Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Payments

The next major financial crisis will be in 2045 (presentation)

I was asked to keynote at the ISITC 18th Annual Industry Forum & Vendor Show in Boston this week. Knowing that it’s always important to pull the chain a little bit, I put forward the title: “The next mega global financial crisis will be in 2045”. This was based upon an earlier blog, where I…

2045_1

Was SWIFT’s governance compromised by Iran’s ejection?

I misrepresented a key issue with the discussions on the future of SWIFT in my blog entry last Friday, so thought I would write a follow up here, as it is THE key issue the network community faces. Who owns SWIFT? The obvious answer is the 9,700 banks who form the SWIFT community, but that’s…

The future of SWIFT (updated)

We had a great meeting at the Financial Services Club this week with Lazaro Campos, CEO of SWIFT. Lazaro took part in a one to one interview about SWIFT’s past, present and future, and delved into many areas that were of interest to the over one hundred members who joined us. The evening was all…

Lazaro attendees

Mobile payments is so hot right now, it burns

I said that I had been chairing a conference on payments last week. The conference is the International Payments Summit, one of my annual favourites. It now has quite a wide ranging remit, from SEPA and European payments through all things electronic to mobile. With more time, I would write up every session, as there…

Ostrich-head-in-sand

Mobile payments is so hot right now, it burns

I said that I had been chairing a conference on payments last week. The conference is the International Payments Summit, one of my annual favourites. It now has quite a wide ranging remit, from SEPA and European payments through all things electronic to mobile. With more time, I would write up every session, as there…

Ostrich-head-in-sand

Contactless payments are already past their sell-by date

Spent most of this week at a payments conference. The theme was relentlessly around mobile payments, as this area of the market has truly kicked off as a major focal point for banks, telecommunications firms, retailers and merchants. There was a particularly interesting debate about contactless payments, as this is also something that is being…

Square Card Case

Making a mint

We had a debate last night about “the future of cash – is there one?” with the Royal Mint and LINK network arguing against two digital futurists. I’ll write up that debate in a bit but, in preparing for the meeting, I thought about cash. Specifically the minting of cash, a subject I’ve touched on…

Yap

A crowdsourced bank mobile app

Today, I read a few headlines that make me sit up and take note. First, the news that China’s just bursting over a billion mobile users.  Yes, China is a big economy with 1.3 billion citizens.  A billion mobile users is big news as it means that almost all Chinese citizens now have access to…

Square

A crowdsourced bank mobile app

Today, I read a few headlines that make me sit up and take note. First, the news that China’s just bursting over a billion mobile users.  Yes, China is a big economy with 1.3 billion citizens.  A billion mobile users is big news as it means that almost all Chinese citizens now have access to…

Square

US authorities start campaign against Bitcoin?

Several people pinged me yesterday to highlight the fact that Bitcoin has now become a target of the major payments processors. Not for acquisition. Not for partnership. Not for joint ventures. Not for support. No. Bitcoin is obviously becoming a threat to mainstream operations as it is now an active shut-down target. This was demonstrated…

Vanonymous