David Birch
Author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services
*Fees are a guide only. Exact cost will be dependent on requirements and are subject to change.
About David Birch
Before co-founding the specialist financial technology consultancy Consult Hyperion in 1986, David worked as a consultant across Europe, the Far East and North America. This extensive international and commercial experience enables him to translate complex developments into clear, engaging insights for senior business audiences.
David has received considerable recognition for his influence within banking and fintech. Wired named him among its global top 15 favourite sources of business information, while The Financial Brand included him among the ten most influential voices in banking. He has also been ranked among the world’s leading fintech influencers, named one of the three most influential figures in London’s fintech community by City A.M. and recognised as Europe’s most influential commentator on emerging payments by Total Payments.
A regular contributor to the debate around the future of finance, David writes for Forbes and is a columnist for Financial World. His work has also appeared in publications including the Financial Times, The Guardian and the Parliamentary IT Review. As a media commentator on electronic business and financial technology, he has appeared on BBC television and radio, Sky and international channels.
David is the author of several acclaimed books examining the evolution of money and identity. His latest, Money in the Metaverse, co-authored with Victoria Richardson and launched in 2024, explores how financial services, digital assets and digital identity can create value within virtual worlds.
His earlier books include The Currency Cold War, which examines the economic and political implications of private and central bank digital currencies; Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From Money We Understand to Money That Understands Us; and Identity Is the New Money. His writing has been widely praised for bringing clarity, originality and commercial relevance to some of the most important questions facing the financial world.
With a background in physics and decades spent at the forefront of fintech, David brings intellectual authority, wit and a highly accessible approach to conversations about money, identity, payments and the future of financial services.
Typical talking points include Digital Identity, Agentic AI, Stablecoins, AI Payments, Open Banking, Digital Financial Services, Payments, Fintechs/Techfins, Cryptocurrencies, Central Bank Digital Currencies, Blockchain, NFTs, Tokens etc.
All David’s keynotes are personalised to your event and audience and are designed to encourage delegates to be left inspired debating what they need to do next in their industry.
To book Keynote Speaker David Birch, contact The Speakers Agency on +44(0)1332 810481 or email enquiries@thespeakersagency.com
Five Strategic Drivers Shaping Digital Financial Services
This keynote offers a sharp, strategic view of the five forces shaping financial services right now: AI, resilience, digital identity, digital assets and stablecoins. It explains why these are not separate technology trends, but tightly coupled drivers that together reshape how trust is created, how risk propagates and how value moves.
Incorporating recent work on resilience with Lionel Grosclaude, the talk makes the case that resilience has moved from the operational margins to the strategic core. AI determines who makes decisions, digital identity determines who is allowed to act, digital assets and stablecoins redefine what money is – and resilience determines whether the system holds together when it is stressed. A concise, board-level perspective on what really matters next, and why.
Agentic ID: KYA – the Key to Agentic Finance
As finance becomes automated, the most important question is no longer “Who are you?” but “Who is acting for you?” This keynote explores why Agentic ID: Know Your Agent (KYA) is the missing foundation of agentic finance. Drawing on my paper with Jelena Hoffart, it explains how intelligent agents making decisions, moving money and negotiating on behalf of humans and organisations fundamentally break today’s KYC, authentication and liability models.
If banks are going to serve bots, regulators are going to regulate bots, and wallets are going to be operated by bots, then those agents must have identity, authority, accountability and constraints. This talk sets out what Agentic ID actually means in practice, why it is central to trust in AI-driven finance, and why without it, agentic finance is not innovative – it’s simply dangerous.
What will Agentic Commerce Mean for Payments & Money?
Agentic commerce marks the moment when transactions stop being initiated by people and start being executed by machines. This keynote explores what happens when intelligent agents negotiate, buy, sell and pay other agents at speed, at scale and without humans in the loop, drawing on my paper with Debbie Gamble.
As agents become economic actors, wallets become autonomous and money shifts from a passive store of value into an active control system. The talk explains what this means for banks, payment providers and regulators — and why the biggest change is not new technology, but a fundamental rethink of how money works when software, not people, is doing the shopping.
Your Banks AI Strategy is Wrong
Banks are racing to deploy AI to cut costs, automate call centres and polish the digital lipstick on the same old products. That’s a mistake. This keynote argues that the real AI revolution in banking does not come from banks using smarter machines, but from customers doing so. Drawing on my work with Kirsty Rutter on non-human customers, the talk explores a near-future in which your “customers” are no longer people at all, but intelligent agents acting on their behalf – bots that compare, negotiate and transact relentlessly in pursuit of financial health. In that world, brand, loyalty and margin look very different, and many current AI strategies are not just inadequate but actively misdirected. This keynote sets out what changes when banks stop selling to humans and start serving machines, and why getting this wrong is an existential error, not a technology one.
Client Feedback
"Dave is a great speaker and has profound insights, sometimes dressed as jokes. They remain profound."
Clara Durodie
"How #identity can be explained by what sounds like standup comedy from the extraordinary David Birch – but isn’t. Dead serious, lucid analysis."
Andrew Bud
"I had the enormous pleasure of hearing David Birch for the first time at Digital Jersey yesterday. Not only does he talk sense he lulls the audience in to a false sense of security by pretending that he’s doing stand up."
Sharp
"He truly is a master of informative, entertaining and thought provoking speeches."
Sharp
"I’m very disappointed not to have had the opportunity to see your keynote as I’ve had rave reviews from multiple people! Thank you for your valuable contribution."
The Banking Scene
"On behalf of the Organizing Team, for the 6th Annual Fitspa Conference 2024, I thank you for delivering a phenomenal Speaker and person in Dave Birch. There was more knowledge than time and conversations continue to unpack his delivery online and offline."
Fitspa
"From the 5 star feedback we have had, I think it is fair to say that the event was a huge success. Demand for the topic was enormous and we saw a lot of new faces as well as existing experts in the field!"
Unblocked
"David was fantastic. He was well prepared and provided a magnificent session. It was wonderful. David is clearly knowledgeable and gave us the most amazing insights of all! It was one of the most interesting sessions this week."
African Bank
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LexisNexis Risk Solutions
