David G.W Birch is an author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services. He leads 15Mb Ltd (his advisory practice), is Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion (the secure electronic transactions consultancy that he helped to found), Non-Executive Chairman of Digiseq Ltd, Ambassador for Jersey for Fintech, a member of the Governing Council of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (the London-based think tank) and holds number of board-level advistory roles.

He is an Honorary President of EEMA, the European e-ID Association and a Digital Fellow at the University of Exeter Business School’s DIGIT Lab.

Before helping to found Consult Hyperion in 1986, he spent several years working as a consultant in Europe, the Far East and North America.

Dave was named one of the global top 15 favorite sources of business information (Wired magazine) and one of the top ten most influential voices in banking (Financial Brand); created one of the top 25 “must read’ financial IT blogs; was found to be one of the top ten Twitter accounts followed by innovators, along with Bill Gates and Richard Branson (PR Daily); was ranked in the top three most influential people in London’s FinTech community (City A.M.), was voted one of the European “Top 40” people in digital financial services (Financial News), was listed of the world’s top 100 fintech influencers (FinTech Weekly), rated Europe’s most influential commentator on emerging payments (Total Payments) and was awarded Contributor of the Year 2018 by the Emerging Payments Association.

Described at the Oxford Internet Institute as “one of Britain’s most acute observers of the internet and social networks”, in The Telegraph as “one of the world’s leading experts on digital money”, in The Independent as a “grade-A geek” and by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation as “one of the most user-friendly of the UK’s uber-techies”, he is a contributor at Forbes, a columnist for Financial World magazine and has written for publications ranging from the Parliamentary IT Review to The Financial Times. He also wrote a column in The Guardian for many years. A media commentator on electronic business issues, he has appeared on BBC television and radio, Sky and other channels around the world.

His latest book “The Currency Cold War” was published in May 2020. The book looks at the significant economic and political ramifications of the move towards digital money and examines both private (eg, Libra) and public (eg, China) approache to conclude that business and government strategies for digital currency should be a priority.

His previous book “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From money we understand to money that understands us” was published in 2017 with a foreword by Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. In the London School of Economics (LSE) Review of Books it was described as a timely and illuminating contribution which should be widely read by graduate students of finance, financial law and related topics, as well as policymakers involved in financial regulation.

The London Review of Books called his book “Identity is the New Money” (2014) fresh, original, wide-ranging and the best book on general issues around new forms of money.

David graduated from the University of Southampton with a B.Sc (Hons.) in Physics.