This week’s main blog items are …
Reflecting on the last year, it’s been crazy. I feel like I’ve spent most of the year jumping on and off airplanes. Most visited cities are London, for obvious reasons, and Singapore. I must have been there five or six times this year, and that …
It’s amazing how you can feel glee and anger in the same moment or, as I call it, glanger. I have this so often with technology. The glee of finding a new app that solves a major pain in your life; the anger when that …
Go Fintech or go home (and don’t be Techfin)
I’m relaxing and thinking. A bad combination. Just had several sessions with different conferences on Brexit, Open API’s, PSD2, Open Sourcing, Open Banking, Innovation and more … and it all seems like such drivel. One of the sessions was asking the question: is it time …
India’s idea about a cashless society is not the reality
I wrote a while ago about the amazing digital identity scheme in India called Aadhaar. It’s a card-based biometric scheme using a centralised database. Of course, today, they would have developed the scheme on a mobile wallet with a distributed ledger but hey, you can’t …
Blockchain is dead, long live the Blockchain
I’ve noticed a great deal of schadenfreude related to the R3 bump. Lots of people saying that blockchain is past its sell-by date, R3 are bust and distributed ledgers are dead. I think it’s related to the journalists who, having delighted in bigging up blockchain …
And this week’s biggest headlines include …
£5 notes 'worth £20,000' in circulation - BBC
Four special £5 notes, engraved with a tiny portrait of Jane Austen, are put into circulation.
Britain to reverse Brexit: Saxo Bank makes its outrageous predictions for 2017 - The Telegraph
After Renzi's referendum, what happens next to the Italian banks? - The Telegraph
Amazon unveils plans for grocery shop with no checkouts - BBC
Customers will be able to select items and walk out without waiting to pay at the Amazon Go shop.
Sleeping on toilet floors - BBC
How Chris Gardner went from sleeping rough with his young son on the floor of a public toilet to the life of a multi-millionaire investor.
Carney warns about popular disillusion with capitalism - BBC
Bank of England boss warns people will reject capitalism unless more is done to help those left behind.
RBS chiefs 'knew investment bank's head wasn't up to the job' in run-up to near collapse - The Independent
Court papers suggest bosses repeatedly questioned Johnny Cameron's capability to oversee the bank's casino banking arm
US banks face clash over EU regulations - Financial Times
Requirement to set up European holding companies is at odds with American rules
Prepare for disappearing credit cards - BBC
The plastic credit card is being replaced by invisible payments, the boss of Barclaycard says.
Peer-to-peer lenders are blurring into banks - Financial Times
Idea behind P2P model was to bypass the mainstream, not become part of it
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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...
