Digital Bank

I was intrigued to see the latest account switching numbers for the UK. Switching has been a focus of the Competition & Markets Authority, regulators, government and more, and yet promoting people to switch is not working. According to the latest stats, there are around 70 million deposit accounts across the UK, with the average citizen…

I’ve talked a lot about how young visionaries are re-shaping the financial industry. John Collison was 19 when he founded Stripe with his brother Patrick, and Ollie Purdue was 21 when he dropped out of university to found neobank Loot. In fact, there are many innovators under 30 out there, as highlighted last week by Forbes…

Finally, just over a week ago, Open Banking came into the UK and Open APIs into the European Union. I am sure you all know what this is all about by now but, just in case, it is the regulations that force banks to share data through APIs – plug and play software – with…

I visited Tallinn towards the end of last year. If you’re not familiar it’s the capital of Estonia, a country that is the most advanced digital economy in Europe. This all began due to a hack ten years ago, when intrepid Russians were commissioned to destabilise the country’s economy. This hack led to Estonia rapidly…

Just before Christmas, I was interviewed by a Turkish magazine about the future, Turkey and fintech. I thought it might interest folks to share it here … When you wrote your first book about fintech – little was known about it. How much has that changed and have your predictions so far come true? Things…

I’ve blogged quite a bit about adapting to change lately, and will continue to do so as banking-as-usual (BAU) is not an option. It’s similar to standing in the middle of the road. If you stand there for long enough, you’ll get run over. This is as true in banking: if you stop changing, you…

Banks need to make money on new products and services, from things that don’t exist yet, in the same way that children will need to find jobs that don’t exist yet. You may not have seen it, but it is estimated that two-thirds of the jobs of the future are yet to be created, and…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone. That’s 2017’s blogging over for me. Back on January 2, 2018, with more news about my new book coming out in March, Digital Human. A few comments: “Skinner presents a compelling vision of the future of financial services expertly set in ten-thousand years of historical context” Jesse McWaters, World…

I was moderating a panel discussion about Open Banking and the panel’s opening was some research presented by Steve Ogborn and Benedict Ireland of the Unlimited Group. The guys said that only 9% of consumers had heard of Open Banking. That means 91% had no idea what it was. Even when it was explained to…

I often talk about faster horses and how banks think digital is doing banking cheaper and faster. It’s all about efficiency and effectiveness. So, I was asked the other day: where is the car? After all, it’s easy to call out banks for doing banking as usual but, if I cannot show them a car,…