Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

The Finanser’s Week: 27th November – 3rd December 2023

This week’s main blog discussions include … When you’ve already offended customers, is it a good idea to tell them: “go f**k yourself”? This blog often talks about Elon Musk,  but then it also looks at the activities of Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and more. They all share several things: billionaries, visionaries, autism and a…

The big four drivers of the bank of the future

At another recent conference McKinsey presented. Now it is easy to take a pop at McKinsey but they have produced some useful reports recently, specifically: McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review 2023 Fintechs: A new paradigm of growth So, I was interested in their presentation. One slide in particular stood out, titled: the four key drivers…

Can AI do comedy?

Being intrigued by Generative AI, I’ve spent some time studying things. In fact, a lot of time watching movies and reading columns full of how it is making us worried about the future. Therefore, in the spirit of worrying you, I asked ChatGPT to write me a scene of a bank customer dealing with their…

Digital transformation is more to do with inclusion than banking

Space … the final frontier … these are the voyages of the challenger bank Trekkie. Our mission: to boldly go where no bank has gone before. Today, we landed on planet Earth and decided to look at financial inclusion, and the role of banks in ensuring everyone has access to an account. In some countries,…

The Finanser’s Week: 20th November – 26th November 2023

This week’s main blog discussions include … When we talk about customer journeys, what do we mean? I was struck by one slide in a presentation the other day. The slide stated this: I need a mortgage … to buy a house Why did this strike me? Probably because you realise, from the customer view,…

Why do retailers focus on customers and banks do not?

I just chaired a major retailers conference in Malmo, Sweden. Not a payments conference or retail payments conference or merchants payments conference. A retailers conference. It surprised me how much of the discussion was about loyalty, customer engagement and customer retention, as those discussions rarely come up at payments conferences. In fact, when I listed…

When we talk about customer journeys, what do we mean?

I was struck by one slide in a presentation the other day. The slide stated this: I need a mortgage … to buy a house Why did this strike me? Probably because you realise, from the customer view, that financial services has nothing to do with money. It is 100% to do with living a…

When regulators crackdown on crypto, you know that crypto has crept out

The cryptocurrency industry is maturing and, as it does so, the government, statists and regulators are diving in to control it, as are the banks and financial institutions. In fact, it intrigued me when talking with a major institution the other day that they said they could have been Coinbase, if only their management team…