Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Fintech

Do we have perfect market knowledge?

I’ve thought for years that we are moving towards perfect market knowledge, where demand and supply information becomes equal to all buyers and sellers. Now that we have OpenAI and Gemini, are we getting there? During the 1990s, I spent a lot of time discussing neural networking where we could pair stocks to buy and…

The rise of the MENA fintech hawk

I’ve recently had a couple of interesting visits to the Middle East and Africa, namely Riyadh and Cairo. Both are keen to highlight progress in fintech, which is interesting as they are two cities that have been on my radar but a little behind others like Dubai and Lagos. So, I was interested in what…

Is technology improving or destroying humanity?

I’ve recently been seeing more and more about eugenics. Eugenics is a supposed scientific way to develop the perfect human, immune to disease and designed to live long and prosper (as Spock would say). A more formal definition comes from The National Human Genome Research Institute: Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial…

Big Brother is here and watching you

Talking about trust, the other side of the coin is what is the bank doing to protect privacy? Increasingly, due to regulatory concerns, banks are becoming government spies. They are watching our every move and reporting it. This recently cropped up on my personal radar when the bank became my interrogator and grilled me about…

Why Revolut needs a banking licence

It’s all about the difference between an emoney provider and a bank … I’ve been having an ongoing debate with a Revolut fan about the fact that they have an emoney licence, as an EMI (Electronic Money Institution), and that they are not a bank in Britain. It’s part of the ongoing debate about their…

Stripe strikes serious success in Sessions

You may not have spotted it this week, but there has been a number of major strategic changes and moves by fintech leader Stripe. I’ve followed Stripe since their founding in 2010, and use them as a poster child of change in finance and technology, as demonstrated by their fast cycle growth from a company…

There is no next big thing in banking

I’ve been trying to think of the next big thing. Someone asked me on a conference call: what’s the next big thing? I’ve always been on top of the next big thing. Whether it’s the metaverse, AI, blockchain, cloud computing or whatever, there’s always the next big thing. So, what is the next big thing?…

A portal of knowledge for free from Mckinsey

I just discovered a portal of information from McKinsey. Now, now, now … I know you may love or hate McKinsey but bear in mind that all their staff have an Upper Second Grade or First Grade degree, OK?So, I start delving into their portal that answers questions like: What is inflation? What is quantum computing?…