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 got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks have spent far more on tech. To illustrate the point: JPMorgan spent over $15 billion last year, and is…
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I just spotted a blog by Alan Stapelberg, who is Group Product Manager for Google Wallet. Here’s his opening para: “Imagine starting a vacation like this: You arrive at the airport and breeze through security by tapping your phone to a reader, scanning your boarding pass and ID. While waiting to board, you grab a…
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I recently did a workshop with a major bank and asked them to send questions beforehand. This is a great way for me to develop a Q&A stream as they asked me lots of questions. The first big question was: What do banks need to do to be successful in the future? Well, if I…
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For the past decade, I’ve written a lot about platforms, ecosystems, digital transformation and connected structures so, when someone asked me the other day what’s hot today, my answer narrowed down to AI, APIs, no-code and Quantum. Why? Because these areas are the most exciting today. But what’s hot tomorrow? I wrote a blog the…
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I got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks have spent far more on tech. To illustrate the point: JPMorgan spent over $15 billion last year, and is…
Read MoreThere’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
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There’s nothing more annoying than when you get that note saying that you have just been charged $149 to renew your annual subscription to Youreanidiot.com. I subscribe to lots of different things and often forget that I subscribed. Then you suddenly find that $100s are leaving your account each year on things you no longer…
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I find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
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You may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
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For years, I’ve said that Big Tech will crunch the periphery of finance – payments, cards, credit and such like – but will not try and dig into the core of deposit-taking banking because it’s too regulated and difficult. Instead, they are far more likely to partner with banks than do banking. That view still…
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In a letter last week, democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen expressed concerns about bank and fintech partnerships last week, sparked by what looks like the collapse of Synapse. The letter is addressed to the heads of the FDIC, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comproller of the Currency. We write with concern…
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I’ve been talking about trust a lot lately, as that’s the basis of why you put money in a bank. You trust them. Why do you trust them? Well, it’s not because of their brand or their branch. It’s because they are licensed and promise to guarantee that they will not lose your money or,…
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Everyone seems to be talking about CBDCs: Central Bank Digital Currencies. They are being launched to stem the tide of cryptocurrencies, but it makes you ask: what’s the difference. A CBDC is backed by a government; a cryptocurrency is backed by decentralised democracy. Not much difference there then. The Bank of England defines CBDC as…
Read MoreI got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks have spent far more on tech. To illustrate the point: JPMorgan spent over $15 billion last year, and is…
Read MoreI recently did a workshop with a major bank and asked them to send questions beforehand. This is a great way for me to develop a Q&A stream as they asked me lots of questions. The first big question was: What do banks need to do to be successful in the future? Well, if I…
Read MoreFor years, we have talked about digital identities and how to make them work. The fact is that most countries are lagging behind whilst a few are leading, such as India with Aadhaar. Where it is working, it is totally transformative. For example, India moved from only 35% of the population able to access bank…
Read MoreThere’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
Read MoreThere’s nothing more annoying than when you get that note saying that you have just been charged $149 to renew your annual subscription to Youreanidiot.com. I subscribe to lots of different things and often forget that I subscribed. Then you suddenly find that $100s are leaving your account each year on things you no longer…
Read MoreI find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
Read More
It’s interesting when we look at how AI is developing. First things first, AI is a large bucket of development. It’s not one thing. It’s so many things that are then applied to specific areas (I blogged about this the other day). So, it’s interesting reading various reports today about how AI is developing in…
Read MoreYou may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
Read MoreFor years, I’ve said that Big Tech will crunch the periphery of finance – payments, cards, credit and such like – but will not try and dig into the core of deposit-taking banking because it’s too regulated and difficult. Instead, they are far more likely to partner with banks than do banking. That view still…
Read MoreThere’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
Read MoreI find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
Read MoreYou may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
Read More
It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald Trump vs Joe Biden, and Biden looking like a loser. Now, we have Donald…
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Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do? Well worth a read but I am biased, but some people aren’t….
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My blog the other day about asking what’s going to change is the wrong question was inspired by the quote from Jeff Bezos and this report from Team8: an unconventional view of the future of fintech https://team8.vc/rethink/fintech/2030-and-beyond/ They delve into three areas: What won’t change? What do we believe are the ‘immutable physical laws of…
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As someone who has been involved in bitcoin since 2011, you would think I would have retired by now to a beach in the Caribbean. Instead, I am still working as hard as ever, as most of my crypto hodling went south (checkout my crypto archives here). Speaking of which, there is a brand new…
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Anton Golib, Founder & President of SwissAssetDAO, just dropped an interesting update on DAO. What is a DAO? Well, let’s turn to Wikipedia: A decentralised autonomous organisation, sometimes called a decentralised autonomous corporation, is an organisation managed in whole or in part by decentralised computer program, with voting and finances handled through a blockchain. In general…
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I don’t like blogs on a Saturday – we should be relaxing – but this X update from one of the Winklevoss twins (Tyler) caught my eye and so I just thought I would leave it here. Here’s what Tyler posted: Today, the Fed confirmed that Operation Choke Point 2.0 remains in full swing, provided…
Read MoreI just spotted a blog by Alan Stapelberg, who is Group Product Manager for Google Wallet. Here’s his opening para: “Imagine starting a vacation like this: You arrive at the airport and breeze through security by tapping your phone to a reader, scanning your boarding pass and ID. While waiting to board, you grab a…
Read MoreI recently did a workshop with a major bank and asked them to send questions beforehand. This is a great way for me to develop a Q&A stream as they asked me lots of questions. The first big question was: What do banks need to do to be successful in the future? Well, if I…
Read MoreFor the past decade, I’ve written a lot about platforms, ecosystems, digital transformation and connected structures so, when someone asked me the other day what’s hot today, my answer narrowed down to AI, APIs, no-code and Quantum. Why? Because these areas are the most exciting today. But what’s hot tomorrow? I wrote a blog the…
Read MoreFor years, we have talked about digital identities and how to make them work. The fact is that most countries are lagging behind whilst a few are leading, such as India with Aadhaar. Where it is working, it is totally transformative. For example, India moved from only 35% of the population able to access bank…
Read MoreDuring my life, there have been many iconic marketing campaigns – the Shake & Vac comes to mind (Google it) – but Apple have definitely mastered the art. Their 1997 Crazy Ones campaign comes to mind … Why mention this today? Well, some friends have been posting about these ads including Bloomberg (are they a…
Read MoreI find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
Read More
I’ve spent a long time trying to get under the hood of Quantum Computing and always come back to Schrödinger’s Cat. Schrödinger’s Cat is a famous thought experiment that demonstrates the idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in two states at once until they’re observed. It asks you to imagine a cat in…
Read MoreYou may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
Read More
For over a decade technology has been transforming the financial world with the rise of the newly integrated markets of fintech. What is interesting is the nuance of this revolution is not playing out in Europe or America, but in Asia, Africa and South Americas. We have seen this since the late 2000s when everyone…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims – POLITICO Carlos Torres Vila (BBVA): “The reinvention of a bank doesn’t end” Mediobanca CEO says conditions not right for cross-border bank M&A in Europe | Reuters Can Andrea Orcel, Europe’s star banker, create a super-bank? (economist.com) UK strengthens role…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Bank of America is down: Users report their accounts showing empty balance during widespread outage | The Independent Russian court freezes funds of US banks JP Morgan and Mellon | Reuters Starling Bank fined £29m for ‘shockingly lax’ financial crime controls | The Guardian Starling Bank is simply not…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … DWP asks Universal Credit claimants to supply bank statements for benefit checks – Birmingham Live Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland banking apps are back online following a two-hour outage | Daily Mail EU cross-border bank mergers pose real risks, Nagel warns – POLITICO The end of LIBOR |…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Markets stop panicking when central bank start panicking | Forexlive Metro Bank completes sale of residential mortgage portfolio to NatWest (mortgagesolutions.co.uk) Clearbank eyes flurry of new products amid ‘huge demand’ for fintech (cityam.com) Open Banking Fintech TrueLayer Reports Growth In Revenue And Increase In Losses | Crowdfund Insider After…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Fintech has outgrown sandboxes. Now it needs airports | World Economic Forum PayPal’s CEO Marks a Year on the Job. The Race for Change at the Fintech Is a ‘Marathon.’ – Barron’s Has the ECB cracked the code for digital euro CBDC adoption? – Ledger Insights JP Morgan’s JPM…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … Everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers There’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Is Unicredit about to kickstart a wave of European bank mergers? (cityam.com) Fintech Company Chime Taps Morgan Stanley to Handle IPO in 2025 – Bloomberg Stripe-backed TrueLayer losses mount even as revenue triples | Sifted eToro Acquires Australian Investing App Spaceship for Up to $55 Million (financemagnates.com) Rise Of…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … 36% of Gen Z Pick FinTechs Over Banks for Online Payments (pymnts.com) E-money firms including Wise, Revolut face stricter safeguarding rules (proactiveinvestors.co.uk) Fintech Mubadala announces the acquisition of a stake in Revolut – ThePaypers Banks must refund fraud in five days but losses capped at £85,000 – BBC News…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … Everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers There’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Schrödinger’s Cat, qubits and the future of everything I’ve spent a long time trying to get under the hood of Quantum Computing and always come back to Schrödinger’s Cat. Schrödinger’s Cat is a famous thought experiment that demonstrates the idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … What does Kamala Harris think of crypto? It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … The secret sauce of Stripe’s success Your morning coffee purchase travels through 15 countries in 0.3 seconds. It’s not magic. It’s a global network of invisible digital pipes and two college dropouts saw their world-changing potential. Two brothers. Meet Patrick and John Collison: the architects of our digital…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Intelligent Money is now audible Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do?…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … Which European country worries the most about money? I just got pinged with some research about which countries are trying to save money the most from Finansvalp, a Swedish price comparison service and information site that writes about and compares banking services. Usually I ignore such surveys…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Is the fintech bloodbath over? I find it hard to believe that two years ago I was writing about a fintech bloodbath and, two years later, it continues. The drying up of funding, the post-pandemic recession, the way in which the markets were moving from funding to divesting….
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Does the US Presidential race hinge on crypto? I don’t like blogs on a Saturday – we should be relaxing – but this X update from one of the Winklevoss twins (Tyler) caught my eye and so I just thought I would leave it here. Here’s what Tyler…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Multisensory payments: is this the future? I just spotted a new innovation in India from Paytm, who I consider friends of mine after interviewing their founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma for Digital Human a few years ago. What’s the innovation? Talking payments. The Paytm soundbox – which works both online and…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … With great power, comes great threat #Revolut #PayPal With great power, comes great responsibility. It’s a quote from Spiderman, but actually not. It’s from Spiderman’s Uncle Ben. Well, it’s not tbh. It’s from Voltaire … or is it? Wherever it is from, it’s a great phrase. So, here’s…
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Global 100 - 2024 Winner
Chris Skinner - Financial Markets Advisor of the Year - The Finanser - UK 2023
Best Financial Markets Advisor of the Year 2023
