Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Opinion

Is Moore Brown’s nemesis?

What a week was last week. HBOS's former executives on the back foot over risk management procedures whilst whistleblower and former Group Head of Risk at HBOS, Paul Moore, packs a few sucker punches to say no-one listened to his warnings about leverage. One person in particular ignored and then sacked Mr. Moore: Sir Jim…

Is Moore Brown’s nemesis?

What a week was last week. HBOS's former executives on the back foot over risk management procedures whilst whistleblower and former Group Head of Risk at HBOS, Paul Moore, packs a few sucker punches to say no-one listened to his warnings about leverage. One person in particular ignored and then sacked Mr. Moore: Sir Jim…

BaaS: Banking as a Service (Presentation)

I've just uploaded my latest presentation on Banking as a Service, which was presented for the first time in Bahrain this week. This is therefore, in effect, my fourth posting about why banking will be free, or razorblade margins anyway.  You can read Parts One, Two and Three first if you want, but you should…

An easy way to understand why banks are nervous

Intraday Liquidity is a term that would mystify some, but is one of the core issues of today as this is a liquidity crisis. Liquidity is the ability of a bank to meet its payment obligations by being able to identify those assets that can be quickly converted to cash. Intraday Liquidity is therefore the…

An easy way to understand why banks are nervous

Intraday Liquidity is a term that would mystify some, but is one of the core issues of today as this is a liquidity crisis. Liquidity is the ability of a bank to meet its payment obligations by being able to identify those assets that can be quickly converted to cash. Intraday Liquidity is therefore the…

An apology to 98% of bankers

After the banking leaders apologies in government hearings, I think I also have to apologise to my friends in the banking industry.  The apology is for the fact that many of us have spent months now writing stinking anecdotes about bankers, the banking system and how rotten some of it is. All of this acrimony…

An apology to 98% of bankers

After the banking leaders apologies in government hearings, I think I also have to apologise to my friends in the banking industry.  The apology is for the fact that many of us have spent months now writing stinking anecdotes about bankers, the banking system and how rotten some of it is. All of this acrimony…

We believe banks should (not) fail?

I promise to write up more of the Middle Eastern case studies and issues soon, but became distracted because next Monday I’m joining a debate in Ireland. The debate is at the UCC Philosophical Society, one of the largest and oldest debating societies, and they came up with a wonderful motion: “this house believes that…

We believe banks should (not) fail?

I promise to write up more of the Middle Eastern case studies and issues soon, but became distracted because next Monday I’m joining a debate in Ireland. The debate is at the UCC Philosophical Society, one of the largest and oldest debating societies, and they came up with a wonderful motion: “this house believes that…

Who says Canada’s the safest banking system?

Canadian's of course! In an article in Newsweek, there's a long discussion about why Canada has weathered this financial storm so well.  There's the first headline: "Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1–compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1" Well, that disagrees with this chart that I filched off the New York…