Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Fintech

Are Monzo’s growing pains, major pains?

Building on yesterday’s blog where I mentioned Monzo’s issues of client onboarding, I mentioned that, for the past few months, I’ve noticed many tweets from Monzo customers about accounts being closed suddenly, with no explanation. Each time, I’ve shared the information and copied Monzo and asked them to explain. Hey Chris 👋 Thanks for expressing…

China’s drive to reduce poverty

It’s a bank holiday weekend, and I would normally switch off. But no. Like so many of us, I’m still watching the news, keeping up-to-speed on twitter and facebook, scanning my emails and getting links. One link led me to a documentary on YouTube. It hooked me because someone mentioned that a 70-year old Grandma…

The insurance industry is broken, can InsurTech fix it?

I just rang my pension fund. I realised that I’ve paid £1000’s into the fund, but hadn’t had a statement recently. I also realised I couldn’t login online, as I’d forgotten the details. Once someone picked up the phone, which took a while, they took me through the security sign-in. Name, age, address, etc. The…

Smaller banks have the happiest customers

Following on from why startups will fail if they compete head-to-head with a bank, I got this headline the other day saying that smaller banks have the happiest customers. The latest analysis of feedback and complaints data conducted by consumer website Fairer Finance shows that big brands such as Halifax, Nationwide, HSBC and NatWest have struggled…

Another view: any start-up that challenges a bank will fail

We talk a lot these days about neobanks, challenger banks, bank disrupters, bank disintermediation, banks will fail and such like. I have a contrarian view, for a change, and believe that any start-up that challenges a bank will fail. As I say, it’s a contrarian view. Why would you start-up Monzo, Starling, Chime, NuBank or…

How China’s FinTech is changing everything

I joined a Clubhouse discussion the other day – Clubhouse? What? – and discussed Chinese FinTech and its impact on the rest of the world. I really enjoyed the conversation and it was nice that my friend Sophie Guibaud summarised it afterwards. I asked her if she would let me share it here on the…