Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

America’s troubled regulatory regime laid bare by the OCC

I’m regularly blogging and talking about the legacy economy known as America.  This will irritate my American colleagues, but come on, which country still issues more checks (cheques) than the rest of the world combined?  Which country took a decade longer to get Chip & PIN than most?  Which country is still struggling to work…

The Finanser’s Week: 24th April – 30th April 2017

This week’s main blog headlines are … Why organisations resist innovation One of my good friends at 11FS referenced Conway’s Law the other day.  I wondered what it was, as I know Moore’s Law and the Law of Diminishing Returns in economics, but Conway’s Law?  What’s that? It’s a thesis created by Melvin E. Conway,…

Why organisations resist innovation

One of my good friends at 11FS referenced Conway’s Law the other day.  I wondered what it was, as I know Moore’s Law and the Law of Diminishing Returns in economics, but Conway’s Law?  What’s that? It’s a thesis created by Melvin E. Conway, a computer programmer, back in 1968 which states: Any organization that…

The Semantic bank

I have a keynote coming up on May 19 in Amsterdam with The Next Web, who I regularly write a column for now.  Here’s my latest one: I’m delighted to be speaking at TNW on May 19 in Amsterdam.  I wanted to talk about Digital Human, the theme of my next book, but the guys want me…

The Banking Revolution: Sink or Swim

I have a webinar on digital transformation at 12:00 GMT tomorrow (April 27) with Salesforce, and they kindly asked me to write a blog to introduce the subject matter.  Here it is: I regularly ask audiences at the conferences I speak at if they think we are going through an evolution or a revolution in banking….

A world without money

I have no academic papers or historical research view on what I’m about to post, although I will find some, but I was reflecting on my discussions of revolutions in humanity.  In particular, the second age of humankind, when we invented money as a control mechanism. Before this seismic change, money didn’t matter.  We shared beliefs…

What’s it like being unbanked?

I’ve just spent the last three weeks travelling around too many places to mention, including Germany, UAE, UK and three very different countries: Argentina, Colombia and Pakistan. Argentina is a huge and diverse country of over a million square miles, and a population of 40 million; Colombia is one of the world’s most ecologically diverse…

The Finanser’s Week: 17th April – 23rd April 2017

A summary of the main blogs of the week … Arguing with a banker … A banker and I were talking about the function of a bank.  He gave me the classic view: “A bank is there to take people’s money and lend it out at a profit, whilst ensuring the risk of non-payment is…

Financial Services: The Next Generation … where is it?

I’ve blogged about how I see leadership in the developing (developed now) economies of China and India, and the new innovation models of emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, but  not quite in the way in which I see them now. The more I think about it, we have three major FinTech models, each with their…

An interview with yours truly on today’s issues for banks

I was recently asked a set of questions by .BANK and duly answered.  The interview is now online so I thought I would share it here … .BANK: In your book, The Future of Banking in a Globalised World, you explore the impact of regulatory change on the banking industry. With the move to less regulation…