Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Fintech

Shape the future of European FinTech regulations

It was interesting to see the release of a discussion paper by the EBA (European Banking Authority) last Friday. As a regulatory body, they have decided that they need to take action on FinTech, and are asking for input on what action to take. The EBA is taking forward work in relation to FinTech and…

Your CFO is an algorithm

I was talking to a group of Treasury folks and the guy before me gave a pitch about the CFO of the future.  The pitch focused upon how the CFO would be managing risk, incorporating different technologies, managing M&A, dealing with globalisation and so on and so forth.  I couldn’t help but sit there and…

FinTech and the world of investment banking

Some people talk about FinTech disruption and how payments and banking is being attacked and unbundled by start-ups, but we often look at banking too simplistically. Global banks and investment banks are far more complex creatures than their high street counterparts, which is why we’ve seen far less disruption in corporate, commercial and wholesale banking…

ANZ and Deutsche Bank tell it like IT is

I was struck by some commentary with John Cryan, the CEO of Deutsche Bank, over on Bloomberg. The article is talking about the wild ride he has had since taking over the helm of the bank which had formerly been run by two CEOs (Juergen Fitschen and Anshu Jain). He knew when he took over…

FinTech: $6.5 billion invested in first half of 2017

Innovate Finance has just published their report on the first half of 2017, and the investments made in FinTech. Global VC FinTech investment attracts $6.5 Billion in H1 2017 –with UK investment up 37% reveals Innovate Finance H1 2017 saw 787 deals globally, attracting $6.5 billion of VC investment, a 45% decrease year on year…

12 quotes about the future of finance

I recently appeared on an interview with Salesforce’s LeadingEdge webcast. Afterwards, they picked out 12 statements I made that they thought particularly noteworthy, so thought I would repost them here: 12 Noteworthy Quotes on the Future of Banking The digital revolution is fundamentally impacting every industry across the board, and banking is no exception — in…

When banking is free …

I really enjoyed a recent article on CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor). If you don’t know them, CGAP is a global partnership of over 30 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP’s mission is to improve the lives of poor people by spurring innovations and…

Forking hell … the bitcoin split

There are a few exchanges I use for trading cryptocurrencies such as Kraken and Coinbase, so I was interested to receive this email from Coinbase last Friday: Dear Coinbase Customer, We are contacting you to make you aware of recent developments in a number of proposals for technical changes to Bitcoin. All BTC stored on…

Why FinTech start-ups think they can beat the banks

There’s an old joke about the guy who’s lost driving in the countryside who stops to ask a pedestrian how to get to the city.  The pedestrian replies: “oh, if you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here”, and this is exactly how banks feel today.  They want to get to the nirvana…

Five financial innovations you may have missed

I just attended an EFMA conference where the opening presentation talked about the most innovative banks in the world. They may or may not be, you can decide, as I’m posting some of their stories here.  These are the ones I quite liked, so it’s not exhaustive. See what you think … Capital One Skill for…