Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

The Finanser’s Week: 13th December 2021- 19th December 2021

This week’s blog discussions included … The importance of financial literacy “When I was a lad, I got four shillings and sixpence every week for pocket money.” “Luxury! I was whipped in two by my dad and lived in a shoebox by the motorway!” says my friend. OK, enough revival of old Monty Python sketches,…

The importance of financial literacy

“When I was a lad, I got four shillings and sixpence every week for pocket money.” “Luxury! I was whipped in two by my dad and lived in a shoebox by the motorway!” says my friend. OK, enough revival of old Monty Python sketches, but the point is that children do need to know about…

It’s not FinTech vs Bank or CBDC vs Crypto

I’ve seen a lot of discussions of adversaries. It’s FinTech versus Bank, central bank currencies versus decentralised currencies. The commentary makes it appear like a big battle. I disagree. It’s not a battle or a war. It’s a change to the system based upon progress, development and technology. For example, I don’t see FinTech replacing…

How do you self-regulate?

There was an old game called Scruples that asked what would you do in a particular situation. What would you do if you discovered your best friend was cheating on their partner? Would you tell the partner? What would you do if you knew your colleague was stealing from the company? Would you tell the…

Who regulates crypto … everyone’s involved but nobody’s in charge

I’m worried that the older I get, the more cynical I get. I watch developments of governments, regulators, banks and business, and keep thinking: these guys are corrupt. But corruption is part of our DNA it seems. It’s purely a matter of transparency that will change this. Then I think about our world today, and…

The Finanser’s Week: 6th December 2021- 12th December 2021

This week’s blog discussions included … What will happen with crypto next? I had a friend who bought a load of bitcoin for around $10 each and then sold them to buy a house. If he had kept them, he could have ten houses today. I have another friend who invested heavily in ETH, the…

What’s worth more: Armycoin or Swiftiecoin?

We teach our children to read and write. It’s a priority. Why don’t we teach them to understand money? Surely financial literacy is as important as basic literacy? Some people get this, and some people don’t, but I woke up to this big time reading a few recent articles. For example, Claer Barrett writes in…

What will happen with crypto next?

I had a friend who bought a load of bitcoin for around $10 each and then sold them to buy a house. If he had kept them, he could have ten houses today. I have another friend who invested heavily in ETH, the coin of Ethereum. Today, they smile and sit pretty, whilst millions of…

The end of P2P finance?

I was really surprised to see the announcement by Zopa this week that they were pulling out of P2P (peer-to-peer) lending. As the company that started the FinTech P2P lending and FinTech buzz imho, how could they? I was angry and annoyed, and then remembered something: Following consultation, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is introducing…