Grid

FedNow is a new faster payments service for America. It’s been developing for years, and will go live in 2023 and yet, in conversation with an American friend, only 1 in 10 banks are ready for this. Why? Well, the issue lies in change. Fast change or slow change? In fact, a friend recently resigned…

When I wrote Digital Human, I got hauled up for saying that money replaced barter. It is a commonly held belief that humans evolved from nomads to farmers to cities and that, as they became civilised, they bartered bread for meat. However, that proved difficult if the butcher didn’t want meat, so how would that…

I said yesterday that, for the moment, I’ll stick with fiat currencies as cryptocurrencies are generally quite messy when used for retail purchases. And no, I’m not speaking as an observer but as a user. To buy my Watford football shirt, I had to open an account with a crypto app – which I’ve never…

Russell Brand had a big rant against Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) the other day, claiming that digital, programmable money combined with a digital identity is a fantastic way for governments to place you in a digital straitjacket. It’s a very convincing discussion with over a million views in just a few days. Russell’s humorous…

I was tempted to write about this, but many others have. In particular, I received a post from Dan Ashmore, crypto analyst at Invezz, which I thought was worth sharing. To begin with, if you’re not aware, there’s a massive war taking place in cryptoland. As bitcoin and other crypto prices dive, exchanges and key figures…

I just started a Digital Transformation Course in partnership with CFTE. It’s a course all about Digital Transformation of financial firms. You can sign up here: https://courses.cfte.education/digital-transformation-with-chris-skinner/, and here’s what you get: Week 1: What is a bank? This week discusses the history of banking and finance, how it is formed, why it is regulated…

I recently had a chat with Kjeld Herreman, Head of Strategy Advisory at RedCompass Labs, about the increasing impact of Authorised Push Payments (APP) on the financial industry and its customers. In case you’re not aware of APP, it’s where a customer authorises a payment to a criminal, typically due to being fooled into thinking…

Just over a year ago, I blogged about why I bought a Watford FC shirt, when I’m a Spurs fan. Now, I’ve just invested in a Crawley Town t-shirt. Why? It’s all about cryptocurrencies. Watford, sponsored by a bitcoin exchange, has been followed by Crawley Town, purchased by an American group led by Preston Johnson,…

I’ve been talking a lot about DeFi, CeFi and HyFi, and someone said: what about ReFi? ReFi? What’s that? Well, ReFi is all about Regenerative Finance, a system to rebuild Earth. Therefore, I’m pleased to share a second post by Letty Prados. Last month, I shared her introduction about ReFi. Here is Part II! Exploring Regenerative Tokenomics. If you…

The main blog discussions this week include … The constantly evolving Ant As those who have picked up my recent books, you will know that I’m an avid observer of Ant Group and Alipay’s activities. After all, the company did become a 30,000 word case study in my book Digital Human. I haven’t written about Alipay…