Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner. The Finanser discusses all things fintech, finance, banking, technology and, most importantly, the future. Chris Skinner has been voted the most influential technologist in Britain and received a lifetime achievement award for his visionary approach to the future of money from the Payments Association. He has advised the…
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Not sure if you noticed, but this week the U.S. Congress House Committee on Financial Services had a day investigating stablecoins, led by Chairman French Hill. The hearing was entitled ‘Navigating the Digital Payments Ecosystem: Examining a Federal Framework for Payment Stablecoins and Consequences of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency’ , and invited various…
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As many of you will have gathered, the next new book is all about Digital Trust in a Deep Fake World, coming out summer 2026 (I’m working on it now), so I was interested to see two fraud reports from by veriff, the AI-driven identity verification company, this morning. Released today, the reports show fraud…
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I don’t like lists. Most are subjective, incorrect and silly. Nevertheless I decided to make a list today of the greatest fintech firms in the world. It is purely from a personal perspective and nothing to do with valuation, relationships or brown envelopes, although the latter is always welcome. So here it is: Chris Skinner’s Top…
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A phrase that’s been rising recently is digital twin. My definition of a digital twin is not the same as others. I would define a digital twin as the digital version of you or your organisation. Over time, you build up a complete digital profile. It can be anything from the holistic version of you…
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As many of you will have gathered, the next new book is all about Digital Trust in a Deep Fake World, coming out summer 2026 (I’m working on it now), so I was interested to see two fraud reports from by veriff, the AI-driven identity verification company, this morning. Released today, the reports show fraud…
Read MoreI don’t like lists. Most are subjective, incorrect and silly. Nevertheless I decided to make a list today of the greatest fintech firms in the world. It is purely from a personal perspective and nothing to do with valuation, relationships or brown envelopes, although the latter is always welcome. So here it is: Chris Skinner’s Top…
Read MoreA phrase that’s been rising recently is digital twin. My definition of a digital twin is not the same as others. I would define a digital twin as the digital version of you or your organisation. Over time, you build up a complete digital profile. It can be anything from the holistic version of you…
Read MoreOr where is Jan Marsalek, part two … As the headlines rolled out last week, I heard a name: Jan Marsalek, the former COO of disgraced fintech star Wirecard. It turns out that he was also the central figure in a GRU, Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie (Russian military intelligence unit), operation created to spy across the…
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We just had the annual Oscar jamboree and congratulations to Anora for its five Oscars, and particular respect to Sean Baker who picked up four personally, something that’s never been achieved before. But Hollywood has an issue. No one knows where the money goes. I’ve just joined some friends to fix that. It came around…
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I recently came into some funds and, being conscious of the financial services compensation scheme (FSCS) limiting bank insurances of deposit accounts to £85,000 (€100,000 EU; $250,000 USA) have had to open new accounts to move things around. In general, the remote account opening experience with newer neobanks is pretty good. On the other hand,…
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I find times interesting, as so many fintechs had an amazing ride in the 2010s but, in the 2020s, it seems not. Fintech took a hammering in 2023 with investing down 48% compared to 2022, which was also a bad year … … and now we move into 2025 and reflect on 2024 where it…
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I found a fun meme on Facebook about passwords. Passwords. What??? When I was a lad, we didn’t have passwords and usernames. What has the world become? Well, it’s become a world of people who are dumb and stupid and create passwords that are ridiculous and easily hackable. For example, the world’s most popular passwords are 123456,…
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I saw a fascinating pair of columns on City AM last week. One was advocating London as the UK fintech unicorn centre of Europe: London named Europe’s ‘unicorn capital’ for fintechs … whilst the other claimed the new UK Labour government policies were scaring fintech founders out of the UK and into Europe, in this…
Read MoreAs many of you will have gathered, the next new book is all about Digital Trust in a Deep Fake World, coming out summer 2026 (I’m working on it now), so I was interested to see two fraud reports from by veriff, the AI-driven identity verification company, this morning. Released today, the reports show fraud…
Read MoreA phrase that’s been rising recently is digital twin. My definition of a digital twin is not the same as others. I would define a digital twin as the digital version of you or your organisation. Over time, you build up a complete digital profile. It can be anything from the holistic version of you…
Read More
On Friday, for the second month running, UK banks payment systems were down. Last month it was Barclays. This month, it is Lloyds, TSB and Nationwide, and probably more. The issue is a joint one: there is no branch anymore and online help services continually tell you that you are 19th in the queue, and…
Read MoreI recently came into some funds and, being conscious of the financial services compensation scheme (FSCS) limiting bank insurances of deposit accounts to £85,000 (€100,000 EU; $250,000 USA) have had to open new accounts to move things around. In general, the remote account opening experience with newer neobanks is pretty good. On the other hand,…
Read More
I made this headline immediately challenging for anyone not in my space, as it incorporates all the TLAs (three letter arconyms) to confuse and abuse you. A fascinating release from Europe’s Central Bank announced that they aim to move soon to distributed ledger technology (DLT) settlements for payments last week. What did the announcement say?…
Read MoreI found a fun meme on Facebook about passwords. Passwords. What??? When I was a lad, we didn’t have passwords and usernames. What has the world become? Well, it’s become a world of people who are dumb and stupid and create passwords that are ridiculous and easily hackable. For example, the world’s most popular passwords are 123456,…
Read More
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. Here’s a short part of the tirade, as discovered by Barron’s…
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Almost every day these days is an AI headline, but this video really struck me. It is showing the selfies we would have taken in historical times: Can you imagine? The reason it struck me is that you have to wonder today what is real online and what is not. The more our networked system…
Read More
I see a lot of people writing that Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is dead. That saddens me a little, as I created the term twenty years ago – have I mentioned this before? – but I agree. It is now past its prime. It was replaced by open banking. Then there was embedded finance and today it is…
Read MoreNot sure if you noticed, but this week the U.S. Congress House Committee on Financial Services had a day investigating stablecoins, led by Chairman French Hill. The hearing was entitled ‘Navigating the Digital Payments Ecosystem: Examining a Federal Framework for Payment Stablecoins and Consequences of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency’ , and invited various…
Read MoreAs many of you will have gathered, the next new book is all about Digital Trust in a Deep Fake World, coming out summer 2026 (I’m working on it now), so I was interested to see two fraud reports from by veriff, the AI-driven identity verification company, this morning. Released today, the reports show fraud…
Read MoreThe trade tariff war that Donald Trump introduced on March 3rd has created a situation where the world is at war. Trade war. China responded by saying that they would hit back by imposing 10-15% tariffs on US farm products but, more importantly, have said that they are ready for war … any sort of…
Read MoreAs Donald Trump orders creation of a strategic cryptocurrency reserve for the USA, North Korea is working hard to hack it. This is demonstrated by the biggest theft of all time – $1.5 billion – by the North Korean Lazarus Group from Bybit. How could this happen? Well, Chainalysis breaks it down nicely into a step-by-step…
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It is a wild ride with cryptocurrencies. Rising rapidly with Trump’s presidential campaign – after all, he is the crypto President! – things have gone south badly in the last week. It’s kind of that crescendo from zero to hero to zero again. The rises and falls in cryptocurrency values are a real rollercoaster. For…
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After many years we have had many discussions of many countries and many banks talking about launching many central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Today, only three countries have a live CBDC: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. Doesn’t that feel a bit strange? Well, most governments are experimenting with CBDCs and SWIFT, to retain their control…
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A quantum financial system, or QFS for short Maybe it’s the way my feeds are set up, but every day seems like a headline about cryptocurrency and AI these days. Take my daily things worth reading, and here’s a few examples just from last Monday. On crypto: Trump orders crypto working group to draft new…
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As a long-term and dedicated user of facebook and twitter since the 2000s, it is weird to find that, today, they are no longer useful tools. The feeds are now stacked with Mark Zuckerberg updates, Musk propaganda and worse. The only tool that’s still useful is LinkedIn, although there are issues there too. So it…
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Marc Andreessen announced that their office in London, opened only two years ago, would shut down and its got everyone talking. Is London finished? Is the UK’s claim of being a great tech economy over? Will it bring down the government? Well, there are differing views. Many believe it is due to the new Trump…
Read MoreWe just had the annual Oscar jamboree and congratulations to Anora for its five Oscars, and particular respect to Sean Baker who picked up four personally, something that’s never been achieved before. But Hollywood has an issue. No one knows where the money goes. I’ve just joined some friends to fix that. It came around…
Read More
Microsoft just unveiled a new chip called Majorana1 that it says will enable the creation of quantum computers able to solve “meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades”. Two months ago Google unveiled Willow, a chip that “can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits” and can process a computation “in under five minutes…
Read MoreI find times interesting, as so many fintechs had an amazing ride in the 2010s but, in the 2020s, it seems not. Fintech took a hammering in 2023 with investing down 48% compared to 2022, which was also a bad year … … and now we move into 2025 and reflect on 2024 where it…
Read MoreAfter many years we have had many discussions of many countries and many banks talking about launching many central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Today, only three countries have a live CBDC: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. Doesn’t that feel a bit strange? Well, most governments are experimenting with CBDCs and SWIFT, to retain their control…
Read MoreAlmost every day these days is an AI headline, but this video really struck me. It is showing the selfies we would have taken in historical times: Can you imagine? The reason it struck me is that you have to wonder today what is real online and what is not. The more our networked system…
Read More
I shared a post the other day by Usman Sheikh, a serial investor based in Dubai. The post is asking the question whether AI can replace consultants although, to be more pointed, specifically McKinsey. How could that happen? McKinsey have the best and brightest minds in the world: they only hire graduates at the top of…
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In an excellent article on LinkedIn, Priscilla Russo laments the state of Agentic AI from a payments point of view. Bearing in mind that 2025 is the year of Agentic AI – a world where AI agents do everything for you on your behalf – it is clear that we have a dichotomy between the open…
Read MoreA quantum financial system, or QFS for short Maybe it’s the way my feeds are set up, but every day seems like a headline about cryptocurrency and AI these days. Take my daily things worth reading, and here’s a few examples just from last Monday. On crypto: Trump orders crypto working group to draft new…
Read More
I feel like a continual splurge of Musk is happening, ever since Donald Trump became President, but the latest is really interesting as 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…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Britain rapidly becoming a low-cash society warns ATM network boss JOHN HOWELLS Government announces inevitable end to Payments Services Regulator Deutsche Bank reviews Canary Wharf presence Revolut Hiring Hundreds to Become a Fully-Fledged UK Bank Reflecting on the State of Play for FinTechs in 2025 India arrests Russia based…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Industry Reacts as UK Government Axes Payments Watchdog | FinTech Magazine Ex-Barclays boss Jes Staley fights for hit reputation which has been ‘irretrievably damaged’ by City ban, tribunal told Bank of England scraps diversity rules amid DEI backlash Bank CEO says 4-day week isn’t progressive, and AI will make…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Banks’ climate alliance calls vote to ditch pledge on limiting warming to 1.5C Banks risk losing cardholders amid growing demand for digital options The next wave of digital transformation demands integrating your bank horizontally and end to end Fintech’s New Power Player: The Chief Monetisation Officer UK fintech investment…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Second biggest bank in US hit by major data breach stealing social security numbers and other personal info Citi Mistakenly Credits Client US$81 Trillion in Shocking Banking Blunder Revolut UK CEO stresses Revolut’s ambition to shift from “disruptor” to primary bank – Tech.eu The Fintech-Bank Marriage is Broken. Can…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Trump Organization ‘debanked by Capital One’ Donald Trump is giving the euro a chance to dethrone the dollar HAMISH MCRAE: Donald Trump’s power will be contained by financial markets Klarna targets $15bn valuation with upcoming US IPO, bypassing London markets Australia’s biggest bank cuts more than 100 jobs after…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Trump’s secret strategy to replace the US dollar with bitcoin? The trade tariff war that Donald Trump introduced on March 3rd has created a situation where the world is at war. Trade war. China responded by saying that they would hit back by imposing 10-15% tariffs on US…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … 26 Million Devices Hit By Infostealers—Bank Cards Leaked To Dark Web Bitcoin plunges as Trump’s strategic reserve fails to impress markets Why 2025 Could Prove a Turning Point for Digital Assets? More than one month’s worth of IT failures at major banks and building societies in the last two…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … The collapse of El Salvador’s bitcoin dream Why 2025 Could Prove a Turning Point for Digital Assets? I’m the CEO of a bank – I regret not saving more into my pension HSBC on the hunt for new UK boss after another leadership reshuffle ‘Money dysmorphia’ searches are rocketing…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Trump’s secret strategy to replace the US dollar with bitcoin? The trade tariff war that Donald Trump introduced on March 3rd has created a situation where the world is at war. Trade war. China responded by saying that they would hit back by imposing 10-15% tariffs on US…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … European regulation strangulation, part 2 America innovates, China replicates and Europe regulates I often find the maze of European regulations hard to follow and track. It’s ok if you’re tracking one – like that Payment Service Directives and Regulations – but when you’re trying to track many, it’s…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Why are CBDCs not working? After many years we have had many discussions of many countries and many banks talking about launching many central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Today, only three countries have a live CBDC: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. Doesn’t that feel a bit strange? Well,…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Is BaaS dead? I see a lot of people writing that Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is dead. That saddens me a little, as I created the term twenty years ago – have I mentioned this before? – but I agree. It is now past its prime. It was replaced by open…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Elon Musk now controls the American payments system I feel like a continual splurge of Musk is happening, ever since Donald Trump became President, but the latest is really interesting as Elon Musk is now in control of the Treasury department payments system that runs America. The challenges of…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Five key impacts of #Brexit five years on Five years ago, on 31 January 2020, the UK left the European Union. BBC Verify, the BBC’s fact checking service, just wrote a really interesting report on the impact. They cite analysis in five key areas: trade, immigration, travel, laws…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Digital Trust: How do you know you are you? For many years now, we have been talking about digital identity. The core is how to prove you are you. You have to be identified, verified, authenticated and approved. You would think with so many layers of monitoring access…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Britain’s recent budgets feel like a long walk on a short cliff I’m not going to make any political statements, but have been watching UK political activity for the past few months, as has Elon Musk and others. In particular, there have been two milestone budget events in…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions are all about 2025 and what people predict … The World in 2025 Welcome to 2025! As usual, at the start of the year, there are a whole raft of predictions as to what will happen. I used to write my own personal predictions and review them at the end…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … The Top Ten Blog Posts for 2024 2024 has been a bumper year for this blog. According to Google Analytics, the blog has 175,000 active users, an increase of 30% over 2023, with near 300,000 views and a million interactions and so, as usual, I share the most…
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