Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

The Finanser’s Week: 5th May – 11th May 2025

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This week’s main blog discussions include …

How China’s banks and fintechs are using AI to leapfrog the world

For quite a while, I have been amazed by China’s innovations in fintech from Ant to WeBank. My first visit to a Chinese bank in the 1990s, they were using Abacuses to calculate transactions; now they use rocket science in the form of AI. A lot of this was covered in depth in the deep…

Who needs coders when we have AI?

Having blogged yesterday about China leapfrogging the world of finance through AI, there are alternative views, particularly in the Big Tech world. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says AI generates ‘fantastic’ Python code, and that it now creates ‘maybe 20 – 30% of the code … in some of our projects’ In a fireside chat with…

You do know that money isn’t real, don’t you?

I was struck by a post on LinkedIn by Eleanor Hill, who focuses on treasury systems, reflecting on what has changed in the past decade. She mentions five things, as that was what was asked, namely: AI for everyone APIs and real-time treasury The return of active risk management The ESG rollercoaster DEI for better decision-making…

People have been predicting the end of main street for years … really?

In a regular theme, there is a big question in my mind: what is the future of main street? Sure, Brits call it the High Street, but the more we digitalise, the less we need physical structures. Whether it be stores and shops or offices and companies, we all need to recognise that the world…

Can fintech protect the vulnerable?

Dealing with financial abuse It only came to my attention recently in talking about these things with those trying to solve the issues is that financial abuse is as prominent as domestic abuse. If you beat up your partner, you can see the physical bruises; but what about if you coercively control your partner or…

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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...