Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

IKEA’s Bank: Their Reality vs My Vision

I was reading a fascinating case study about Ikano Bank, which is the bank of IKEA. The bank is headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, serves customers across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the UK, Poland, Germany and Austria, offering savings and loan products for consumers, sales support services for retailers, and leasing and factoring solutions for businesses….

UK banks have lost at least a third of market share to fintechs

A couple of things hit my radar late last week. The first was a prediction by Bain & Co that challenger banks would own a third of the UK banking market by 2030. This coincided with the news of Revolut finally getting their UK banking licence. It’s only taken five years. Let’s dive in. The…

The Finanser’s Week: 9th March – 15th March 2026

This week’s main discussions include … What is x402 and why will it transform payments? The next era of payments: when money moves at internet speed I just found an interesting report by KPMG about a new payment standard called x402. Have you heard of it? If you haven’t, it’s built to ensure open, free, frictionless…

What is x402 and why will it transform payments?

The next era of payments: when money moves at internet speed I just found an interesting report by KPMG about a new payment standard called x402. Have you heard of it? If you haven’t, it’s built to ensure open, free, frictionless payments, and could be revolutionary for embedded, invisible finance. Built by Coinbase, the x402 protocol…

Banking on the Cloud

I was just reading Amazon Web Services’ report about Banking on the Cloud. It’s biased – everything has to be in the cloud of course – but it’s interesting. It also struck me that I was talking about banking on the cloud in 2008. It has taken a long time, and is still developing. Here is…

The US Treasury’s bid for smart regulation

Innovation vs Illicit Finance: Why the Future of Crypto Compliance is Intelligent The US Treasury just produced an interesting document about digital assets, innovation and criminal activity. It’s well worht a read, so download the report here … but, if you can’t be bothered, here is my view. There is a familiar pattern whenever a new…

We are pretty much branchless and cashless now

Thirty years ago, I wrote a strategy report for NCR, where I was working at the time, saying that the future of banking would be branchless and cashless, which was not great news for a company selling cash machines. Now, we live in a world that is nearing branchless and cashless. I’ve written quite a…

How to avoid sanctions using crypto

I probably shouldn’t say this so, if I get arrested, please send money and help me but, over ten years ago, I told Russian and Iranian contacts to put all their money into bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to avoid sanctions. Yes, it’s my fault. I’m sure there are others out there, but the key thing about…

The Finanser’s Week: 2nd March – 8th March 2026

This week’s main discussions include … The Intelligence Revolution I just did a webinar sponsored by Xpand IT. Here is a summary: From Physical to Digital to Intelligent: The Third Revolution of Finance Let me start with a simple question. How many of you think we’re living through a period of unprecedented change in finance?…

The Intelligence Revolution

I just did a webinar sponsored by Xpand IT. Here is a summary: From Physical to Digital to Intelligent: The Third Revolution of Finance Let me start with a simple question. How many of you think we’re living through a period of unprecedented change in finance? We’re not living through change. We’re living through a…