Case Studies

I am always fascinated about the way in which people see what is of value and why. The exchange of beads, crystals, diamonds and gold; the use of barter to exchange sheep for goats for weddings; the emergence of digital exchange for tokens; and, of course, the issuance of cash backed by governments that are…

In a trip to London last week, I was lucky enough to be given a deep dive into the status of Revolut, Europe’s stand-out fintech unicorn valued at $45 billion last year and $75 billion today.   This is a company that, ten years ago, was just two guys sitting in a Canary Wharf office…

Or 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…

For some time, Jill Castilla has been on my radar. Winning numerous awards for innovation in US banking, she shines out as someone special, so I made contact and asked if she would have a chat with me. She said yes!, so here is that conversation. Chris Skinner: The main reason I reached out is you…

I was going to write an in-depth analysis of what actually happened at OpenAI … Me: I want the truth! ChatGPT: You can't handle the truth!!! pic.twitter.com/2cpWGwQg4z — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) November 20, 2023 … but Bloomberg beat me to it. In their article Doomed Mission Behind Sam Altman’s Shock Ouster From OpenAI, by Max Chafkin and Rachel…

Why am I writing about Poland? First answer, because I am married to a Polish lady. We met in a night club where she was on the dancefloor … I’ve always been attracted to Pole dancers. Second, because I moved to Poland five years ago and it is a fascinating country. One of Europe’s fastest…

I’ve spent my life in marketing, sales, consulting, development, technology and finance. It’s been a good one. It’s also the reason why I roam around many different topics on this blog, and sometimes talk about more generic things than specific things. So, today’s blog is generic and not specific. It’s about marketing. Interestingly, something I…

I recently stumbled across Kevin Burkart whilst listening to a podcast on BBC Sounds called Sideways, hosted by Matthew Syed. The episode is all about the giving economy, which is actually drilled into our DNA, as I blogged about recently. The summary is that before we trade, commerce and money, we lived in communities where helping…

I was recently presenting in Brazil, and did a fair bit of research and networking about the FinTech scene there. The biggest story is Nubank, parent company Nu, the challenger bank that’s become one of the biggest and brightest in the world. Valued at close to $50 billion when they IPO’d in December 2021, the…

When I was a lad … OK, you can stop reading already if that’s going to be dealbreaker … when I was a lad, we had a holiday in Devon, a south-western county of England where my parents originated. There’s a lovely place there called Westward Ho! I have no idea why it has an…