Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

The Finanser’s Week: 28th August – 3rd September 2017

This week’s main blog headlines are … Slow regulations versus fast tech Before 2010, I was writing a lot about technology but it was all heavily geared towards regulations.  It was pretty dull, to be honest, but worthy.  MiFID and PSD were top of mind, along with Basel III and other global, European and domestic…

Slow regulations versus fast tech

Before 2010, I was writing a lot about technology but it was all heavily geared towards regulations.  It was pretty dull, to be honest, but worthy.  MiFID and PSD were top of mind, along with Basel III and other global, European and domestic regulations.  I wrote a lot about regulations. Then it pivoted at the…

What makes DBS different?

I just had a whirlwind visit to Indonesia to support DBS in the rollout of their digibank service there. It was a very short visit, but a packed evening of presentations and discussions. Part of the time was spent with Piyush Gupta, the CEO, who I’ve been watching for some time now. Piyush has surrounded…

Lego bank is here, but it’s not built with Lego

A short time ago, I hosted an interesting group for the Nordic Finance Innovation meetings.  The meeting gathered several of the leading-edge Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) companies that have launched in the last few years including Bud, Clearbank, Leveris, Saxo Bank and Solaris.  Building on each others narrative it soon became clear that anyone could launch a…

The superpower that is China

I grew up with America as the dream. However, in the past two decades, China has become the second world superpower, whether the Americans like it or not. This is not me having a love thing for China. It’s just a fact. The Americans don’t like it. Google China as a superpower and most US…

The History of Bitcoin

Gemuel Franco over at Fried.com shared a great infographic on bitcoin with me, so I thought I should share it with you. Checkout the history below and note that the original exchange rate of 1,309.03 bitcoins to a dollar would now equate to circa $5.5 million. Not a bad investment.

The Finanser’s Week: 21st August – 27th August 2017

This week’s main blog headlines are … Is Amazon About to Burst Banks? I get press releases all the time and generally ignore them. In fact, I don’t know why they email me, as I never post them on the blog. Uh-oh. I just got one that I’m posting on the blog. Floodgates opening.  …

Is Amazon About to Burst Banks?

I get press releases all the time and generally ignore them. In fact, I don’t know why they email me, as I never post them on the blog. Uh-oh. I just got one that I’m posting on the blog. Floodgates opening.   What will happen when Amazon opens a bank. It is not such a…

FinTech hasn’t changed much … yet

For the second time in the last decade, I have been invited as a Contributing Subject Matter Expert to join in research by the World Economic Forum about how technology is changing banking. These are heavyweight projects involving years of research and hundreds of people.  Therefore, I take the content seriously. Here is the latest…

Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism

Following on from the discussions of The Wizard of Oz being a political allegory and rally cry against Wall Street and capitalism, did you realise that the boardgame Monopoly is the same, as in a game meant to illustrate the evils of capitalism? If not, then this article by Kate Raworth, sums it up well: Monopoly…