Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Payments

Having a drink with Gerard Hartsink

Next Monday, 27th April, the Financial Services Club will be hosting an evening with Gerard Hartsink, Chairman of the European Payments Council and Senior Vice President with ABN AMRO / Royal Bank of Scotland. I recently posted Gerard's comments on the European Payments landscape when we met in Hong Kong in March, and he will…

Patent lawsuit against Google Checkout, Visa, MasterCard …

Just noticed a lawsuit has been raised by Actus LLC for infringements of four e-commerce patents against 20 defendants including Bank of America, Capital One Financial Corp, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Mastercard International, Obopay, Visa, Wal-Mart, Western Union and more. Google's accused products are Google Checkout and the Android Mobile phone. The patent numbers are…

Can regulators really regulate?

I blogged a while ago about David Doyle, expert on all things in finance with a Brussels flavour. David and I regularly tag-team on MiFID and the PSD, and in the wider context of Europe's Financial Services Action Plan. In particular, he has an inside track on all this stuff and presented the latest updates…

PIN codes cracked and 285 million data breaches

Wired's blog just noted that Bryan Sartin, director of investigative response for Verizon Business, is saying the backbone of bank security – the PIN – is broken by hackers.  In fact, he reckons, its' been blown apart. "We're seeing entirely new attacks that a year ago were thought to be only academically possible," says Sartin. …

PIN codes cracked and 285 million data breaches

Wired's blog just noted that Bryan Sartin, director of investigative response for Verizon Business, is saying the backbone of bank security – the PIN – is broken by hackers.  In fact, he reckons, its' been blown apart. "We're seeing entirely new attacks that a year ago were thought to be only academically possible," says Sartin. …

Banks should be cannibals

After my blog about the multichannel myth last week, it made me realise that banks need to become cannibals. Banks should launch new channels that eat their old ones alive, rather than trying to bolt these new channels onto their old bank. Banks can only be brilliant at one channel – the branch, the call…

Africa’s mobile financial revolution

I know that the theme of mobile banking is appearing a lot at the moment, but it is hot, hot, hot! A bit like Africa, and this is the story of a great success in Africa. And no, it’s not M-PESA, although that one’s a goodie too. This one’s ABSA Bank in South Africa. ABSA…

ABSA1

Facebook Testing Virtual Currency

Interesting note sent to me from Nelson Eduardo Pereira today, who spotted that Facebook are offering a currency.  It's not a real one, just swapping credits, but it's a start. The service builds on the gift services in Facebook. These gift services have been tracked by Lightspeed Ventures for a while now and estimated to…

Gift

Facebook Testing Virtual Currency

Interesting note sent to me from Nelson Eduardo Pereira today, who spotted that Facebook are offering a currency.  It's not a real one, just swapping credits, but it's a start. The service builds on the gift services in Facebook. These gift services have been tracked by Lightspeed Ventures for a while now and estimated to…

Gift

Britain’s first mobile bank

I was pleased to hear about the progress of MoBank,  the UK’s first mobile-only bank, which launches in May. It’s not a fully fledged bank yet, like Jibun Bank, as it’s starting out as a convenient way to buy things through an iPhone and designed for young adults. So it doesn't have all the transactional…

Mobank