Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

100 years of AI Life

I just picked up the London Business School’s quarterly journal, with lots of articles talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are two in particular that stand out, with some interesting views. The first is by Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, who argues that people will be integral to the future of business, just…

The difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence

I often point to a banks’ executive leadership team and ask the question: who can tell me the difference between blockchain and distributed ledger? If anyone even goes there, I then ask them to tell me the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning. Few ever come out of that well and you may ask:…

AI, machine learning, data and Nordic banks

Last week we had our first meetings of Nordic Finance Innovation, the largest networking group in the Nordic region for people involved in finance and technology which I happen to chair. The meeting focused upon data: data usage, data analytics, data leverage and data privacy. It was an interesting meet-up and Danielle Neben, editor at Nordic…

Is the bank talking or walking digital?

I’ve been blogging about digital transformation and one commentator asked me to qualify what I actually meant by a bank ‘transforming’ versus the others. This is something I intended to blog about but Bill Streeter over at The Financial Brand beat me to it in his reporting of research by BDO, the American assurance, tax, and…

The Finanser’s Week: 4th February – 10th February 2019

The main blog headlines are … Is the branch dead? A regular discussion of mine has resurfaced in recent days: is the branch dead? Why it has returned is due to the announcement of Santander closing a fifth of its UK branch network: The Spanish-owned bank, which has one of the largest high street networks in Britain,…

EQ Bank, Canada: a customer-obsessed bank

A few years ago, I was invited to talk with Equitable Bank in Canada about digital banking. Since then, they’ve launched their digital bank called EQ Bank. So I was pleased when Simon Wahl, who heads up marketing at Flinks, sent me a podcast interview with Andrew Moor, EQ Bank’s CEO, along with a transcript…

Why banks should stop closing branches

I wrote my blog about the bank branch being dead the other day, just as a new report called for banks to stop trying to be cashless and branchless because it harms society. This is from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), an association founded by William Shipley in…

The next global financial meltdown is just around the corner

Yep, there’s a clickbaiting title if ever I saw one. But it seems to be true. Ten years ago, we had a global financial crisis. Now, ten years later, the banks are heavily regulated, their risk-capital ratios stabilised, their leverage reduced and the regulators breathing down their necks, promoting competition and supporting technology innovators. The…

Oliver Wyman recommend banks don’t try to be digital? What rubbish!

There was quite a bit of coverage of an analyst report last week, putting forward the notion that big banks should forget converting the existing organisation, systems and structures, and start over. This one is from Oliver Wyman and, for me, it goes straight into the same bin as the Gartner forecast that most banks won’t…

Is the branch dead?

A regular discussion of mine has resurfaced in recent days: is the branch dead? Why it has returned is due to the announcement of Santander closing a fifth of its UK branch network: The Spanish-owned bank, which has one of the largest high street networks in Britain, will shut 140 branches, leaving 614 after the closures, which…

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