Like 5,000 other bankers and payments people, I left yesterday for an 11-hour flight in my case to Hong Kong:
As you can see, I flew Cathay Pacific sponsored by HSBC at Heathrow which, on landing in HK, switched to the Royal Bank of Scotland as sponsor no less! As the latter is owned by the UK government, you might have thought it would be the other way around. Time will tell.
Hong Kong is somewhere I've been to a few times now and it always makes me think of tower blocks. There are towers everywhere. Office towers, hotel towers and dwelling towers.
These towers are vibrant with humanity, life, business and commerce, which is why we all love Hong Kong even if it's usually shrouded in mist or monsoons (today is no exception):
Enough of all this though.
I'm here, along with 5,000 other banking souls, to soak up the debate, dialogue and insights of another SIBOS.
SIBOS is SWIFT's annual jamboree. A jamboree that I've now blogged about for three years (yep, here's 2006, 2007 and 2008) and this year will be no exception.
So, for those of you who are here, welcome; for those you who are not, apologies ... I might just spend the week boring you with stories from Hong Kong.
Ah well ... we'll see how it goes.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
