Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Fintech

The young visionaries changing banking

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…

FinTech, cryptocurrency and corporate change

I was recently recorded on Roger Edwards’ podcast talking about FinTech, cryptocurrency and corporate change. Roger is a marketing strategist focused upon the insurance industry, and produces regular podcasts about said subject.  You can checkout his website here, and here’s the low-down of our chat: On the show this week, I talk to leading commentator and…

Fast cycle change: building a new world

I just had a nice holiday in Dubai. The hotel had a huge mixture of Asians, Russians, Indians, Europeans and even a few Americans. It was lovely. Geared up for families, there were rug rats and strollers everywhere. This got me thinking. Yet again, I was thinking how different these children’s lives will be to…

e-Estonia, a country full of e-Everything

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…

The driving force behind creating digital identity schemes

I’m often talking about digital identity and struggle with the subject. This is because the meeting of ID2020 I attended at the United Nations 18 months ago, talked about the issues of digital identity and poverty, and how the poorest are the most susceptible to human trafficking and slavery: How the system crushes the poor Most…

Future bank products are like jobs for your children

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…

20 of Europe’s hottest fintech start-ups to watch in 2018

I really liked this article by John Kennedy over at Silicon Republic, and decided to reproduce it here as it’s fitting for the kickoff of 2018. Who are the fintech start-ups in Europe worth banking on in the year ahead? Europe is in the grip of a fintech revolution and 2018 is set to be a…

The FinTech outlook for 2018

I usually start the new year by making some predictions, but so many others have been writing about 2018 trends that I’m not going to. There are four big things for 2018 from a FinTech viewpoint that are obvious to me however, which are: Getting down to business with Artificial Intelligence (AI): several of the…