Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner. The Finanser discusses all things FinTech, finance, banking, technology and, most importantly, the future. To make an enquiry about having Chris write or speak for you, here’s an illustration of his presentations … … Chris Skinner has regularly forecast the changes in finance driven by technology. He is…
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I saw an interesting comment the other day that got lots of shares, likes and clicks: fintech founders MUST have some experience in banking or financial services background first before they are funded. Many fintech neophytes destroy so much value not out of deliberate actions but just pure ignorance. Funnily enough the person making this…
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I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which states that: “if the use of fintech grows rapidly outside of the regulated sector, it can generate risks to market conduct and integrity”. Shock, horror! And so? “New fintech developments might quickly become systemic due to network effects (for example, when…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … Can you answer these four questions? It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have…
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It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have a cat? Pork bellies or Orange juice? They are probably too cryptic for…
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Things we’re reading today include … Bank of England costing taxpayers eye-watering £24bn to cover huge losses | Politics | News | Express.co.uk Bank of England launches hunt for ‘unconscious bias’ in finance industry (telegraph.co.uk) Coinbase (COIN) Entered Into Bank of Spain’s Crypto Registry (coindesk.com) Are “everything apps” the future of fintech? – Tech.eu Former…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … A crypto firm sent a disability worker $10m by mistake. Months later she was arrested at an Australian airport | The Guardian State-owned British Business Bank makes £147m annual loss – BBC News ‘China’s World Bank’ plans to triple climate change lending by 2030 | Financial Times (ft.com) NatWest…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Can you answer these four questions? It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include: EU bank chief warns against ‘Colonialism 2.0’ as green transition progresses – EURACTIV.com U.S. FSC supports the “Anti-Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)” bill – Fintech Org Blog (fintechinfo.org) Bitcoin (BTC) Price Slides as USD, Interest Rates Surge (coindesk.com) Launching a new digital proposition: Lloyds Bank 360 – Lloyds Banking Group…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Monzo to be leading banking app by 2024 (fintech.global) ‘No proof’ bank accounts being closed over views, says watchdog – BBC News Germany will become the sick man of Europe without change: Deutsche Bank (cnbc.com) Ex-Deutsche Bank Employee Pleads Guilty to Crypto Fraud – Decrypt Fintech giant Ant Group…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Deutsche Bank struggles with fallout after huge Postbank IT migration | Financial Times Majority of Americans are concerned about bank branch closures | Daily Mail Online Nigel Farage fury as regulator finds no evidence of bank account closures due to political views | Business News | Sky News Revolut…
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I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which states that: “if the use of fintech grows rapidly outside of the regulated sector, it can generate risks to market conduct and integrity”. Shock, horror! And so? “New fintech developments might quickly become systemic due to network effects (for example, when…
Read More
It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have a cat? Pork bellies or Orange juice? They are probably too cryptic for…
Read More
I just got a copy of Gartner’s emerging risks report for the second quarter 2023. A summary of the report is below but, before you read that, the charts speak volumes. First, we talk about PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technological – forces for change. Right now, unsurprisingly, most change forces are based upon economic…
Read More
When Open Banking launched in the UK, it got a drubbing from the media (I blogged about it). The issue is that the media and banks believe that sharing your financial data will compromise your security. That attitude still persists today, which is why Open Banking hasn’t really taken off. By way of example, five years…
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Every day I am finding security on my banking transactions more and more annoying. The reason? I have to confirm via a secondary approval the transaction; I then have to confirm the secondary approval with the vendor with a further secondary approval with the financial provider; I then have to process a further approval through…
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There are several regular discussions in finance that come and go on a perennial basis. The idea that everything will become cashless and branchless is one of the main ones, but is that real? It seems to be if you believe what you read but, under the hood, there are some interesting developments. For example,…
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I’ve said for years that the mobile network revolution includes everyone. Anyone who can find a friend with a mobile telephone can talk, trade and transact. Many have mocked my message, but the message is consistent: technology has transformed our planet. This is evidenced by that there are almost four billion more mobile connections than people…
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It’s interesting times when regulators seem to regularly clamp down on fintech firms that are out of the starting gate. The biggest area they are trying to grapple with is cryptocurrencies, obviously, but they seem to be failing there: The rise and continuing fall of Sam Bankman-Fried: A step-by-step guide to his case so far…
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It’s coming. It’s been talked about for years. It’s finally here. Tokens. Physical and digital assets are being tokenized. In fact, maybe your DNA has been tokenized. Soon, everything will be tokenized. We talked about this years ago, but it’s notable that VISA, SWIFT, BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are now tokenizing. In a number…
Read More
I saw an interesting comment the other day that got lots of shares, likes and clicks: fintech founders MUST have some experience in banking or financial services background first before they are funded. Many fintech neophytes destroy so much value not out of deliberate actions but just pure ignorance. Funnily enough the person making this…
Read MoreI was intrigued by a new report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which states that: “if the use of fintech grows rapidly outside of the regulated sector, it can generate risks to market conduct and integrity”. Shock, horror! And so? “New fintech developments might quickly become systemic due to network effects (for example, when…
Read MoreIt made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have a cat? Pork bellies or Orange juice? They are probably too cryptic for…
Read MoreWhen Open Banking launched in the UK, it got a drubbing from the media (I blogged about it). The issue is that the media and banks believe that sharing your financial data will compromise your security. That attitude still persists today, which is why Open Banking hasn’t really taken off. By way of example, five years…
Read More
KPMG’s recent Global Analysis of FinTech Funding Report shows a mixed landscape for fintech funding in H1 of 2023. The Americas, Asia Pacific (ASPAC), and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) saw different rsults when it came to investments in venture capital and private equity funding. The key takeaways from the report for H1’23 included…
Read MoreIt’s interesting times when regulators seem to regularly clamp down on fintech firms that are out of the starting gate. The biggest area they are trying to grapple with is cryptocurrencies, obviously, but they seem to be failing there: The rise and continuing fall of Sam Bankman-Fried: A step-by-step guide to his case so far…
Read MoreIt’s coming. It’s been talked about for years. It’s finally here. Tokens. Physical and digital assets are being tokenized. In fact, maybe your DNA has been tokenized. Soon, everything will be tokenized. We talked about this years ago, but it’s notable that VISA, SWIFT, BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are now tokenizing. In a number…
Read More
I bumped into an interesting online debate the other day, that started with Brian Armstrong, the CEO and founder of Coinbase, who always has something worthwhile to say. His opening line on a recent Coinbase blog is a good example: Coinbase is working to update the financial system that was built over 100 years ago by enabling…
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Times change. We can see that from the massive success of some firms, like NuBank, that there is good news out there in some parts of the world. Having said that, 2023 seems to be blighted by an awful lot of bad news. A company regularly picked over by the media is the massive failure…
Read MoreIt’s coming. It’s been talked about for years. It’s finally here. Tokens. Physical and digital assets are being tokenized. In fact, maybe your DNA has been tokenized. Soon, everything will be tokenized. We talked about this years ago, but it’s notable that VISA, SWIFT, BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are now tokenizing. In a number…
Read More
It used to be simple: you died, left a will, told everyone where the money was, they shared it. Now, is it more complex? You die, leave a will, tell everyone where the money is … but the password was changed or has expired or your account is inaccessible for various reasons, as in you…
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We’ve talked for years about the need for micropayments. I can remember in the 1990s that the pay-per-view model demanded a payment for a single piece of information. Why should I subscribe for $30 a month to a website where one article has become relevant? Surely, I could pay $0.50 cents to read that one…
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I think it is time to launch a website of cryptoscams so yes, I’ve done it. It’s called cryptocrim.com, a space where all the crypto criminals will be thrown into Room 101, a place where you can consign anything you hate to history (although George Orwell had other ideas). The new site will be live…
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I spend a lot of time thinking about the way the network is impacting finance. The network is the network of citizens, enabled by mobile smartphones, the internet and cloud computing. The result is that everything can be developed and delivered on a peer-to-peer decentralised basis. The knock-on effect is that governments and centralised institutions…
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Those who read my blog often know that I see FinTech as the partnership between old bankers and young technology visionaries or, in context, a parent-child relationship. The parent wants stability and to maintain the status quo; the child wants to break down barriers and change the world. That’s a tough alignment, especially if you…
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I stumbled over this phrase the other day – The Office of the CFO – and thought it was interesting. It’s interesting because, as a Chief Financial Officer, CFO, you need to show knowledge and depth about money. That’s your job. So, as a CFO, what would you do today? Place money in a bank…
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I caused quite a debate on twitter over the weekend when sharing the supposed fact that one bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of energy as a US household uses over a month. ONE Bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of energy as a US household uses over a monthhttps://t.co/1z5HgzRLRo — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) June…
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FedNow is launching in July, as mentioned in March. Interestingly, there has been a huge debate about this as Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Junior tweeted: The Fed just announced it will introduce its “FedNow” Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in July. CBDCs grease the slippery slope to financial slavery and political tyranny. While cash transactions are…
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I recently was introduced to VDK Bank, a community bank based in Ghent, Belgium, by Rik Coeckelbergs. The bank has done something interesting, launching a three-sided coin. The idea is to triple your thinking. The three-dimensional bank focuses upon customer, community and then the third dimension is to think about how money impacts the planet….
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During the summer, we are struck by massive wildfires taking place across the Americas and Europe. The devastation to Hawaii is specifically notable, but what about Greece, Tenerife and Canada and the rest. This is not normal. Then you go from wildfires in California to floods and mudslides in the same place. This is not…
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I was recently wondering which banks are the most green. Names come to mind like Co-operative Bank (UK), Triodos Bank (Netherlands), Alandsbanken (Finland), MyBank (China), Amalgamated Bank (America) and more, but they are few and far between. Some are committed and some are just paying lip service or, as we say, greenwashing. The difference is…
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I spotted an interview with Richard Curtis the other day about his campaign to change how pensions funds invest. The campaign is called Make my money matter and asks institutional investors, pension funds and banks to ensure that they invest in a sustainable way. Discussing this in an interview with Akshat Rathi in the podcast…
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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she expected former Mastercard chief executive Ajay Banga to be elected president of the World Bank as nominations drew to a close. It is not surprising as, when nominations closed at 6pm in Washington yesterday, there were no other publicly declared candidates. Who is Mr. Banga? According to Wikipedia, Ajay…
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I’ve been subscribed to Make My Money Matter for a while. It’s a movement started by Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis – he of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame – and is trying to put pressure on pension funds to influence financial institutions to only invest in things that protect our future, as in…
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Last year I invited Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, to write a monthly column explaining her motivations and methods. You can read those, and other climate and ESG related blogs, here. One specific column she contributed was asking how they could justify breaking bank windows. Extinction Rebellion lobbied HSBC and Barclays Bank specifically in…
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I was surprised to be voted one of the leading thinkers on Climate Change by Thinkers360 … Delighted to find myself as one of the top thinkers about #ClimateChange 2022 from @thinkers360https://t.co/gKj0JwICSZ — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) January 3, 2023 It’s probably based on my last book, and I don’t think of myself as a climate…
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I haven’t written about Green Finance for a while, but then saw this over on Bloomberg and couldn’t resist sharing. The need for a global greenwashing framework by Tim Quinson, Bloomberg Greenwashing may be the biggest risk to the future of ESG investing, but there’s no firm agreement on what it means in a legal…
Read MoreI just got a copy of Gartner’s emerging risks report for the second quarter 2023. A summary of the report is below but, before you read that, the charts speak volumes. First, we talk about PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technological – forces for change. Right now, unsurprisingly, most change forces are based upon economic…
Read MoreIt’s coming. It’s been talked about for years. It’s finally here. Tokens. Physical and digital assets are being tokenized. In fact, maybe your DNA has been tokenized. Soon, everything will be tokenized. We talked about this years ago, but it’s notable that VISA, SWIFT, BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are now tokenizing. In a number…
Read More
In June, the EU put forward proposals for a new Payment Services Directive, PSD3. Having been involved in these developments since their inception in the 2000s, I was intrigued to read the text of PSD3, particularly as the main point bankers made about PSD2 is that they were forced to open up to Third Party…
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There have been quite a lot of annoying changes to twitter in recent months. Rebranded as X with a scruffy looking logo, the service is trying to monetize its users by making the services more and more difficult to use … unless you pay. From an owners view, that makes sense. The platform needs to…
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You all know that I love future trend watching and so when I stumbled across Roland Berger’s Compendium of Future Trends through 2050 … how could I resist? After all, I have already given my view on the world of 2050, but Roland Berger may be more credible as they ar a global consulting firm competing…
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As someone who has been writing most of his life, and specifically books for two decades, the singular focus on technology and finance has been an interesting journey. The breakthrough came in the early 2010s for me, when Digital Bank was released. Since then, I’ve travelled the world meeting visionaries in banking, finance and technology,…
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Thinking about money being inside my head, it already is in many ways. When I go around paying for things, I’m not focused upon my balances but on living my life. In the back of my head is that awareness that debits are going down and credits up, but the actual numbers are generic and…
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I was thinking about embedded, intelligent finance and imagining the future. There are many scenarios, but one that I kept returning to is when you have infi inside (intelligent finance inside). A chip in your brain, and you can run your life on automatic. It may seem phantasmagorical but there are several examples of where…
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My typical day is spent with news channels in the background. It makes me feel like I’m in an office. The non-stop chat and talk of people about the problems of our world. Thing is that, the more you hear global news, the more you get depressed. Good news is not news. The celeb gossip,…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … Can you answer these four questions? It made me laugh. Someone posed the question: what is the hiring process for fintech? After a short thought, my reply was to ask the candidate four questions: What do you think about banks? Define Python for me. Why did Schrodinger have…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … A new Payment Services Directive, PSD3: what’s in it? In June, the EU put forward proposals for a new Payment Services Directive, PSD3. Having been involved in these developments since their inception in the 2000s, I was intrigued to read the text of PSD3, particularly as the…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … What happens to crypto when you die? It used to be simple: you died, left a will, told everyone where the money was, they shared it. Now, is it more complex? You die, leave a will, tell everyone where the money is … but the password was changed…
Read More
This week’s main blog discussions included … 50 shades of green – is your bank sustainable? I was recently wondering which banks are the most green. Names come to mind like Co-operative Bank (UK), Triodos Bank (Netherlands), Alandsbanken (Finland), MyBank (China), Amalgamated Bank (America) and more, but they are few and far between. Some are…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … The best challenger bank in the world? Brazil’s FinTech giant Nubank just crushed its 2Q 2023 earnings. We have never seen growth like NU’s in any challenger bank. In fact, some would claim – including me – that this ten-year-old company is not only the strongest neobank in…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … What will happen when your brain is ’embedded’? I was thinking about embedded, intelligent finance and imagining the future. There are many scenarios, but one that I kept returning to is when you have infi inside (intelligent finance inside). A chip in your brain, and you can run…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … You can’t handle the truth My typical day is spent with news channels in the background. It makes me feel like I’m in an office. The non-stop chat and talk of people about the problems of our world. Thing is that, the more you hear global news,…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … Is the City going the way of the shopping mall? I’ve blogged several times that, as people move to online everything, the retail main street stores and shopping malls are dying. In a similar fashion, bank branches are closing faster than ever and becoming restaurants or coffee houses…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Should a bank close a customer’s account because they disagree with their views? From The Times: ‘Until last summer, Nigel Farage had dealt with the same relationship manager at Coutts for years. Then Mark Pierce left for the rival private bank Arbuthnot Latham, and responsibility for the outspoken…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … The Evolution of Fintech and Its Impact on Banking: A Paradigm Shift by ChrisGPT I asked ChatGPT to write an article in my style. Here’s what it came up with: Introduction In the fast-paced world of finance, few have embraced the power of technology and innovation as passionately…
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Thinkers360 Thought Leader
Chris Skinner - Financial Markets Advisor of the Year - The Finanser - UK 2023
Best Financial Markets Advisor of the Year 2023
