Mark Waterfield: Is The Financial Industry Pointing Us To The Future Of Technology?

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

FinTech is disrupting the banking and lending business. Is it going to make your life that much easier?
60 Minutes had a big feature on FinTech last night: 60 Minutes - Shaking Up The Financial Industry.
On Wednesday, I'll be taking part in a Canadian Marketing Association event featuring Don Tapscott. Tapscott is widely known for writing a book called the Digital Economy back in 1994. That's when there wasn't even a web browser. Since then, he has written countless bestselling books and advises the world's biggest companies and governments on our digital world. Now, he's back with another book, Blockchain Revolution (which he wrote with his son, Alex Tapscott). Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin and many believe that Don and Alex are right: this is the next, big disruptive technology. So, what exactly is Blockchain?
Facebook's numbers are crazy amazing. Facebook added 60 million more users in the first three months of the year, according to its first-quarter earnings statement released last week. That means it now has 1.65 billion monthly active users, a 15% increase over the first quarter of 2015. Mobile users account for 1.51 billion of the total, a 21% year-over-year increase. Mobile revenue accounted for 82% of all ad sales, up from 73% in the first quarter of 2015. Facebook's advertising revenue in the first three months of 2016 totalled $5.2 billion, a 57% increase over the same period last year. It also reported total revenue of $5.4 billion.
App of the week: Passport Parking.