Future

Dec 2, 2010

The iPhone 7 and iPad 4

I just noticed that iPad 2 is planned for release on the same day as Blackberry release their Playbook tablet in April 2011. This will follow the iPhone 5 release in January 2011. But what comes after this? What will Apple and Android products look like in 2014? Well, here's a demonstration of the…

Nov 1, 2010

The Long Blog about the Long Now

Much of last week was focused on the Long Now and Long Finance for me. Working with a group of thought leaders that included Venessa Miemis, Thierry Touchais, John Hagel, Stefan Nusser, Michael Mainelli, Paul Saffo, Bruce Davis, Brett King, Nova Spivack and more, we debated big topic items all week. And yes, there were…

Sep 21, 2010

Which nation will be next global superpower?

As mentioned the other day, we are asking some big ticket long-term questions at SIBOS this year, such as: When will we know that financial systems work? How will we know when financial risk is not an issue anymore? What will America and Europe be doing when the economic power balance has shifted to Asia?…

Jul 30, 2010

All credit to Jane

Jane wakes to the sound of Michael Bublé on her wristband communicator (a 4G broadband videostrap). She washes and has breakfast before skipping out of the house and onto the metro. As she enters the station, her communicator flags to the metro system that “Jane Smith” has passed through the doors. She reads the paper…

Jul 28, 2010

Banks “have to unhinge themselves from the physicality of banking”

I interviewed good friend Brett King last week, author of Bank 2.0, and here’s a podcast that some Finanser readers might enjoy: Download Brett King Podcast (right-click link to save file) Brett King from Chris Skinner on Vimeo. Note that I started by trying to bait Brett a little bit by being a technology and…

Jul 12, 2010

EU’s bank stress tests creating more bank stress

It turns out that 91 European banks are to be put through a ‘stress test’ to see how well or badly they will cope with a shock to the system. The stress test itself was a little unclear until late last week, when the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) detailed what would happen. As…

Jul 8, 2010

Think the unthinkable

Many interesting, weird and wonderful things drop into my inbox, Facebook newsfeed and twitter status updates. Take yesterday. I was sent: a copy of the BBA’s Annual Abstract of Banking Statistics, lots of notes from my accountant, various invites to press shindigs, a note from FatBoy Slim, who is an England groupie at the World…

Jun 23, 2010

Bank branches and the next gen mobile

Spent a lot of time yesterday talking with folks about the future of money, payments and banking. The conversation got interesting in two particular areas: branches and mobile services. This is because I realised some things. Take branches. There appears to be an evolution of branch usage from underbanked economies through emerging economies to developed…

Jun 22, 2010

With perfect foresight, where would you invest?

I recently blogged a lot about 10,000 year thinking, the Long Now and how it relates to financial services. If you missed it, then here’s the info: The Long Now of Finance, Part One The Long Now of Finance, Part Two The Long Now of Finance, Part Three In fact, the whole meeting of the…

May 27, 2010

When’s the next financial crisis and what will cause it?

WARNING: THIS BLOG ENTRY WILL NOT CHEER YOU UP [sorry] I spent the morning with a group of futurists debating the long-term outlook for financial markets and am never sure about the usefulness of such debates, although there is definitely something of use in creating scenario plans for the future which is where we were…