Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

How do you see the world?

I was reflecting on an interview about the role and importance of Asian, and specifically Chinese, FinTech when something exploded in the middle of my head. Not literally, of course, although you might have said that, but more an idea that had occurred to me a few times but suddenly was crystal clear. Stereotypes. We…

Which banks are leading digital (and who are the laggards)?

I’ve written a lot about legacy and the challenge of old systems, so it’s interesting to read a few press reports on said subjects. Yolanda Bobeldijk writes in the Financial News that 92 of the world’s top 100 banks still rely on IBM mainframes. Now that’s not an issue if those systems are well maintained…

The Open Finance Marketplace in Action (six video interviews)

I mentioned the Lego Bank not built by Lego recently. It’s all about the Open Marketplace of apps, APIs and analytics, and I said that the idea was illustrated well by firms like Solaris, Clear.bank and Bud. Just to follow on from that, here is a series of video interviews we recorded during the meetings about…

The regulator’s view of bitcoin, 2017

As part of the blockchain conference, I chaired a session with some central bankers talking about their views on distributed ledger technologies. These central banks have run trials and are thinking about it, but none of them are particularly big on blockchain right now. As mentioned on Friday, they see it as a long-term development…

The Finanser’s Week: 11th September – 17th September 2017

This week’s main blog headlines are … Bankers see faster horses; technologists imagine cars I was chairing a conference on blockchain and distributed ledgers the other day. The audience were a mixture of start-ups and banks, and the speakers were talking about how they viewed the world of distributed ledger developments. Many of the banks…

Bankers see faster horses; technologists imagine cars

I was chairing a conference on blockchain and distributed ledgers the other day. The audience were a mixture of start-ups and banks, and the speakers were talking about how they viewed the world of distributed ledger developments. Many of the banks had successfully complete proofs of concept projects and were now moving to pilots. It…

Who owns the customers’ data?

Following on from the discussions about identity on Monday, it gets interesting to think about the customers’ data and who owns it, especially in light of the Payment Services Directive 2, PSD2 for short, which comes into force at the start of next year.  The regulation forces banks to open account information to third parties…

Even British Airways gets blockchain now

When I fly with British Airways, which I try to avoid these days thanks to the fatuous actions of their lame duck CEO, then I’ll always check out the latest edition of Business Life. It’s their upmarket magazine for business fliers, and usually hits the right note. So imagine my surprise to see last month’s…

China’s ban on cryptocurrencies is not news

There’s so much rubbish being written about cryptocurrencies, ICOs, blockchain and shared ledgers at the moment that I’m almost tempted to give up on it all. 1 in 10 ICOs is a scam, blockchain is not the same thing as a shared ledger, and no, I can’t tell you if your Grandma should invest your…

The imperative for self-sovereign identification (get lost Equifax)

I’m making a presentation on cybersecurity this week at our Nordic Finance Innovation meetings. This meant preparing a few new slides from scratch as I don’t have a set deck for cybercrime, and sat and started ideas just as the news dropped about the Equifax breach. You’ll all know about this by now, but over…

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