Chris Skinner's blog Shaping the future of finance

There are lies, darned lies and statistics. I often quote numbers in my presentations and get pretty annoyed if they’re wrong. I also prefer to take official sources rather than estimates. So I quote that last year China processed USD$40 trillion (277 trillion yuan) of …

Things we’re reading today include … Microfinance is driving many Sri Lankan borrowers to despair Malaysia charges 17 Goldman Sachs executives The chilling economic effects of Brexit uncertainty are intensifying Metro top and RBS bottom in banks’ customer ratings Countries most exposed to climate change …

Who wants transparency when you can have magic? Do you watch The Crown? If not, maybe you should as Series 3 is about to begin with Olivia Coleman, a great actress. The first two series weren’t bad either, with Netflix spending $130 million on the …

Things we’re reading today include: Barclays ends partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase BCR awards £10m to Atom bank ECB tells UK banks to speed up staff moves to EU as Brexit looms German economy slips back into negative growth German fintech N26 appeases regulators as …

I recently attended a FinTech conference where Henry Ma, Vice President & Chief Information Officer of WeBank, presented an update of how the bank is faring in China. For those unaware, WeBank is the offshoot of WeChat Pay, WeChat and Tencent, and focuses upon financial …

Things we’re reading today include … Danish bank launches world’s first negative interest rate mortgage Apple/Goldman Sachs: pay pals U.S. SEC to consider new guidance on investor use of proxy advisors What comes after Bretton Woods II? U.S. FTC chief says regulator is prepared to …

I am honoured and privileged to list on my profile that I have been an advisor to the White House, World Bank, World Economic Forum and United Nations. Now I can add TEDx Speaker. I was invited to TEDx Athens this year and delivered a …

Things we’re reading today include … German financial sector ‘expects No Deal’ and wants no more concessions from EU Could devaluation of China’s yuan trigger the next financial crisis? | Larry Elliott Investment bank job cuts are now a one-way street Digital challenger banks stockpile …

I received a long and lengthy article last week from Taylor Ryan, CMO at Valuer.ai (tryan@valuer.ai). The link provides a comprehensive article on European FinTech developments. It’s so good that I am happy to share it with y’all. Enjoy.   THE BEST FINTECH STARTUPS IN EUROPE …

Things we’re reading today include … Mexican banks report failures in processing card payments RBS ‘set to appoint Rose as next boss’ Sustainable funds more likely to be top performers, study shows And the next Bank of England governor will be … The bank that …

The main blog headlines are … Eyes wide open I sat through a soul-destroying meeting the other day. The meeting was with a C-level decision maker in a bank, and we were brainstorming. Ideas were flowing and, at the end of the ideation process, we …

There’s a regular itch that I feel in the back of my neck. I scratch it, but it won’t go away. The itch is an alarm call really, and it’s asking whether all this FinTech investment is worth it. Last year, $111.8 billion was invested …

Things we’re reading today include: Investec hit by shareholder protest over auditors Core elements of the global banking industry are moving to India HSBC sticks by US strategy despite missing targets Should we worry about a currency war? The trade war escalates, and the fog …

The big news yesterday is that Klarna is now Europe’s largest FinTech unicorn, valued at $5.5 billion, and the sixth largest FinTech unicorn worldwide (discounting Ant Financial, Ping An and co). According to CB Insights, Stripe is the largest FinTech unicorn (USA, $22.5 billion), followed …

Things we’re reading today include … Banker drowns himself in private swimming pool after becoming convinced he was going to prison Gold rises to $1,500 an ounce for first time in six years Can $5bn Klarna avoid the fate of other Swedish unicorns? Dollar will …

It’s the holiday season, so my wife dragged me off to Disneyland with the children. It was a great experience but, halfway through, I saw this t-shirt: “It was all started by a mouse” Now it wasn’t. It was started by Walt and his brother …

Things we’re reading today include … Mastercard buys Nets Group’s unit for $3.2bn Sweden’s Klarna becomes biggest fintech firm in Europe JPMorgan confirms winning bid to take majority stake in China fund JV No-deal Brexit: How might it affect the EU? Some Wall Street workers …

Over a decade ago, I curated a book about MiFID – the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. I don’t blog about this much these days, as my audience is firmly in the retail and payments technology space, but I still keep close track of the …

Things we’re reading today include … PIN the blame on us, says Monzo in mondo security blunder: Bank card codes stored in log files as plain text The new IMF chief should not be chosen by Europe alone | Amanda Khozi Mukwashi HSBC CEO Flint …

I sat through a soul-destroying meeting the other day. The meeting was with a C-level decision maker in a bank, and we were brainstorming. Ideas were flowing and, at the end of the ideation process, we went to see the C-level person to get his …

I was asked the other day about my worst prediction ever made. My answer may surprise some, but it was the view that intermediaries would disappear as technology takes over. I made that prediction about independent financial advisors back in the 1990s as call centres …

There are always questions about the future. It’s the only thing we don’t know. We don’t know what will happen in the future, so we ask lots of questions. What will happen when Amazon opens a bank? Will regulators create new rules about data sharing? …