Fintech

I’m getting a lot of people asking questions about what I think the coronavirus will mean long-term in the financial markets, so I’ve tried to jump forward to look back. Obviously, the big thing about a pandemic is that people are being told to stop meeting each other. Conferences, events, …

“Are you willing to take the risk of investing in bullshit?” Interesting headline. It’s not mine btw. It’s a question from a leading banker. The question, in this case, related to investing in data mining … but you will probably find it’s a question asked about any major project. It’s the …

I bumped into a real API marketplace the other day. Just what I’ve been looking for … … but not sure why they’re opening physical stores pic.twitter.com/NaUUiyQ4lK — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) February 17, 2020 It gained a few nice comments like: “So people could stock up on spaghetti code and …

Over the years, a few people have likened me to the Yoda of banking. Yoda is one of the most likable characters in the Star Wars franchise, but I’m not sure if I like the comparison. Yoda is seriously old, speaks in riddles and is tiny and wrinkled. Nevertheless, I …

A decade ago, we talked about the financial crisis, technology, regulations and compliance. A decade later, we still talk about regulations and compliance, but the discussion has changed thanks to the explosion of thousands of start-up firms around the world, in every constituency, doing things differently with technology that is …

FinTech investment numbers are variable dependent upon how they are counted. The number I’ve been using for most of last year is that headline amount of $111.8 billion invested worldwide in over 12,000 start-ups. That number came from KPMG in 2019, who noted that most of that investment was flowing …

I said you’re probably sick of Davos but one last update. On Friday a major announcement affecting all of banking and finance globally seeped out under the radar. I spotted it. Did you? Here it is … World Economic Forum Announces Global Consortium for Digital Currency Governance Today, the World …

Although most businesses fail in their first year, it is quite incredible just how many start-ups there are around the world doing something interesting with technology. According to Embroker: In 2016, 69% of U.S. entrepreneurs started their business at home. In 2018, there were 145 “active unicorns” in the U.S. collectively …

Varun Mittal, Associate Partner with EY, recently posted a couple of interesting slides about the launch of virtual banking licences to encourage challenger banks in Asia. If you’re not aware, there’s a great deal of digital banking activity across Asia. It’s not just in China, but there are notable things …

I just spent time with a bank talking about Doing Digital. The host had read a preview copy of my new book and was asking a few questions about it. What had surprised me the most in my talks with five banks? What lesson was the most important one I …

Looking beyond 2020, there has been a rise of quite a number of folks looking to the longer-term future. Here’s the key ones I’ve picked up on so far. First is Royal Bank of Canada with their Imagine 2025 series. Quite an investment and lots of interviews and insights. The …

The UK implemented Open Banking in January 2018 and now, almost two years later, you would think it’s doing really well. This is why the momentum is building. The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) shared figures that show there are 49 million data sharing requests monthly, doubling in just seven …

Building on my blog post last week, showing the views of 1997, it was clear years ago that banking was under siege. However, that siege never happened. Tesco thought that most banks were “a bunch of clowns”, but never cracked the market and still have not. Sainsbury may have onboarded …

I’ve blogged many times that so called free banking is a fallacy.  It’s something I have blogged about for a decade, and the recurring theme is free banking should be banned by the regulator as it’s only free as long as you don’t go overdrawn. The result is that the …

Back in 1997, I was tasked with writing a strategy for NCR. The strategy had to review the likelihood that other industries would enter banking and what threat or opportunity this offered. I spent a long time on this and concluded that the most likely outcome would be that telecommunications …