Irerra at Reuters.
Books
- Karen Mills was the administrator at the US Small Business Administration during the Obama presidency. Her book Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream dives into the challenges of financing for small companies, and the opportunities that technology could open up to them.
- If you want to better understand the big state owned banks that underpin China’s financial system, try Red Capitalism by Carl Walter and Fraser Howie.
- You can’t understand the past decade of finance without understanding the meltdown in 2018. Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons, is written by heavyweights Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Henry Paulson, the architects of the emergency US rescue programs.
- The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties is by development economist Paul Collier. His book probes the growing rift between flourishing urban places and the rural, provincial areas in decline.
Podcasts
- The FT’s Banking Weekly podcast features the newspaper’s journalists, who go through the latest financial industry stories.
- Bloomberg Opinion columnist Barry Ritholtz talks with thinkers and big wigs in the Masters in Business podcast.
- National Public Radio’s Planet Money is a classic of the genre and is among the best at explaining business and finance.
- American Banker podcasts cover industry specifics like voice banking, regulation, and the invasion by Big Tech.
- Also at Bloomberg, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway talk about the slightly wonkier side of finance in Odd Lots.