Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

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…

The Finanser’s Week: 4th September – 10th September 2017

This week’s main blog headlines are … InsurTech’s big ticket items: machine learning on the blockchain I don’t usually tell people that I’m a qualified expert in insurance as it’s not relevant, but I’m mentioning it today as I just presented at a private insurance event. There are lots of interesting nuances in insurance. You…

Digital Human (my new book)

And continuing my shameless self-interest, a little more on the new book … I’ve been musing for a while about inclusivity, and find that the world is truly being transformed as everyone joins the network. It is the theme I present all the time right now, and discussions around M-Pesa, Saldazo, Paytm and Ant Financial…

An interview about digital

I recently was interviewed for a conference in Miami, and thought you might enjoy the Q&A so sharing … Your book “Digital Bank” published in 2014 included extensive guidance and background on the digital revolution in banking that was taking place. Are changes going at the speed and in the direction you envisioned? Yes. I…

InsurTech’s big ticket items: machine learning on the blockchain

I don’t usually tell people that I’m a qualified expert in insurance as it’s not relevant, but I’m mentioning it today as I just presented at a private insurance event. There are lots of interesting nuances in insurance. You and I probably think it’s just that once a year renewal of our auto policy, or…

Financial Inclusion in Mexico: Saldazo’s overnight success

I now think I am a good friend of Pablo García Arabéhéty, CGAP’s Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. This is, in part, because he’s contributed one of the key pieces I’m using in my new book Digital Human (due for release next Spring), and partly because we met at the CIAB conference last week,…

The State of FinTech in Brasil

I’ve been spending a lot of time travelling around the LatAm markets over the past few years. In fact, I was just at the CIAB FELBAN FIBA conference in Miami that covers this geography and this year saw many firms from Nicaragua to Honduras to Costa Rica attend. But the major markets are the competition between…

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…