Uncategorized

I find it interesting as we move towards Open Banking and Open APIs through regulations at both the UK and EU levels. The push is for data sharing with trusted third parties with user consent. All well and good, you would think, but several surveys point to it not being …

Following on from talking around the big ten tech themes last Friday, I thought I would follow up with five FinTech themes for right now.  This came out of a keynote speech I gave at Celero’s 9th annual technology conference in Canada last week. It was fun with the CEO, Bob …

I get lots of input from many sources, and one of the ones I like is the innovation survey of banking produced annually by EFMA with Accenture. It also usually proves to be one of the most read items on my blog – here’s the 2015 and 2016 reports – so, as …

I find more and more people are starting to understand that digital is a transformation project, not just an adjunct to business as usual. But there needs to be more of them. We can liken most people’s thinking about digital in banking for example, to the thinking within the media …

Before 2010, I was writing a lot about technology but it was all heavily geared towards regulations.  It was pretty dull, to be honest, but worthy.  MiFID and PSD were top of mind, along with Basel III and other global, European and domestic regulations.  I wrote a lot about regulations. …

A short time ago, I hosted an interesting group for the Nordic Finance Innovation meetings.  The meeting gathered several of the leading-edge Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) companies that have launched in the last few years including Bud, Clearbank, Leveris, Saxo Bank and Solaris.  Building on each others narrative it soon became clear …

I was talking to a group of Treasury folks and the guy before me gave a pitch about the CFO of the future.  The pitch focused upon how the CFO would be managing risk, incorporating different technologies, managing M&A, dealing with globalisation and so on and so forth.  I couldn’t …

You may be aware that I am a Non-Executive Director of 11:FS. If not, have you not been awake for the past year, and the success the guys are having? Not only have they won some of the biggest digital bank transformation projects in Europe – beating the likes of …

There are lots of reports of robots taking jobs from humans, and our fear for the future world of no work.  One paper from researchers at Oxford University predicts that 47% of American jobs are at “high risk” of computerisation over the next two decades.  Another research report issued in 2015 …

The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Although there had been numerous claims that Eugene Goostman passed the Turing test, that simply is not true. Let us just say that he cheated the test in a …

There’s an old joke about the guy who’s lost driving in the countryside who stops to ask a pedestrian how to get to the city.  The pedestrian replies: “oh, if you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here”, and this is exactly how banks feel today.  They want …

I was interviewed by UBS’s wealth management team a month ago, when the bitcoin bubble was in full bloom. The price had exploded, tripling in a month. Now that it has burst, the interview seems quite prescient so, here it is … UBS interview with Chris Skinner Cryptocurrencies – digital …

Things we’re reading today include … Britons face lifetime of debt as Bank of England warns over 35 year mortgages Former Shawbrook finance chief Wood to aid Co-op Bank rescue plan ECB eyes review of Deutsche Bank shareholders: source Westerman in the frame to be next chief executive at HSBC …

I was reflecting on a question posed to me recently by a Turkish banker.  He asked me: “why is it that the Western banks are always talking about legacy?”  I knew exactly what he was getting at, as the banks I deal with in USA, UK, France, Germany and other …

Things we’re reading today include … Exclusive: Ant Financial refiles for U.S. approval of MoneyGram deal – sources Lloyds Bank to abolish charges for unplanned overdrafts FCA: More taking out drawdown pensions without advice The end of cash? Cards now account for more than half of retail purchases, BRC finds …