Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Blog Index

The Finanser’s Week: 8th April – 14th April 2019

The main blog headlines are … Leaving customers digitally high and dry … big mistake I’ve recently seen two blogs about issues with challenger banks N26 and Tandem. They both relate to the ways in which these new banks communicate, or not in these cases. Judith Bogner, a well-known and followed broadcaster, explains regarding N26…

The Finanser’s Week: 1st April – 7th April 2019

The main blog headlines are … Alipay and Visa announce global QR code venture We all got hugely excited about Apple launching a credit card with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard last week. Whoopy-doo! This was a major lift for Mastercard in particular. As Wedbush’s Moshe Katri noted payments on the card … Time for a…

The Finanser’s Week: 25th March – 31st March 2019

The main blog headlines are … Blockchain is dead I used to blog about blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) almost once a week … four years ago. Today, I hardly blog about it at all. I guess it just shows what’s top of mind and what’s not at any time in FinTech and, ……

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,…