Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

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ING: selling the rebels with a cause

I still remember fondly the BAI Show of 2008 where there were several key highlihgts.  One of the biggest was the one-to-one interview with Arkadi Kuhlmann, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of ING Direct USA.  At the time, Arkadi had just produced his book: “The Orange Code: How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a…

ING Direct

ING: selling the rebels with a cause

I still remember fondly the BAI Show of 2008 where there were several key highlihgts.  One of the biggest was the one-to-one interview with Arkadi Kuhlmann, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of ING Direct USA.  At the time, Arkadi had just produced his book: “The Orange Code: How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a…

ING Direct

Are payments infrastructures fit for purpose?

On Wednesday 22nd June, we are running a private dinner meeting of the Financial Services Club in London to launch the results of our recent survey: "Are payments infrastructures fit for purpose?" which was completed by 350 payments professionals worldwide. As a taste of what came out of this, respondents were asked to take a view…

If Amazon was a bank

It amazed me to see the back office of one of the largest operations in the world in action today. Yes, I’m talking about Amazon. A place you would think would be a seamless operation of high technology but, in reality, is a bit of a mess. I mean sure, from an external view, it…

Oh, for them good old cheque days

  June 9th 2065 We just celebrated grandad's hundredth birthday. He was a banker, and he recorded a speech for us to play to the family. We decided to share his speech as it captures a moment of history that many of us might forget. Hope you like it … I cannot believe that I’m…

Poor are #1 prey for financial predators

It’s fairly obvious that the less you have of something you want, the more you want it; whilst the more you have, the less you need it. It’s not true of everything I guess as, for example, I don’t have a great deal of tomatoes and don’t want more of them because I don’t like…

Isn’t social banking just a marketing thing?

One of the questions that came up in Abu Dhabi is that Social Media is great, but what’s it go to do with the CIO?  CIOs are the main audience here at MEFTEC and media is a marketing thing isn’t it? This got me thinking, as most of the social media presentations do focus upon…

Why banks are failing to manage money

OK, down to business. What has the failure of government to regulate the internet got to do with banks? Quite a lot actually as governments and banks are closely intertwined, as demonstrated throughout this financial crisis. Banks control economies and governments need economies to run efficiently, hence the two go hand in hand. And just…

Why banks are failing to manage money

OK, down to business. What has the failure of government to regulate the internet got to do with banks? Quite a lot actually as governments and banks are closely intertwined, as demonstrated throughout this financial crisis. Banks control economies and governments need economies to run efficiently, hence the two go hand in hand. And just…

That Gold dispensing ATM in action …

This week, it’s the lovely Abu Dhabi for a few days at a conference that’s now in its seventh year: MEFTEC. MEFTEC gets a large turnout from the SAMEA region – Southern Asia, Middle East and Africa – and always gives me a different flavour of the world from a strong focus on microfinance in…

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