Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Fintech

Why banks are not tech firms

I was asked to come onto a news channel this week to talk about the state of banking. The latest Q3 results have come in, and most of the banks have stonking results thanks to interest rates rising. Increasing rates rapidly on loans, whilst dragging feet on savings rates, created a basis points differential that…

Stop worrying that the machine will kill the human

I see so much discussion of AI and cloud in finance, and realised the other day that we have created a whole new risk structure on top of banking and finance. The systemic risk of failure if a cloud provider goes down or an AI system goes rogue. This is a question raised the other…

In finance, songs are as good as gold

Everyone who knows me well, knows that I grew up with David Bowie as my real-life Hero. I saw him concert regularly, until he stopped touring in the 2000s, and loved the fact that not only did he produce unique music, but nearly every time it was performance and music. He was first to really…

ChatGPT or a branch teller?

I’ve been sitting and thinking. Not a bad thing, but a dangerous thing. I’ve been sitting and thinking about AI, Artificial Intelligence. How will AI change banking and finance? Specifically, how could we use AI to change banking and finance? When I think about this, I think about how banking has changed since the last…

The impact of BigTech on BankTech and FinTech (BIS report)

This month the Bank for International Settlements (BIS – the guys who do Basels) released a report on the implications of BigTech on FinTech and banking. The report is not what I expected, as it is far too simple in its thinking imho, but it is worth a read. Maybe next time, they’ll ask yours truly…

Is crypto the #1 choice for terrorist funding?

I hate stepping into controversy, and I know that this column is going to be really unpopular, but the latest reporting of terrorist funding using cryptocurrencies is seriously biased. This specifically relates to Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively. The latest violence taking place between Israel and Palestine is awful. No one can…

Imagine Intelligent Money

I was talking about the vision of AI integrated with finance through APIs today. The vision is one where every transaction can be displayed through your devices via your apps. It’s the apps, API, AI economy. It means that wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you deal with and how can be drilled down…

Send a nude pic for a loan

Some years ago, I remember a Chinese lender, Jiedaibao by JDCapital, asking applicants to send them a nude photo to get the loan. The photo would be kept private unless the loan defaulted. If payments were missed, the photo would be shared online to all your friends and contacts. That’s a good way to ensure…

Intelligent banking: how AI will change the future of finance

Lots of discussions these days are about AI. AI this, AI that, AI movie, AI influencers, even AI pop. (the K-pop group Mave do not exist – they are generated by AI) Every day, these developments shock and intrigue me. But what does this mean for banking and finance? Well, I guess there are some…

Tokenized digital assets will be a $16 trillion market by 2030

I blogged about tokenizing everything the other day and my friend Efi made an interesting post the other day, related to this, about a report from the Boston Consulting Group. The report focuses upon India, which claims to be the third largest FinTech economy behind America and Britain, and specifically calls out a few key…