Chris Skinner's blog

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The Long Now: 2015? or 2115?

Well, another fruitful day at #SIBOS 2010. After the morning plenary, I spent most of it debating big questions in the Long Now innotribe stream. The discussions today moved from trust to what ‘long’ means. For many, long means three years in their business thinking. But, in life, Long is eighty years or more. We…

The days of self-regulation are over

The first plenary session this morning was a long one and a good one, hosted by Anna Edwards, anchor for the CNBC TV team who are covering this year’s SIBOS. The theme was all about rebuilding trust, which Anna defined as “relying on the honesty and reliability of something” and that this is therefore a…

Restoring trust

A real tulip in Amsterdam

Another day another dollar, and so SIBOS day two begins. Up a little later today, after yesterday’s very early start for an interview on CNBC. Yesterday also finished quite late as we had a speaker’s dinner with the high and mighty of the SWIFT community at a top restaurant in the centre of Amsterdam. Must…

Orange

An interview with Stephen Hester

The final part of the work day yesterday was an interesting discussion with Stephen Hester, Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Here’s a summary of what he said, not verbatim and slightly interpreted, but near enough to be accurate: Martin: Why did you join RBS…

Hester

“Social media will bring banks to their knees”

Just out of the first plenary session which focused upon how regulatory reform and its likely impact upon the future structure of the industry. The session was chaired by Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor of the Financial Times, and comprised four panellists: Om Prakash Bhatt, Chairman, IBA & Chairman, State Bank of India Charles Goodhart…

Banks are just safe keepers of data

Just sat through the first innotribe Long Now discussion and it proved to be interesting. A small but nicely formed crowd gathered and we talked about banking for the next century and investing in the world for the next millennia. It all seems fairly esoteric maybe, but it did have one important outcome for me,…

Chew lips from Amsterdam

And so this year's SIBOS begins here in Amsterdam, and I'm up bright and early for a 7:30 meeting which is 6:30 UK time … yawn! First main session of the day is a discussion of securities and market infrastructures with the folks who lead various clearing and settlement firms.  There's Phil Brown, Member of…

How will banking be different in 100 years?

This is the last of the six big questions we are tackling next week at SIBOS.  In case you missed them, the other five are: When will we know there won't be another meltdown? Who will be the next global superpower?  What happens when there is no more poverty?  If payments are free, who pays? and…

Paris_hilton_flapper

The Long Now and #innotribe at #Sibos

I was going to write another big piece on a big question that we’ll talk about at SIBOS this year – it’s a big banking tradeshow in Amsterdam from 25-29 October as most of you know – and then got this video from Mariela at SWIFT and it says most of what I would say…

A brand new book on the PSD and SEPA

If you are unaware, a book has just been released by our good friend Ruth Wandhofer on the Payment Services Directive titled: EU Payments Integration – the Tale of SEPA, PSD and Other Milestones Along the Road. Ruth is well known in the payments industry for her in-depth knowledge of the regulatory, market and competitive landscape…

Ruth