Fintech

The chasm between start-ups and incumbents is massively exposed by coronavirus. I realised this early on, when I saw that FinTech firms who were born on the internet were far more ready for working from home than traditional banks who depend on branches, buildings, office and physicality. A good example is how traditional banks who…

Last October I wrote a piece on Revolut, questioning its valuation which, at that time, was estimated to be anything up to $10 billion: They claim to have 8M customers. Let’s assume *all* of them are active. If they are “valued” at $10Bn that’s a per customer lifetime value of $1,250 or £1,000. Their premium…

I’ve tracked Wirecard for some years, as they were the bank partner that allowed Ollie Purdue to drop out of university at 21 years old to launch a bank called Loot. Wirecard basically offer the platform of many other firms to offer full banking services across Europe. Based in Germany, their clients include many FinTech…

What if we make money truly global, stable and secure? That’s Libra’s ambition and I’ve got to hand it to the guys at Libra. Having announced their idea to create a global currency last summer, and then see it ripped to pieces by regulators, they’re back. Yes, it’s Libra 2.0. What’s the difference between 1.0 and…

Someone asked me what the coronavirus pandemic means for the future of FinTech. I’ve blogged a bit about that already, referring specifically to this great presentation by Finch Capital: But equally, you may think that times are dull and boring, locked in at home and nothing going on, but there’s loads happening. Critically, what’s happening…

I have a few favourite FinTech firms: Ripple, Prosper, Lending Club, SoFi, Zopa, Monzo, N26, TransferWise, Klarna, Stripe, Alipay, WeBank and more. A lot of it is because I knew these firms as fledglings and have enjoyed watching them grow up. One firm in this crew is Wirecard, the German bank behind many of Europe’s…

We are all stuck indoors, and I wonder what you are doing? In my case, I’m learning a new language. What are you doing? One of they key things to do, and my other hobby, is keep up with ideas as, during this lockdown, there is still a lot of on-going activity online. A number…

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, gatherings, office work, packed trains…

“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 skeptic’s question. I’ve been asked…

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 sandbox toys” from Alex Kuznetsov;…