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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In case you didn’t notice, this week was the week of the #SingaporeFinTechFestival. Although I was in Asia last week, this week I’ve been invited to be in America and so could not attend. Nevertheless, my good friends at Ant Group have been there and made some major announcements A good example is this one,…
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We are living in a cost of living crisis. Boil this down to the essentials: can you afford to live? Many of us cannot. Energy bills have gone through the roof; basic essentials from food to shampoo are twice the cost they were; and the idea of a holiday for many has become a dream,…
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The internet isn’t working today. My phone is stuck on a screen saying trying to connect. My laptop has this continuing circle of stuckness. It is seriously annoying. When digital breaks down, it leaves you stranded. That’s OK. It’s cool. Except that, when you depend upon digital, it screws up your day, especially for those…
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A graduate with a degree in engineering is looking at future work opportunities. Do they create a start-up? Do they join a start-up? Do they join a Big Tech? It is unlikely they would think about joining a large old corporation like a bank or retailer, but many do. Why? Well, there is an issue…
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Things we’re reading today include … Mastercard says wide adoption of CBDCs is ‘difficult’ (cnbc.com) Singapore to pilot wholesale central bank digital currencies in 2024 (cnbc.com) Cathie Wood explains why crypto market will explode ‘to $25 trillion in 2030’ – TheStreet What Crash? Black People Are Still Crypto’s Biggest Believers | WIRED Half of European…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … ‘My First Crypto Sex Party’ is the tip of the Bitcoin erotica iceberg – Blockworks UK-based digital bank Kroo surpasses £1m crowdfunding goal (fintech.global) Does Crypto Finance Hamas and Other Terrorists? (coindesk.com) Germany’s Commerzbank Wins Crypto Custody License (coindesk.com) Fintech’s Pivotal Role in Financial Inclusion and Clean Energy Transitions…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … UK banks caught up in Europe’s biggest-ever tax fraud of £10billion | This is Money China’s new financial watchdog gets teeth to take on fintech risks | South China Morning Post (scmp.com) British fintech Wise reports 234% jump in profit (cnbc.com) A Fintech Titan In Community Banker’s Clothing (forbes.com)…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Scammers are increasingly using AI to mimic bank details and steal money | Express.co.uk Banks see tech giants as the next big threat – AltFi Capital to crypto: London’s burgeoning position as the world’s digital asset hub – CityAM Net zero policies are pushing up inflation, says Bank of…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Are we cashless and branchless now? I’ve just been travelling Asia and went on a trip where the entrance to the first attraction – the batcave! – was two ringgits. That’s Malaysian currency and the equivalent of around half a dollar. As per usual these days, I have…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Newfound Realism Boosts Fallen Fintech Star Adyen (wsj.com) Zilch triples revenue as BNPL provider gears up for IPO (uktech.news) AI Fintech Black Ore Raises $60 Million in Deal Led by Andreessen Horowitz – Bloomberg Crypto investment fraud warning issued by major bank | The Independent Bitcoin approaches $38,000 and…
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In case you didn’t notice, this week was the week of the #SingaporeFinTechFestival. Although I was in Asia last week, this week I’ve been invited to be in America and so could not attend. Nevertheless, my good friends at Ant Group have been there and made some major announcements A good example is this one,…
Read More
We are living in a cost of living crisis. Boil this down to the essentials: can you afford to live? Many of us cannot. Energy bills have gone through the roof; basic essentials from food to shampoo are twice the cost they were; and the idea of a holiday for many has become a dream,…
Read More
The internet isn’t working today. My phone is stuck on a screen saying trying to connect. My laptop has this continuing circle of stuckness. It is seriously annoying. When digital breaks down, it leaves you stranded. That’s OK. It’s cool. Except that, when you depend upon digital, it screws up your day, especially for those…
Read More
During 2023 a change has taken place in banking that has been little reported or, at least in my circles, little discussed. The change is Basel IV. A bit like most regulations, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) review and update their rules every five to ten years or so, and gradually introduce more…
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Six years ago, I wrote about John Cryan, the then CEO of Deutsche Bank, saying that most people in the bank would lose their jobs to AI. He stated at a German conference that “people behaving like robots doing mechanical things, tomorrow we’re going to have robots behaving like people”. Thirty years ago, showing my…
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If banking was delivered like a song, how would it feel? Would it have emotion and belief, or just be delivered as words and music by a robot? The difference between customer engagement and customer service is pretty much the difference between delivering a stage song and being on the stage. I am a huge…
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In a land known as Fed, there are two superheroes: AML and KYC. They fly around the world looking for villains attacking the financial markets and aim to zap them. It is a difficult task, and getting more and more difficult every day, but they try … and they fail. In 2009, the estimated annual…
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I was asked to come onto a news channel this week to talk about the state of banking. The latest Q3 results have come in, and most of the banks have stonking results thanks to interest rates rising. Increasing rates rapidly on loans, whilst dragging feet on savings rates, created a basis points differential that…
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I see so much discussion of AI and cloud in finance, and realised the other day that we have created a whole new risk structure on top of banking and finance. The systemic risk of failure if a cloud provider goes down or an AI system goes rogue. This is a question raised the other…
Read MoreWe are living in a cost of living crisis. Boil this down to the essentials: can you afford to live? Many of us cannot. Energy bills have gone through the roof; basic essentials from food to shampoo are twice the cost they were; and the idea of a holiday for many has become a dream,…
Read MoreThe internet isn’t working today. My phone is stuck on a screen saying trying to connect. My laptop has this continuing circle of stuckness. It is seriously annoying. When digital breaks down, it leaves you stranded. That’s OK. It’s cool. Except that, when you depend upon digital, it screws up your day, especially for those…
Read More
I’ve just been travelling Asia and went on a trip where the entrance to the first attraction – the batcave! – was two ringgits. That’s Malaysian currency and the equivalent of around half a dollar. As per usual these days, I have no cash and this was the first and only time in my one…
Read MoreIf banking was delivered like a song, how would it feel? Would it have emotion and belief, or just be delivered as words and music by a robot? The difference between customer engagement and customer service is pretty much the difference between delivering a stage song and being on the stage. I am a huge…
Read MoreIn a land known as Fed, there are two superheroes: AML and KYC. They fly around the world looking for villains attacking the financial markets and aim to zap them. It is a difficult task, and getting more and more difficult every day, but they try … and they fail. In 2009, the estimated annual…
Read More
How could I not make a blog about Sam Bankman-Fried who, yesterday, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme smash-and-grab using cryptocurrency? Well, I couldn’t, so here it is. Yesterday Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a…
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Why am I writing about Poland? First answer, because I am married to a Polish lady. We met in a night club where she was on the dancefloor … I’ve always been attracted to Pole dancers. Second, because I moved to Poland five years ago and it is a fascinating country. One of Europe’s fastest…
Read MoreI was asked to come onto a news channel this week to talk about the state of banking. The latest Q3 results have come in, and most of the banks have stonking results thanks to interest rates rising. Increasing rates rapidly on loans, whilst dragging feet on savings rates, created a basis points differential that…
Read MoreI see so much discussion of AI and cloud in finance, and realised the other day that we have created a whole new risk structure on top of banking and finance. The systemic risk of failure if a cloud provider goes down or an AI system goes rogue. This is a question raised the other…
Read MoreI’ve just been travelling Asia and went on a trip where the entrance to the first attraction – the batcave! – was two ringgits. That’s Malaysian currency and the equivalent of around half a dollar. As per usual these days, I have no cash and this was the first and only time in my one…
Read More
After Terra-LUNA, SBF and FTX, and the whole wild west of digital currencies, stablecoins are now in fashion as the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) outlined the UK plans for legitimising stablecoins yesterday. Bear in mind these are not CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), but currencies backed by CBDCs, fiat currencies or…
Read MoreHow could I not make a blog about Sam Bankman-Fried who, yesterday, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme smash-and-grab using cryptocurrency? Well, I couldn’t, so here it is. Yesterday Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a…
Read More
I hate stepping into controversy, and I know that this column is going to be really unpopular, but the latest reporting of terrorist funding using cryptocurrencies is seriously biased. This specifically relates to Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively. The latest violence taking place between Israel and Palestine is awful. No one can…
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The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and creator of what many call a Ponzi scheme called FTX, has started in New York. FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that, like MtGox a decade before, lost millions/billions of dollars of investor’s money. C’est la vie. There’s lots of reportage out there about the trial, the background, the…
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This is quite a complicated update, but it came to mind when I saw that JPMorgan analysts are predicting stablecoins could destabilise the traditional financial markets. This is because the Federal Reserve decided in April that money funds created for the sole purpose of accessing its overnight reverse repo facility, which is called ON RRP,…
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When I was a lad – a good start for any commentary – we didn’t know nothing about money. I got pocket money from my dad but, if I begged hard enough and long enough, my dad would relent and buy me that Batman Corgi car I had been lusting after. At school, they taught…
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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…
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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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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…
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I’ve predicted the death of many things. The death of the keyboard, the death of the plastic card, the death of cash and cheques, the death of the branch, the death of main street and the death of the computer itself. Now, we have the death of the phone. As I look to the future,…
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Everyone who knows me well, knows that I grew up with David Bowie as my real-life Hero. I saw him concert regularly, until he stopped touring in the 2000s, and loved the fact that not only did he produce unique music, but nearly every time it was performance and music. He was first to really…
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I’ve been sitting and thinking. Not a bad thing, but a dangerous thing. I’ve been sitting and thinking about AI, Artificial Intelligence. How will AI change banking and finance? Specifically, how could we use AI to change banking and finance? When I think about this, I think about how banking has changed since the last…
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Lots of discussions these days are about AI. AI this, AI that, AI movie, AI influencers, even AI pop. (the K-pop group Mave do not exist – they are generated by AI) Every day, these developments shock and intrigue me. But what does this mean for banking and finance? Well, I guess there are some…
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We’ve had DeFi, CeFi, ReFi and more, but now it’s time for GeFi. If those phrases confuse you, we have Decentralised Finance versus Centralised Finance; we have Regenerative Finance, and now we have Generative Finance, or GeFi for short. What is GeFi? It’s the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into finance. This all started with…
Read MoreWhen I was a lad – a good start for any commentary – we didn’t know nothing about money. I got pocket money from my dad but, if I begged hard enough and long enough, my dad would relent and buy me that Batman Corgi car I had been lusting after. At school, they taught…
Read More
I was intrigued by The Financial Brand’s autumn (Fall) magazine about younger folks or, as some call them, Gen Z. Personally, I’m not a fan of demographics. You can throw people into buckets of ages, but not everyone of a certain age behaves the same way. Neverhteless, there are some interesting perspectives of how Gen…
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I was asking the other day whether it is better or worse that my children play video games rather than watch movies, and the reaction was: time moves on. It surely does. The gaming industry is now bigger than Hollywood and music combined, so what do I know? According to a report by SuperData Research,…
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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…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … Are we cashless and branchless now? I’ve just been travelling Asia and went on a trip where the entrance to the first attraction – the batcave! – was two ringgits. That’s Malaysian currency and the equivalent of around half a dollar. As per usual these days, I have…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … The rise and fall of a cryptopunk How could I not make a blog about Sam Bankman-Fried who, yesterday, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme smash-and-grab using cryptocurrency? Well, I couldn’t, so here it is. Yesterday Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX…
Read More
This week’s main blog discussions include … The end of the smartphone? I’ve predicted the death of many things. The death of the keyboard, the death of the plastic card, the death of cash and cheques, the death of the branch, the death of main street and the death of the computer itself. Now, we…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Is Hamas funded by crypto? I hate stepping into controversy, and I know that this column is going to be really unpopular, but the latest reporting of terrorist funding using cryptocurrencies is seriously biased. This specifically relates to Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively. The latest…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Forget cashless as cash is the only payment system that works During the summer, there’s been a lot of news about cash. A new €500 banknote is coming whilst, on the converse, a lot of people have been discussing life using cash. Is cash still relevant? Do we…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Generative finance, or GeFi for short We’ve had DeFi, CeFi, ReFi and more, but now it’s time for GeFi. If those phrases confuse you, we have Decentralised Finance versus Centralised Finance; we have Regenerative Finance, and now we have Generative Finance, or GeFi for short. What is GeFi?…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Gaming + AI + The Metaverse = ? I was asking the other day whether it is better or worse that my children play video games rather than watch movies, and the reaction was: time moves on. It surely does. The gaming industry is now bigger than Hollywood…
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 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…
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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
