Decentralised finance, the 'end of banks' - and what comes next

Loading player...
Simon Dingle and Steven Sidley believe a revolution is coming to the world of finance, and it could mean the end of banks – at least as we know them.
Dingle and Sidley join TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod to discuss their newly published book on “decentralised finance”, or DeFi, and unpack why they think the staid world of banking is poised for a radical overhaul – one that will lead to the death of financial institutions that don’t adapt to a new world underpinned by cryptography and blockchains.
In the prologue to the book, called Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralised Finance and the End of Banks, the authors state that “great fortunes will be made and lost” in DeFi’s wake.
Banks, they say, will go through a “painful shudder of reinvention”. They also state that the changes brought about by DeFi will make the trillion-dollar rise of bitcoin look "pedestrian". It will disrupt and displace companies, and even entire industries, they say.
Dingle and Sidley unpack why they believe DeFi is going to usher in the biggest technology-led disruption in a generation and what it ultimately will means for banks, individuals and even nation states.
25 Mar 2022 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS+ | How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service

For most of business history, buying technology meant owning it. Capital was set aside, servers and laptops were hauled into the building alongside the software licences, and the business then sweated those assets for as long as it practically could. In the age of AI, that logic is starting to…
6 Aug 19 min

TCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs

For small and medium enterprises, technology must do one thing above all else: get out of the way. Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT departments, SMEs run lean – and every hour spent wrestling with systems is an hour not spent on the business itself. In this episode of TechCentral’s…
30 Jul 37 min

TCS | Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT

Communications regulator Icasa’s draft rapid deployment regulations – a critical intervention for the sector – risk failing unless the regulator brings municipalities into the process, according to Nomvuyiso Batyi, CEO of the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT). Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said…
30 Jul 29 min

TCS+ | A smarter approach to cloud for South African businesses

South African businesses are spending millions on cloud – and many have very little to show for it. That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel Chacko, executive head of department for cloud services at Vodacom Business, and Jonathan Oaker,…
28 Jul 21 min

TCS | How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see

Optasia is on target to distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works. Formerly known as…
23 Jul 25 min