Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Banking with a human touch (guest speech transcript)

Some bankers took exception to my calling them some of them morally bankrupt and socially useless. I’m not surprised, as I used those phrases intentionally to be provocative. Equally, I wasn’t saying that all bankers are corrupt and useless, just some. Some big names, but not all. Equally, I have said that some banks are…

Are you focused on the right customer?

Another few articles I’ve picked up this week have focused upon the new generation of consumer: Gen Z. I would call them the iGen but that’s too branded, so marketers call them Gen Z. Who are the Z Gen? As of 2019, the breakdown by age looks like this: Baby Boomers: Baby boomers were born…

If Facebook launch a cryptocurrency, will US government shut it down?

I’m writing more and more about Facebook launching its own cryptocurrency lately: Will Facebook become the world’s central bank? (March 2019) Will a global platform connect all of our money? (April 2019) This is because they are getting serious about payments and blockchain, after a variety of reports that they will launch their own stablecoin,…

The Finanser’s Week: 13th May – 19th May 2019

The main blog headlines are … Five phases of FinTech (2005-2027) Three years ago, I blogged about three phases of FinTech. Three years later, I can expand on that theme and talk about five phases of FinTech. The five phases of FinTech are (dates are rough guide): Disruption (2005-2014) Discussion (2014-2017) Partnership (2017-2022) Integration (2022-2027)…

Five phases of FinTech (2005-2027)

Three years ago, I blogged about three phases of FinTech. Three years later, I can expand on that theme and talk about five phases of FinTech. The five phases of FinTech are (dates are rough guide): Disruption (2005-2014) Discussion (2014-2017) Partnership (2017-2022) Integration (2022-2027) Renewal (2027+) Phase One: Disruption (2005-2014) For me, phase one began…

Lessons from leaders: Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Twenty years ago, I was doing a lot of work on business transformation and business process re-engineering (BPR). Most of the firms didn’t do transformation and viewed it as too risky. Instead they went for BPR for BPI … business process improvements. Incremental benefits rather than radical results. That was okay, but I found it…

Banking for Humanity?

I was asked to speak to the theme of Banking for Humanity at a conference the other day, and it made me realise that the five areas I’ve recently been blogging about came together nicely. First, there’s financial inclusion which is the theme of Digital Human. The fact that anyone who can get access to…

Does your bank look like this?

Henry Ford famously stated: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Of course they would, as they had no idea what anything else was. In fact, I use this story often as a Victorian vision of the future was a steam-powered robot horse. The reason they wanted this…

GrandTech: the newest FinTech market niche

Watching the BBC, I often see reports on the elderly being ripped off, scammed and targeted by fraudsters. Here’s just a few recent ones: Hidden ‘shame’ of elderly scam victims – BBC News Reports of frauds on the elderly are ‘tip of iceberg’ – BBC News Bank staff ‘saving elderly from scams’ – BBC News…

The Finanser’s Week: 6th May – 12th May 2019

The main blog headlines are … Bitcoin, Stablecoin, Blockchain, Enterprise Ledger … WTF? I used to blog about blockchain and cryptocurrency almost every day. I stopped as it got too hyped, scammed and boring. In fact, my last blog was about the blockchain hype being dead, but the blockchain dream is still very much alive….