Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Technology

Amazon’s secret sauce: customer obsession

I was watching this great advert documentary about Amazon on the BBC this week. It’s a rocking organisation that most of us mere mortals watch with wonder. From packing and selling books in a garage over the internet, it’s become a global behemoth (although Alibaba is bigger in China).  Amazon generated almost $75 billion in…

“Flash Boys” … that’s old news Michael

I just got this chart from the FT via Chris Giles: The chart clearly shows that from the Spring of 2009, algo trading rocketed whilst human trading plummeted. This is the timing of Chi-X, now BATS Chi-X, take-off.  It is the age of the algo, the fashion of the flash boy and the height of…

IT geeks

“Flash Boys” … that’s old news Michael

I just got this chart from the FT via Chris Giles: The chart clearly shows that from the Spring of 2009, algo trading rocketed whilst human trading plummeted. This is the timing of Chi-X, now BATS Chi-X, take-off.  It is the age of the algo, the fashion of the flash boy and the height of…

IT geeks

Cloud computing comes of age (thanks to vertical alignment to banking)

For some years now, banks have been grappling with the idea of cloud. A bit like Big Data, ‘cloud’ is this amorphic term that offers a panacea of solutions and nothing specific. This is not actually true, but the wide-ranging breadth of cloud and few and far between examples of depth, make it a term…

Cloud computing comes of age (thanks to vertical alignment to banking)

For some years now, banks have been grappling with the idea of cloud. A bit like Big Data, ‘cloud’ is this amorphic term that offers a panacea of solutions and nothing specific. This is not actually true, but the wide-ranging breadth of cloud and few and far between examples of depth, make it a term…

Give merchants the finger: now you can with PayPal

We've all been saying that it's only a while before we pay for everything with a biometric, as mentioned in last weeks blog: The Age of the Password is over. Bringing this one step nearer to reality is PayPal. With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5 last Friday, you can now pay with a fingerprint….

Screenshot 2014-04-15 14.24.11

Give merchants the finger: now you can with PayPal

We've all been saying that it's only a while before we pay for everything with a biometric, as mentioned in last weeks blog: The Age of the Password is over. Bringing this one step nearer to reality is PayPal. With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5 last Friday, you can now pay with a fingerprint….

Screenshot 2014-04-15 14.24.11

The Age of the Password is over

I saw a great but scary presentation this week from Kamran Meer, Chief IT Security Officer at Bank Alfalah, the sixth largest bank in Pakistan. Kamran began by asking the audience if they knew about the Stuxnet attack. Amazingly, 70% of the audience hadn’t heard of it although maybe it’s not so amazing as this was…

Secure_icon_ssl

The Age of the Password is over

I saw a great but scary presentation this week from Kamran Meer, Chief IT Security Officer at Bank Alfalah, the sixth largest bank in Pakistan. Kamran began by asking the audience if they knew about the Stuxnet attack. Amazingly, 70% of the audience hadn’t heard of it although maybe it’s not so amazing as this was…

Secure_icon_ssl

1.4 billion people have smartphones increasing at 44% per annum (infographic)

A fantastic infographic was sent over to me today by the folks at Open Mobile Media. Main headlines include: banks are the most trusted mobile payment providers (43%) half of all smartphone users expect to adopt the use of mobile wallets in the next three years 1.4 billion people now have smartphones, increasing at 44%…

E4PMobilePaymentsPredictionsandTrendsinfographic (1)