Every year I visit the analytics engine to see which blogs got the most visits. This list is this year's although, interestingly, the blog entry with the most clicks generally is the one I wrote about who invented WiFi. Regardless, the list this year is interesting as it is mainly about fintech firms like Klarna, Revolut, PayPal and Stripe. Here you go:
2025’s Top 10 Blogs
#10 Klarna discovers that AI is not working and wants the humans back
After lots of discussions about how AI is transforming financial services as a new, foundational technology that has massive granularity of use cases, it doesn’t always work. In a very major public about face, Klarna says it doesn’t work. This is the company that saved millions by getting rid of two of five staff. Now, it wants those people back. Why?
I just booked a hotel stay in London the other day, confirmed with PayPal but then, shortly after checking my PayPal account, it showed two transactions. Thinking I had paid for the booking twice, I raised a dispute with hotels.com and PayPal about two charges. Now, as regular users of PayPal would know, it’s not two charges.
#8 Revolut opens its new HQ and takes over the world
I asked my friend Max, an early investor in Revolut, to provide an insight into the new headquarters the company opened this week in Canary Wharf, London. Revolut bought the building that was previously the HQ of Thomson Reuters, as a pretty bold move. Here are his thoughts …
#7 Was bitcoin created by the CIA?
There’s a brand new book on the block, which I wish I had written: who is Satoshi Nakamoto? It’s actually not called that. It’s called: The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto by Benjamin Wallace, but you get the idea.
Catching a new report from MIT, there are clear indications that AI is making us stupid. We no longer internalise data and detail, we delegate it. The fact that the Alpha Gen can get all their school reports written by robots and teachers cannot tell the difference, is evidence that this is the way we are moving. Is that sad? I think so, and here’s why.
#5 How Donald Trump will build crypto-America
Donald Trump's administration is expected to turn the US into a crypto-friendly hub using a range of changes to tax policies. Here’s the best guess of what that means.
#4 Did JP Morgan sink the Titanic?
Just for Valentine’s Day, here is a different version of the love story of the Titanic that claims the original J. P. Morgan – John Pierpont Morgan – not only sank the Titanic, but also made a bogus insurance claim on it, and killed off his key competitors in the process. Have you heard this one?
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, held an internal town hall meeting last week and got onto the subject of working from home (WFH). It turns out he doesn’t like it. In a lengthy foul-mouthed rant, he tells staffers that it’s full of sh*t.
#2 Elon Musk now controls the American payments system
Elon Musk is now in control of the Treasury department payments system that runs America. According to The Washington Post, longtime Treasury official David Lebryk is “expected to leave the agency soon”, despite the fact that President Donald Trump actually appointed him. Why? Because Elon Musk’s minions have attacked him “over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars”.
#1 Moving from ML to LLM GPT in payments, #Stripe sets the standard
It’s really interesting to see what Stripe – latest valuation over $90 billion – is doing with technology. Effectively, it’s tried to create a GPT for payments. The reason they are pushing the envelope is after seeing great results in earlier developments using traditional machine learning models. These resulted in a 15% uplift in conversion whilst reducing fraudulent transactions by 30%.
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...