Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Blog Index

The Finanser’s Week: 18th March – 24th March 2019

The main blog headlines are … Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank: the sick dogs of Europe #Brexit Watching the debacle of the #Brexit debate in Britain, you might think that the UK is in a national meltdown. According to a survey on the front of Metro this week, 9 out of 10 Brits think that the…

The Finanser’s Week: 11th March – 17th March 2019

The main blog headlines are … Transforming the bank: three phases of change I’ve mentioned quite often that you cannot sort out all of the banks systems and structures overnight. It has to be a slow burn and often takes more than five years. It also appears to take place in three phases. The first…

The Finanser’s Week: 4th March – 10th March 2019

The main blog headlines are … It’s only words … why values and missions are questionable I go around a lot of banks and am always struck by their similarities and differences. To be honest, there are more similarities than differences. Most have big corporate offices, with great views over their home cities; their branches…

The Finanser’s Week: 25th February – 3rd March 2019

The main blog headlines are … How to be a Unicorn (Part One) Marko Wenthin, co-founder of solarisBank, recently contributed to my blog and, as a mate, has sent some great insights about starting up a FinTech firm which I thought I would share of FinTech banks last week. How to be a Unicorn (Part One) After…

The Finanser’s Week: 18th February – 24th February 2019

The main blog headlines are … Technology is business Another interesting nuance of the FinTech Bank is the integration of business and technology. I’ve referenced this a few times, but wanted to be explicit that these banks think technology is business and business is technology. This is clearly demonstrated in their microservices team structures ……

The Finanser’s Week: 11th February – 17th February 2019

The main blog headlines are … 39 FinTech Unicorns Valued at $147.37 billion I spotted an article by Linus Beliunas on LinkedIn this week, and liked it so much that wanted to share. Enjoy! 39 FinTech Unicorns Valued at $147.37 billion 2018 was a phenomenal year for FinTech. Over a course of 12 months, Venture…

The Finanser’s Week: 4th February – 10th February 2019

The main blog headlines are … Is the branch dead? A regular discussion of mine has resurfaced in recent days: is the branch dead? Why it has returned is due to the announcement of Santander closing a fifth of its UK branch network: The Spanish-owned bank, which has one of the largest high street networks in Britain,…

The Finanser’s Week: 28th January – 3rd February 2019

The main blog headlines are … Banks need to be technology giants I got into one very interesting discussion with a digital banker. He was underscoring how important data is in banking, and referenced the fact that banking started with data. It started as a ledger system a thousand years ago so that pilgrims could…

The Finanser’s Week: 20th January – 27th January 2019

The main blog headlines are … Digital banks have fast and regular communication A further aspect of the digital banks I am talking with is that they have reviews all the time. Not formal reviews, but fast meetings with the business people, designers, developers and even audit and compliance all around the table. It is…

The Finanser’s Week: 13th January – 20th January 2019

The main blog headlines are … The new FinTech bank For years, I’ve been wondering why people in business operations couldn’t align their needs with the people delivering technology in the organisation. The CIO would sit outside the business, watching and responding to requests. The requests would get prioritisation and be delivered in sequence over…