Digital Bank

I’ve written a lot about Ant and Alibaba, but not so much Tencent, even though QQ social networking in China was a hot, hot topic a few years ago.  It was the first social platform to launch its own currency and, with 300 million users, was quite interesting.  Things have moved at a pace and…

I had an interview with .BANK domain the other day.  Here’s how it went … .BANK: In your book, The Future of Banking in a Globalised World, you explore the impact of regulatory change on the banking industry. With the move to less regulation in the U.S. almost guaranteed in the coming years, how should…

I was chairing a conference with various speakers, when Gartner Group stood up and talked about their annual bank survey.  They found that of the senior bankers surveyed, 76% don’t believe that digitalisation will affect their business model. Gartner found 76% of banks don’t believe their business model has to change because of digitalisation #MEFTECH…

I recently met a start-up bank.  They were depressed.  Having submitted their third proposal for the bank, the regulator was still pushing back.  This felt familiar.   Having seen so many new start-up banks in Britain, I was familiar with the start-up process.  It involves hellishly detailed documentation showing effective plans, governance and funding.  The first…

I grew up in an era of Ska music with the Specials, Madness and The Selector being regulars on the University circuit.  One song that brought back memories of this era played on the radio the other day: Ghost Town. The main line repeated throughout the song is This town … is coming like a…

Further to my recent trip to Pakistan Business Recorder (their version of The Financial Times) interviewed me in depth about what is happening in FinTech.  Here’s what they published: ‘The clock is ticking for Pakistan’s legacy banks,’ Chris Skinner, global fintech expert An independent commentator on financial markets and fintech through his blog, the Finanser.com, Chris Skinner is one…

I was inspired to think more about the legacy challenge in the legacy economies when I saw this article by the inimitable Anna Irrera (she’s worth following if you’re on twitter).  She was lamenting the state of US bank systems and how they’re hiring retired programmers just to keep the lights on.  What really struck…

I have a keynote coming up on May 19 in Amsterdam with The Next Web, who I regularly write a column for now.  Here’s my latest one: I’m delighted to be speaking at TNW on May 19 in Amsterdam.  I wanted to talk about Digital Human, the theme of my next book, but the guys want me…

I have a webinar on digital transformation at 12:00 GMT tomorrow (April 27) with Salesforce, and they kindly asked me to write a blog to introduce the subject matter.  Here it is: I regularly ask audiences at the conferences I speak at if they think we are going through an evolution or a revolution in banking….

A banker and I were talking about the function of a bank.  He gave me the classic view: “A bank is there to take people’s money and lend it out at a profit, whilst ensuring the risk of non-payment is minimised” No it isn’t, I said.  I pushed the view that the bank is there…