All articles by Douglas Blakey

Douglas Blakey

Trust as a target: The parallels between application and romance fraud

Reflecting on the parallels between romance and application fraud, Dave Rossi explains why comparing these mechanisms and learning from them is essential if individuals, lenders and banks are to combat these threats effectively

Entries close 16 February for Mena retail and digital banking awards

The Mena Banking Excellence Awards: Retail, Digital & SME take place as part of Dubai Future Finance Week, positioning shortlisted banks alongside the region’s most senior finance and fintech leaders

Why trust will decide the next era of payments

Trust is no longer a soft concept or a brand attribute. It has become the hardest operational requirement in payments, explains Thomas Warsop

When payments systems make judgements, not transactions

Dr Gulzar Singh explores how modern payments infrastructures increasingly embed judgement – through automated declines, holds, reversals, and controls and how this shift reshapes customer experience, operational accountability, and institutional trust

FX: The $10bn opportunity airlines leave on the table 

Travellers’ banks typically run the currency conversion despite nearly half of passengers being unaware of banks’ hidden cross-currency fees. It’s a poor customer experience and a major lost revenue opportunity for airlines, says Damian Alonso

2026: The year BFSI shifts from modernisation ambition to governed intelligence

Pablo Cella explains why 2026 represents a pivotal year for the banking, financial services and insurance sector

The E&I advantage: Why Swift’s 2027 requirements could be a turning point for banks

Cian Fernando explains why banks that adopt native processing early will gain faster, more resilient operations, while those waiting until the 2027 deadline risk falling behind

Rebuilding payments around the merchant: A new standard for payments

Robert Kraal draws on over 20 years of experience building global acquiring and processing services at Adyen and Worldpay, and now co-founding Silverflow, a cloud-native payments platform designed to reduce cost and complexity while enabling innovation

Why the path to scalable stablecoins starts with onchain privacy

While stablecoins will keep growing – helped by soaring demand for digital dollars and US Treasury exposure – privacy remains the missing multiplier, particularly for large enterprises, explains Jason Delabays

Latin America’s push for financial inclusion is reshaping the region’s payments landscape

Therese Hudak explores the transformation of Latin America’s payments landscape through inclusion-driven innovation and the strategic importance of local payment methods for cross-border merchants