Opinion

I just stumbled across a great article about ethical banking. We can call it socially useful banking or green banking or whatever, but it’s all about a bank’s role in society and the scheme of things. Are banks doing the right or wong things? My gut feeling is that banks …

I’ve been watching the headlines related to Joe Biden’s pick for the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OCC is an interesting department, as it can issue national bank charters for US banks, and often runs into trouble. By way of example, under the previous …

My mate Dave Birch wrote a Forbes piece the other day titled Unbank the Banked. I thought it was going to be a story about how banks are ejecting thousands of customers due to poor onboarding. Instead Dave wrote about the unbanked don’t necessarily need banks. It’s a good piece, …

The financial marketplace is becoming incredibly diverse and niche. Instead of universal banks, we now have plug-and-play code. Some would call it an object-oriented market structure. The basics are that no one dominates this structure. Instead, there are boutique players at every level of the stratosphere. The universal provider is …

For many years I’ve enjoyed talking about the origins of banking with the Medici’s in the Renaissance era. Amazingly, one bank has survived since then and I use them to talk about the oldest bank in the world. Do you know which bank that is?         Monte …

I’ve watched Marcus for a while and was not surprised to see its founder is leaving. There are those who are great at building companies and those who are great at running companies. They are rarely the same person. In fact, some of the greatest companies were created by builders …

I haven’t blogged much about my friends from Hangzhou (China) lately, as it is all in a state of flux, but what I can say is that the will of the people – President Xi – appears to be strong. If you haven’t seen the latest nuance, Ant Group are …

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 …

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 …

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 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 specific comment: “As you can see from this deal, we have f**k you money …

I’ve been close to Peter Vander Auwera for many years, thanks to Innotribe. He retired a few years ago on bitcoin – I wonder how many times I will use that line? – and became an artist. Great guy. But he’s still tracking me and others in the Finverse and …

I was thinking about things that are not being dealt with by banks or fintechs. Surprisingly, there are many things that come to mind: real-time proof of identity to avoid freezing of accounts multiple verifications of a payment to ensure you send to the right person’s account better use of …

Building on the Finverse, I always remember the big trading scandals of the 2000s with Jérôme Kerviel of Société Générale and Kweku Adoboli of UBS. In fact, it probably applies to all rogue traders of notoriety, including the most infamous one, Nick Leeson of Barings Bank. What did they all …