Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner. The Finanser discusses all things fintech, finance, banking, technology and, most importantly, the future. Chris Skinner has been voted the most influential technologist in Britain and received a lifetime achievement award for his visionary approach to the future of money from the Payments Association. He has advised the…
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We are all worried about the threat of AI. AI will make humans redundant. AI will take all of our jobs. AI is an enemy. This always happens when technological innovation progresses humanity to a new level of thinking and working. In fact, every few years the world invents a new reason to panic about…
Read More
One of the more interesting articles I read over the weekend wasn’t about artificial intelligence, stablecoins or digital banks. It was about something far more uncomfortable: regret. Specifically, the financial regrets people reach in their sixties. At first glance, the list looks predictable: people wish they had saved more, invested earlier, worried less about spending on…
Read More
I was thinking about the companies I reference often as hot fintech start-ups and then realised that they are no longer start-ups. They are companies building the infrastructure, intelligence and operating systems that banks, businesses and consumers increasingly depend upon. Who are they? At the top of the league sits Stripe. Worth around $180 billion,…
Read More
This week’s main blog discussions include … How technology has integrated politics and power There are moments when an unexpected event reveals more about the world than years of official speeches and carefully crafted reports. The recent leak of Peter Thiel’s invitation-only network, Dialog, feels like one of those moments. This is not because it…
Read More
I was thinking about the companies I reference often as hot fintech start-ups and then realised that they are no longer start-ups. They are companies building the infrastructure, intelligence and operating systems that banks, businesses and consumers increasingly depend upon. Who are they? At the top of the league sits Stripe. Worth around $180 billion,…
Read MoreThere are moments when an unexpected event reveals more about the world than years of official speeches and carefully crafted reports. The recent leak of Peter Thiel’s invitation-only network, Dialog, feels like one of those moments. This is not because it exposes some great conspiracy, but because it offers a glimpse into the conversations taking…
Read MoreFor years, one of fintech’s favourite hobbies has been complaining about regulation. Every new rule is another obstacle. Another compliance cost. Another reason why innovation was supposedly impossible. Startups would proudly describe themselves as moving fast and breaking things, while regulators were portrayed as the people standing in the way of progress. Then something interesting…
Read MoreI see a story about Revolut every day, several times a day. As one of the most remarkable success stories in modern banking, it’s not surprising. In just a decade, it has grown from a prepaid travel card into a financial super app serving tens of millions of customers across dozens of countries and a…
Read More
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. I’ve finally got there, although my friend Dave Birch will probably roll his eyes at the density of buzzwords. Still, both ideas – AI-native banking and quantum computing – are no longer fringe. They sit squarely at the centre of fintech’s next wave of disruption. The…
Read More
Almost every innovation is met by people who believe it will destroy our ability to earn a living. The Luddites feared mechanisation. Clerks feared computers. Bank managers feared the internet. Taxi drivers feared ride-sharing apps. Retailers feared ecommerce. And now everyone fears AI. The latest prediction is that artificial intelligence will eliminate millions of jobs,…
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Thirty years ago, a journalist laughed when I predicted that someone would one day make a payment from the top of Mount Everest. In 2013, it came true. Why am I thinking about this today? Because I am going somewhere that has a hidden secret. Going where? Uzbekistan. The hidden secret? Payme. Payme is one…
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For years, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has sold itself as the future of finance: transparent, decentralised, unstoppable. Now one of the most respected security figures in crypto is saying: get out whilst you still can. Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of OpenZeppelin, believes AI has fundamentally changed the security equation in decentralised finance but his latest warning is…
Read More
For years, banks have been criticised for fraud. Today, a growing number of bankers are asking a different question: why are banks paying for fraud that originates elsewhere? Across the world, consumer groups, regulators, banks and campaigners are increasingly pointing to the same source of online scams: Meta’s platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram. This is…
Read MoreOne of the more interesting articles I read over the weekend wasn’t about artificial intelligence, stablecoins or digital banks. It was about something far more uncomfortable: regret. Specifically, the financial regrets people reach in their sixties. At first glance, the list looks predictable: people wish they had saved more, invested earlier, worried less about spending on…
Read MoreI was thinking about the companies I reference often as hot fintech start-ups and then realised that they are no longer start-ups. They are companies building the infrastructure, intelligence and operating systems that banks, businesses and consumers increasingly depend upon. Who are they? At the top of the league sits Stripe. Worth around $180 billion,…
Read MoreFor years, one of fintech’s favourite hobbies has been complaining about regulation. Every new rule is another obstacle. Another compliance cost. Another reason why innovation was supposedly impossible. Startups would proudly describe themselves as moving fast and breaking things, while regulators were portrayed as the people standing in the way of progress. Then something interesting…
Read MoreI see a story about Revolut every day, several times a day. As one of the most remarkable success stories in modern banking, it’s not surprising. In just a decade, it has grown from a prepaid travel card into a financial super app serving tens of millions of customers across dozens of countries and a…
Read MoreI’ve been meaning to write this for a while. I’ve finally got there, although my friend Dave Birch will probably roll his eyes at the density of buzzwords. Still, both ideas – AI-native banking and quantum computing – are no longer fringe. They sit squarely at the centre of fintech’s next wave of disruption. The…
Read MoreAlmost every innovation is met by people who believe it will destroy our ability to earn a living. The Luddites feared mechanisation. Clerks feared computers. Bank managers feared the internet. Taxi drivers feared ride-sharing apps. Retailers feared ecommerce. And now everyone fears AI. The latest prediction is that artificial intelligence will eliminate millions of jobs,…
Read MoreThirty years ago, a journalist laughed when I predicted that someone would one day make a payment from the top of Mount Everest. In 2013, it came true. Why am I thinking about this today? Because I am going somewhere that has a hidden secret. Going where? Uzbekistan. The hidden secret? Payme. Payme is one…
Read MoreFor years, banks have been criticised for fraud. Today, a growing number of bankers are asking a different question: why are banks paying for fraud that originates elsewhere? Across the world, consumer groups, regulators, banks and campaigners are increasingly pointing to the same source of online scams: Meta’s platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram. This is…
Read More
Barclays Bank wrote an article with the core message that tokenisation is moving finance from a world of messaging and reconciliation to a world of programmable, instantly settled value, which will be the most significant change to money since the arrival of electronic banking. They argue that tokenisation is the next major stage in the…
Read More
I find it fascinating that one of the most interesting debates about the future of money in Britain is no longer being driven by the Bank of England, the Treasury or economists. Instead, it has become a political issue, largely thanks to Nigel Farage (the man who received £5 million from a crypto donor). What…
Read MoreFor years, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has sold itself as the future of finance: transparent, decentralised, unstoppable. Now one of the most respected security figures in crypto is saying: get out whilst you still can. Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of OpenZeppelin, believes AI has fundamentally changed the security equation in decentralised finance but his latest warning is…
Read MoreBarclays Bank wrote an article with the core message that tokenisation is moving finance from a world of messaging and reconciliation to a world of programmable, instantly settled value, which will be the most significant change to money since the arrival of electronic banking. They argue that tokenisation is the next major stage in the…
Read More
I’ve just launched another new book! After the successful launch of Intelligent Bank with Huawei a few weeks ago I had, in the meantime, developed another book: Diary of a Ponzi Scheme. The scheme is all about Clint who creates a “Token Fund”. Investing in digital currencies and real world asset tokens, he suckers friends, contacts and his network…
Read More
For the last twenty years, I have had many arguments with crypto advocates about Liberterian versus State governance. Now, the crypto guys are the government. During those years, people worried that politics would be captured by Wall Street, Big Oil or Big Tech, but the emerging power bloc is crypto money and artificial intelligence. These…
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The European Central Bank just published a speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and, underneath all the central banker language, is a pretty simple message: stablecoins are starting to look less like a crypto experiment and more like a new form of private money. More importantly, because stablecoins are…
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I spent the morning thinking about the bank of the future. It’s something I do every day. You could be simple and say that it’s embedded, invisible, everywhere, all the time. And that is true. But that is today’s bank, not tomorrows. I then have this debate about currencies. What currency do we believe in?…
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I just discovered that Ben McKenzie is taking the cryptocurrency industry head-on. Many of you will remember Ben from The O.C. but he’s now a little bit more serious. In fact, he wrote a book: Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. Oh! That sounds a bit challenging, but why would an actor become an anti-crypto…
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The Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute (BISI) produced a document yesterday about the risk of cryptocurrency to democracy . Seriously? Cryptocurrency is a libertarian dream that gives all of us a democratic vote. What risk is there? Well, let’s dig into the detail as this is not about “innovation in payments” or “the future of…
Read MoreWe are all worried about the threat of AI. AI will make humans redundant. AI will take all of our jobs. AI is an enemy. This always happens when technological innovation progresses humanity to a new level of thinking and working. In fact, every few years the world invents a new reason to panic about…
Read MoreOne of the more interesting articles I read over the weekend wasn’t about artificial intelligence, stablecoins or digital banks. It was about something far more uncomfortable: regret. Specifically, the financial regrets people reach in their sixties. At first glance, the list looks predictable: people wish they had saved more, invested earlier, worried less about spending on…
Read MoreI was thinking about the companies I reference often as hot fintech start-ups and then realised that they are no longer start-ups. They are companies building the infrastructure, intelligence and operating systems that banks, businesses and consumers increasingly depend upon. Who are they? At the top of the league sits Stripe. Worth around $180 billion,…
Read MoreThere are moments when an unexpected event reveals more about the world than years of official speeches and carefully crafted reports. The recent leak of Peter Thiel’s invitation-only network, Dialog, feels like one of those moments. This is not because it exposes some great conspiracy, but because it offers a glimpse into the conversations taking…
Read MoreI see a story about Revolut every day, several times a day. As one of the most remarkable success stories in modern banking, it’s not surprising. In just a decade, it has grown from a prepaid travel card into a financial super app serving tens of millions of customers across dozens of countries and a…
Read More
I was fascinated to pick up on an article in The Financial Times last week about LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate. It got a bad vibe because the world discovered bankers were rigging the system but, ever since, we have been looking for a replacement. What is it? LIBOR is about a number. A single number…
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Every conference I attend these days seems obsessed with the same question: how many jobs will AI destroy? It’s understandable. The headlines are dramatic and every week brings another announcement of a company replacing people with algorithms, yet I increasingly think we’re asking the wrong question as the bigger issue is not what happens when…
Read MoreBarclays Bank wrote an article with the core message that tokenisation is moving finance from a world of messaging and reconciliation to a world of programmable, instantly settled value, which will be the most significant change to money since the arrival of electronic banking. They argue that tokenisation is the next major stage in the…
Read MoreI’ve just launched another new book! After the successful launch of Intelligent Bank with Huawei a few weeks ago I had, in the meantime, developed another book: Diary of a Ponzi Scheme. The scheme is all about Clint who creates a “Token Fund”. Investing in digital currencies and real world asset tokens, he suckers friends, contacts and his network…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … For whom the MiCA bell tolls: Crypto firms race to beat EU deadline Fintech industry welcomes FCA’s new crypto rules Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority’s approach to joint regulation of systemic stablecoin issuers BIS report flags stablecoins’ flaws, dollarization risk Danske Bank extends AWS partnership for AI…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Crypto world rocked as new regulations push hundreds of platforms out of the European market, including giant Binance Atom Bank sale nears collapse Why would a building society buy Atom Bank? World Bank drops climate finance targets in renewed action plan Australian treasurer says alleged access of prime minister’s…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Ill-timed deregulation is weakening bank resilience Banks and UK Finance working on a voluntary digital verification service Brexit has made inflation worse, claims Bank of England chief economist Does the Lady Protect too much? The Bank of England recalibrates its approach to systemic stablecoins, but concerns remain JP Morgan…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … How technology has integrated politics and power There are moments when an unexpected event reveals more about the world than years of official speeches and carefully crafted reports. The recent leak of Peter Thiel’s invitation-only network, Dialog, feels like one of those moments. This is not because it…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … European FinTech funding projections for 2026 took a hit after a 55% YoY drop in large deals Bank of England loosens crypto rules after Nigel Farage leads backlash Sterling-denominated systemic stablecoins, a report from the Bank of England Banking Modernization at Scale: A Conversation with Patrick Wright, National Australia…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Elon Musk predicts mass and energy will replace dollar: ‘Conventional money will no longer be relevant’ Meta weighs investing in Indian fintech Cred UK needs crypto special forces to stop Russia funding sabotage on British streets, expert warns UK banks asked to stress-test their systems against ‘plausible’ global recession…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Why are people scared of AI? Almost every innovation is met by people who believe it will destroy our ability to earn a living. The Luddites feared mechanisation. Clerks feared computers. Bank managers feared the internet. Taxi drivers feared ride-sharing apps. Retailers feared ecommerce. And now everyone fears…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Farage trying to block ‘Britcoin’ plans that could be costly for billionaire donor Farage is still shilling for his crypto-billionaire benefator Brexit cost 6% of UK economy, Bank of England company data suggests Coinbase’s UK CEO on Crypto’s Next Growth Wave Microsoft discovers new lightweight backdoor that steals cryptocurrency…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … How technology has integrated politics and power There are moments when an unexpected event reveals more about the world than years of official speeches and carefully crafted reports. The recent leak of Peter Thiel’s invitation-only network, Dialog, feels like one of those moments. This is not because it…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Why are people scared of AI? Almost every innovation is met by people who believe it will destroy our ability to earn a living. The Luddites feared mechanisation. Clerks feared computers. Bank managers feared the internet. Taxi drivers feared ride-sharing apps. Retailers feared ecommerce. And now everyone fears…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Diary of a Ponzi Scheme and it’s all about tokenisation I’ve just launched another new book! After the successful launch of Intelligent Bank with Huawei a few weeks ago I had, in the meantime, developed another book: Diary of a Ponzi Scheme. The scheme is all about Clint who creates a “Token…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Monzo, Revolut and Starling: the quiet emergence of Britain’s Banking Champions For years, the conversation around digital banks focused on whether they could survive. Today, the question is very different: what are they becoming? The latest results from Monzo, Revolut and Starling reveal something remarkable. These institutions are…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … “Intelligent Bank” is officially launched I spent last week in China with Huawei. It was fantastic and, finally, it gave me the chance to announce and release my new book Intelligent Bank. Regular blog readers will know that I’ve been talking about this as the third fintech revolution but I…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … What banks are doing with AI The funny thing about AI in banking is that the headlines are completely wrong. Every week there’s another breathless prediction claiming that AI will “replace banks”, “eliminate core systems” or “create autonomous financial institutions”. Reading these articles, you would think that we…
Read MoreThis week’s blog discussions included … Everyone is lying to you about money I just discovered that Ben McKenzie is taking the cryptocurrency industry head-on. Many of you will remember Ben from The O.C. but he’s now a little bit more serious. In fact, he wrote a book: Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. Oh!…
Read MoreThis week’s blog discussions included … Let’s be honest: retail banking is broken Over the past decade, the industry has aggressively optimised for cost and digital efficiency and, in doing so, it has quietly dismantled the human infrastructure that made banking work for millions of people. Start with the facts. In the UK alone, more…
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This week’s main discussions include … If people do not trust the system, they will not use it I just got the LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) Risk Intelligence report which makes clear that we have crossed a line. Fraud is no longer something that happens at the edges of the financial system. It has…
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This week’s main discussions include … Will global fintech banks destroy traditional banking? I was recently interviewed by the International Finance Magazine about Revolut getting their UK banking licence and what this means to banks in general. Here’s the discussion: With Revolut securing a UK banking licence after years of scrutiny, do you see this as part…
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