Grid

For years, people have argued that you need branches to serve customers for more complex transactions: to serve people who are uncomfortable with digital access; to serve young people getting their first mortgage; to serve retailers and small businesses with their cash needs; and so on and so forth. Baloney. …

I’ve been presenting and writing about the end of branches, cash and cards for twenty years: 2007: Bank strategies are fundamentally flawed – design around IP, not branches To be clear, I’m not saying they’re dead. I’ve been saying their role is replaced by the network and digitalisation. Digitalisation is …

I watch too much online these days. Streaming from Amazon, Netflix, Apple TV and more, means you can spend the whole day just binge-watching rubbish. I’ve found myself reverting to watching some older movies, like those made in the 2000s. Fifteen years. 15 years. 15yrs. It’s a long time passing. …

Hmmm … the wonderful Anna Irrera posted an update on Reuters, stating that anyone can be a bank these days, along with her colleague Iain Withers. The article is about embedded finance, a term I dislike. I prefer invisible finance but hey, you win some, you lose some. The article notes …

This week’s main blog discussions include … The fine line between banker and jail Some years ago, I regularly talked about bankers being criminals. It’s not a popular theme with the banking community but, a bit like a genius, bankers walk that line between good and bad. Genius’s walk the …

Some years ago, I regularly talked about bankers being criminals. It’s not a popular theme with the banking community but, a bit like a genius, bankers walk that line between good and bad. Genius’s walk the line between amazing and mad. It’s a fine line. Thing is that there are …

I didn’t think I should share this, but I will. I ran over the dog. Like many other people during the pandemic, we were finally going to be stuck at home long enough to get a puppy. So, we got one. It made me realise that I’m a cat person. …

One of the things over-looked by many is how banks invest in the Finverse. According to Toptal’s data, 63% of banks invest in startups or set up accelerators, and many are instrumental in FinTech companies’ operations, fund raising and IPOs. Bear in mind that start-ups need bank accounts too, which …

I was talking with a friend in Asia and went back to my traditional discussions of how Asia, Africa and LatAm markets are shaking up finance more than Europe and America. They then asked me the difficult question: But what about President Xi? Urmmm, what about President Xi? Well, it’s …

What is time? Do you have any idea? What is the time right now? Does it exist? Einstein says ‘no’. “Time does not exist. We invented it.” Some guy called Albert pic.twitter.com/JS9JMfEyJk — Chris Skinner (@Chris_Skinner) August 28, 2021   Building on Einstein’s quote, I used to regularly present that the …

This week’s main blog discussions include … What if you had “f**k you money”? I was quite taken by South Park’s co-creator Matt Stone talking to Bloomberg, about a deal where he and his co-founder Trey Parker just got paid $900 million to make six more seasons and 14 movies. His …

Simon Taylor posted an interesting dialogue about BaaS the other day. He used a couple of charts to illustrate the banking stack. The easiest and most basic one is this: I quite like it but, as Simon himself notes, there’s lots of nuance missing here. So let me add my layer …

I recently spotted this post from Panagiotis Kriaris, who leads business development at Unzer: In the era of #APIs, #openbanking and #openfinance, banking has become a totally different game vs what it used to be calling for equally adapted business models. Let’s take a look at #businessbanking and at 4 …

I just picked up Deloitte’s report on blockchain where 76% of finance executives have voted that digital currencies may overtake fiat currencies in the next decade*. Most of us would just read that statement and go meh. Not me. That’s a phantasmagorical statement. People in finance think fiat currencies are …

I was intrigued by a new report from the IMF entitled: The Impact of Fintech on Central Bank Governance (you can download it for free). I was particularly intrigued by its opening: Central bank governance is a concept composed of four constitutive and interrelated components: a central bank’s (i) mandate, …