Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner

Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner. The Finanser discusses all things fintech, finance, banking, technology and, most importantly, the future. Chris Skinner has been voted the most influential technologist in Britain and received a lifetime achievement award for his visionary approach to the future of money from the Payments Association. He has advised the…

Read More

LATEST POSTS

What would you do if you lost a billion dollars?

Whilst walking the dog, I’ve been entertained by a fascinating series of podcasts on BBC Sounds called Fool’s Gold. It tells the story of two detectorists – folks who search everywhere using metal detectors – who found gold dating back to the 8th century. Very rare gold. 300 or more coins plus some jewellery. It’s…

Read More

Citi predict 2025 is when stablecoins explode!

Surfing as usual, I stumbled across a new report by Citi talking about Digital Dollars, and how banks and public sector would drive blockchain adoption. So, what does the digital dollar mean? Citi’s view is that “2025 has the potential to be blockchain’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ for adoption in the financial and public sectors. A supportive…

Read More

Designing the next generation of banking using zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs)

The internet was launched in the 1990s based upon generations of technologies that went before. It was designed for the exchange of information, not value. Now, we live in a networked world of information and value exchange, and are trying to retrofit the mechanisms for commerce to a flawed structure. That is why we are…

Read More

Whatever happened to work-life balance?

I was really irritated the other day as my children wanted to sign on to Minecraft and needed to login to our Microsoft account. The annoyance was two-fold: (a) the Microsoft account has all of my business data in there; and (b) I couldn’t remember the username and password. An hour later it was all…

Read More

Fintech

View More

Designing the next generation of banking using zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs)

The internet was launched in the 1990s based upon generations of technologies that went before. It was designed for the exchange of information, not value. Now, we live in a networked world of information and value exchange, and are trying to retrofit the mechanisms for commerce to a flawed structure. That is why we are…

Read More

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you #revolut it

Revolut just dropped their annual report and the numbers are simply stunning. In 2024, Revolut processed over £1 trillion in transaction volume, a 52% jump from the previous year, and customer deposits grew to £30 billion. Extraordinary fact: Revolut now serves more customers than HSBC! The question I hear you ask is: why? Why are…

Read More

How bad is deep fake fraud?

I’m listening to a fascinating podcast from the BBC about Whisky Bandits. The scam is that you buy a cask of whisky for thousands of dollars, but the cask you bought does not exist. In other words, you just got a piece of paper saying that you own a cask or, in simpler terms, you…

Read More

Create a fake Chris in minutes, thanks to AI

In a disturbing new development using AI, I can generate a fake passport in minutes that would fool Revolut and Binance for account opening. This was a discovery by Polish researcher Borys Musielak using ChatGPT-4o, who created a fake passport in five minutes You can now generate fake passports with GPT-4o. It took me 5…

Read More

When money thinks for you …

Back in the day, Brett King had this idea of starting a mobile-first bank. It was when Bank 2.0 took off, and I was one of the first investors. We ended up enjoying a day of brainstorming in an American park retreat, and developed the line “spend, save, and live smarter”, which is still there…

Read More

When digital goes down

Well, not exactly digital but electrical. We saw the massive issue that created at Heathrow airport recently, but I’ve been personally affected by the same issue. Long story short, we have an electric gate at our property, and the electrics keep breaking down. Result? We are either locked in or locked out of our property….

Read More

The issue with digital

In my presentations these days are five key themes: the fintech revolution; cryptocurrency creation; distributed ledger technology; the AI world; and quantum disruption. I could add to the list – the metaverse, 6G+, robots, etc – but these are the top five in the financial world I live in. Then, when you sit back and…

Read More

Why does no one deal with emotional assets?

I was talking to a wealth management startup the other day, and they showed me an aggregation service that can harvest all of your physical, digital and emotional assets, combined with a death management service that alerts your key people to all the things they need to know to find those assets when you die….

Read More

#Stripe’s policy: by raising risk, you become risk (#RDR)

On my LinkedIn stream, I’ve been getting more and more alerts about malpractices at Stripe. That surprises me as they are the poster child of fintech, so I investigated and found that most of my feed was being filled by one Brad Harrington, a young self-employed entrepreneur who graduated from the University of Michigan in…

Read More

Digital Bank

View More

Designing the next generation of banking using zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs)

The internet was launched in the 1990s based upon generations of technologies that went before. It was designed for the exchange of information, not value. Now, we live in a networked world of information and value exchange, and are trying to retrofit the mechanisms for commerce to a flawed structure. That is why we are…

Read More

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you #revolut it

Revolut just dropped their annual report and the numbers are simply stunning. In 2024, Revolut processed over £1 trillion in transaction volume, a 52% jump from the previous year, and customer deposits grew to £30 billion. Extraordinary fact: Revolut now serves more customers than HSBC! The question I hear you ask is: why? Why are…

Read More

How bad is deep fake fraud?

I’m listening to a fascinating podcast from the BBC about Whisky Bandits. The scam is that you buy a cask of whisky for thousands of dollars, but the cask you bought does not exist. In other words, you just got a piece of paper saying that you own a cask or, in simpler terms, you…

Read More

Why Digital Identity Is the New Currency

For centuries, we’ve relied on paper, plastic, and people to prove who we are. A signature, a passport, a nod from someone who knows you — the analogue scaffolding of identity. But in a world where everything is going digital, why are we still treating identity like it’s 1995? Let me be blunt: digital identity…

Read More

Create a fake Chris in minutes, thanks to AI

In a disturbing new development using AI, I can generate a fake passport in minutes that would fool Revolut and Binance for account opening. This was a discovery by Polish researcher Borys Musielak using ChatGPT-4o, who created a fake passport in five minutes You can now generate fake passports with GPT-4o. It took me 5…

Read More

How can you prove you are you?

I’m working on my next book which is due for release in spring 2026. The theme is all around how to trust in a deep fake world. As a result, I’ve been talking to a lot of people – technologists, bankers, policymakers, ethicists, hackers (some reformed, some not) – and the conversations is around the…

Read More

When money thinks for you …

Back in the day, Brett King had this idea of starting a mobile-first bank. It was when Bank 2.0 took off, and I was one of the first investors. We ended up enjoying a day of brainstorming in an American park retreat, and developed the line “spend, save, and live smarter”, which is still there…

Read More

When digital goes down

Well, not exactly digital but electrical. We saw the massive issue that created at Heathrow airport recently, but I’ve been personally affected by the same issue. Long story short, we have an electric gate at our property, and the electrics keep breaking down. Result? We are either locked in or locked out of our property….

Read More

Isn’t it time to sort your business out?

We often talk about technical debt – the cost of maintaining and updating old systems to keep them operational. In most banks, this is 60% to 80% or more of annual IT budgets; in fintechs it’s less, because they have less history, but even here it is often 30% to 50% of costs. The reason?…

Read More

Crypto

View More

What would you do if you lost a billion dollars?

Whilst walking the dog, I’ve been entertained by a fascinating series of podcasts on BBC Sounds called Fool’s Gold. It tells the story of two detectorists – folks who search everywhere using metal detectors – who found gold dating back to the 8th century. Very rare gold. 300 or more coins plus some jewellery. It’s…

Read More

Citi predict 2025 is when stablecoins explode!

Surfing as usual, I stumbled across a new report by Citi talking about Digital Dollars, and how banks and public sector would drive blockchain adoption. So, what does the digital dollar mean? Citi’s view is that “2025 has the potential to be blockchain’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ for adoption in the financial and public sectors. A supportive…

Read More

Was bitcoin created by the CIA?

There’s a brand new book on the block, which I wish I had written: who is Satoshi Nakamoto? It’s actually not called that. It’s called: The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto by Benjamin Wallace, but you get the idea. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin…

Read More

How much crypto is crime?

I just downloaded the Chainalysis annual cryptocrime report and, as usual, it is fascinating. Ask almost any politician or banker about cryptocurrencies and they’ll say they all encourage crime except Donald Trump, but that’s because he is supposedly a criminal. Here is a synopsis of the report taken from their introduction: According to our metrics…

Read More

The quagmire of fintech terminologies

Cryptoassets, smart contracts, stablecoins, tokenisation and the two different types of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – retail CBDCs and wholesale CBDCs. The world of finance and technology is quite confusing. Add onto this AI, APIs, BNPL, blockchain (Layer 1 and Layer 2), DLT [distributed-ledger technology], machine learning and more, and you get the idea….

Read More

America sees stablecoins as critical to US dollar dominance

Not sure if you noticed, but this week the U.S. Congress House Committee on Financial Services had a day investigating stablecoins, led by Chairman French Hill. The hearing was entitled ‘Navigating the Digital Payments Ecosystem: Examining a Federal Framework for Payment Stablecoins and Consequences of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency’ , and invited various…

Read More

Fraud is rife … gov, banks and fintechs are failing to keep up

As many of you will have gathered, the next new book is all about Digital Trust in a Deep Fake World, coming out summer 2026 (I’m working on it now), so I was interested to see two fraud reports from by veriff, the AI-driven identity verification company, this morning. Released today, the reports show fraud…

Read More

Trump’s secret strategy to replace the US dollar with bitcoin?

The trade tariff war that Donald Trump introduced on March 3rd has created a situation where the world is at war. Trade war. China responded by saying that they would hit back by imposing 10-15% tariffs on US farm products but, more importantly, have said that they are ready for war … any sort of…

Read More

How North Korea stole $1.5 billion of ETH

As Donald Trump orders creation of a strategic cryptocurrency reserve for the USA, North Korea is working hard to hack it. This is demonstrated by the biggest theft of all time – $1.5 billion – by the North Korean Lazarus Group from Bybit. How could this happen? Well, Chainalysis breaks it down nicely into a step-by-step…

Read More

Future

View More

How bad is deep fake fraud?

I’m listening to a fascinating podcast from the BBC about Whisky Bandits. The scam is that you buy a cask of whisky for thousands of dollars, but the cask you bought does not exist. In other words, you just got a piece of paper saying that you own a cask or, in simpler terms, you…

Read More

Life in 2050 with Albert and Jessica

I was thinking about a future where everything is embedded everywhere, intelligent and sentient. What would a day of my financial life look like in 2050? 2050 is a long way away, but here is the scenario. By 2050: currencies have moved from fiat to digital; technology has moved from physical devices to integrated with…

Read More

Your life in 2050

Your bed wakes you automatically through a system of gentle vibrating, rocking motions with the gradual introduction of light, simulating sunrise. As your eyes open, the bed slowly drops to the floor. You then enter the bathroom which auto­mat­i­cally adjusts to your favourite set­tings from the room tem­per­a­ture to music and coloured light­ing, from the…

Read More

A digital identity scheme for Europe … really #EUDI?

Been having lots of conversations about digital identities and digital wallets lately. It is a theme that has been bubbling for years, yet seem to now be coming to a head. From the EU Digital Wallet and Identity program to India’s Aadhaar and UPI to Brazil’s Pix, there’s definitely something afoot. The core of the…

Read More

Fintech and Hollywood: a perfect match

We just had the annual Oscar jamboree and congratulations to Anora for its five Oscars, and particular respect to Sean Baker who picked up four personally, something that’s never been achieved before. But Hollywood has an issue. No one knows where the money goes. I’ve just joined some friends to fix that. It came around…

Read More

Can you explain quantum computing in a simple way?

Microsoft just unveiled a new chip called Majorana1 that it says will enable the creation of quantum computers able to solve “meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades”. Two months ago Google unveiled Willow, a chip that “can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits” and can process a computation “in under five minutes…

Read More

Reading

View More

Things worth reading: 2nd May 2025

Things we’re reading today include … UK banks put £75bn into firms building climate-wrecking ‘carbon bombs’, study finds HSBC shareholders urge bank to reaffirm net zero commitment 110-Hour Workweeks Drove Young Bankers to the Brink – WSJ Barclays boss breaks with Lloyds, Natwest and HSBC on major UK banking regulation Revolut and N26 want to…

Read More

Things worth reading: May 1st 2025

Things we’re reading today include … Revolut expands into telecom: Can the fintech unicorn keep up with Vodafone and Telekom? Sam Altman-backed Worldcoin cryptocurrency launches in the US Ripple bid up to $5 billion to acquire Circle, offer rejected UK and US join forces to promote responsible cryptocurrency adoption | Digital Watch Observatory Chancellor speech…

Read More

Things worth reading: 30th April 2025

Things we’re reading today include … UK risks losing ground to rival fintech and crypto hubs, execs say U.K. government proposes comprehensive regulations for cryptocurrency industry Bank of England risks ‘killing’ London’s potential to become global hub for stablecoins Reeves unveils new crypto rules as she promises to back UK fintech Prosecutors seek 20-year prison…

Read More

Things worth reading: 29th April 2025

Things we’re reading today include … Bank of England ‘killing’ UK stablecoin ambitions, body warns – City AM HSBC profits drop less than expected as bank announces share buyback of up to $3bn Deutsche Bank reports highest profit in 14 years ‘The mood music isn’t good’: Ultra-wealthy exodus is a disaster for Reeves Bitcoin’s biggest…

Read More

Things worth reading: 28th April 2025

Thing we’re reading today include … Donald Trump says he cannot rule out insider trading by his staff Why Trump’s tariff chaos could lead to a London IPO boom Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders Swiss National Bank chairman rebuffs bitcoin as reserve asset M&S pauses all online orders after…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 21st April – 27th April 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … How bad is deep fake fraud? I’m listening to a fascinating podcast from the BBC about Whisky Bandits. The scam is that you buy a cask of whisky for thousands of dollars, but the cask you bought does not exist. In other words, you just got a piece…

Read More

Things worth reading: 25th April 2025

Things we’re reading today include … Revolut profit tops £1bn as it prepares to launch UK bank later this year UK’s FCA seeks to streamline capital rules for investment firms Here’s what stopped Trump in his quest to oust Fed chair Jerome Powell China Declares Currency War: New Plan Aims to Replace the Dollar With…

Read More

Things worth reading: 24th April 2025

Things we’re reading today include … Wall Street seems to have decided that Trump is mentally unstable Donald Trump could cost the world a trillion dollars Bitcoin Breaks Records As Cryptocurrency Market Shines Cantor strikes $3.6bn crypto venture with SoftBank and Tether Report: Tennesseans lost millions in cryptocurrency scams last year, per FBI UK’s ‘green’…

Read More

Blog Index

View More

The Finanser’s Week: 21st April – 27th April 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … How bad is deep fake fraud? I’m listening to a fascinating podcast from the BBC about Whisky Bandits. The scam is that you buy a cask of whisky for thousands of dollars, but the cask you bought does not exist. In other words, you just got a piece…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 14th April – 21st April 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … The issue with digital In my presentations these days are five key themes: the fintech revolution; cryptocurrency creation; distributed ledger technology; the AI world; and quantum disruption. I could add to the list – the metaverse, 6G+, robots, etc – but these are the top five in the…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 7th April – 13th April 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … AI will create 170 million jobs while replacing 92 million … the question is: what jobs? Every day there are more and more headlines about artificial intelligence (AI) AI and its impact on life, the world and the future. The latest one is a good one, which is…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 31st March – 6th April 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … #Stripe’s policy: by raising risk, you become risk (#RDR) On my LinkedIn stream, I’ve been getting more and more alerts about malpractices at Stripe. That surprises me as they are the poster child of fintech, so I investigated and found that most of my feed was being filled…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 24th March – 31st March 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … Bank IT outages … let’s talk about the bank systems Jenga I’ve been talking a lot about bank IT outages lately, as you can hear here on the BBC! Tech Life – Surviving digital banking outages – BBC Sounds Why? Because they are becoming more and more common and…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 17th March – 23rd March 2025

The main blog discussions this week include … Is the use of cash a fundamental human right? We are moving rapidly to a world without cash. In fact, the phrase war on cash was coined (coins?) by the card companies years ago. The aim was to get everyone moving to cards, not cash. It’s now…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 10th March – 16th March 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … You and your digital twin are in danger A phrase that’s been rising recently is digital twin. My definition of a digital twin is not the same as others. I would define a digital twin as the digital version of you or your organisation. Over time, you build…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 3rd March – 9th March 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … Trump’s secret strategy to replace the US dollar with bitcoin? The trade tariff war that Donald Trump introduced on March 3rd has created a situation where the world is at war. Trade war. China responded by saying that they would hit back by imposing 10-15% tariffs on US…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 24th February – 2nd March 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … European regulation strangulation, part 2 America innovates, China replicates and Europe regulates I often find the maze of European regulations hard to follow and track. It’s ok if you’re tracking one – like that Payment Service Directives and Regulations – but when you’re trying to track many, it’s…

Read More

The Finanser’s Week: 17th February – 23rd February 2025

This week’s main blog discussions include … Why are CBDCs not working? After many years we have had many discussions of many countries and many banks talking about launching many central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Today, only three countries have a live CBDC: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. Doesn’t that feel a bit strange? Well,…

Read More

Chris Skinner Keynote, April 2025, Europe

Intelligent Money: Our Future Is Where We Do Not Think About Money, As Our Money Thinks For Us

What is the future?

Learn more

Learn more about Chris

About Chris Skinner

The Past, Present And Future Of Banking, Finance And Technology

Fintech expert Chris Skinner: countries need digital transformation to remain competitive

Join me on Linkedin

Follow Me on X!

Hire Chris Skinner for dinners, workshops and more

Learn directly from from one of the most influential people in technology, gain insights from the world's most innovative companies, and build a global network.

Chris’s latest book

Order now

Chris Skinner’s ‘Intelligent Money’ Book Launch Event

Top 40 UK Fintech Blogs

Lifetime Achievement Award

Kids creating the future bank | TEDxAthens

Alex at the Financial Services

Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod worked with the Finanser