Chris Skinner's blog Shaping the future of finance

I hid this link in my blog about the Abbey, but had to draw out this survey in more depth.  According to the BBC’s Mintel survey of over 13,000 Brits, 57.5% are very satisfied or satisfied with their bank.  Mind you, that does mean that …

I hid this link in my blog about the Abbey, but had to draw out this survey in more depth.  According to the BBC’s Mintel survey of over 13,000 Brits, 57.5% are very satisfied or satisfied with their bank.  Mind you, that does mean that …

I mentioned the other day that Middle Eastern banks were upgrading core systems in six months whilst, in the UK, the last major upgrade I’ve been aware of is that of the retail bank, Abbey.  Abbey are changing core systems to implement those consistent with …

Seeing this story about the impact that MarkitBOAT is having upon traditional data reporting, I received a heads-up from Chi-x, the alternative exchange launched by Instinet in April last year, that they traded 7% of equity volumes of the LSE yesterday.  Q4 trading stats show …

Seeing this story about the impact that MarkitBOAT is having upon traditional data reporting, I received a heads-up from Chi-x, the alternative exchange launched by Instinet in April last year, that they traded 7% of equity volumes of the LSE yesterday.  Q4 trading stats show …

Just found this website for a soon to be launched integrated mobile-internet service called Ribbit.   It’s a method of having your mobile leave messages that are transcribed and stored on the internet for you to access anywhere and return call using Skype or whatever.  …

Just found this website for a soon to be launched integrated mobile-internet service called Ribbit.   It’s a method of having your mobile leave messages that are transcribed and stored on the internet for you to access anywhere and return call using Skype or whatever.  …

Just found this website for a soon to be launched integrated mobile-internet service called Ribbit.   It’s a method of having your mobile leave messages that are transcribed and stored on the internet for you to access anywhere and return call using Skype or whatever.  …

Interesting podcast from the British Computer Society today discussing a Moroccan phishing kit called "Mister Brain" that you can download and use for free.  It allows you to create a nice little phishing site of your very own.  They even provide templates for spam e-mail …

Interesting podcast from the British Computer Society today discussing a Moroccan phishing kit called "Mister Brain" that you can download and use for free.  It allows you to create a nice little phishing site of your very own.  They even provide templates for spam e-mail …

Just as Apple make their money out of being consumer friendly, Microsoft make theirs by being business friendly.  This is why it intrigues me that they are trying to buy Yahoo! to compete with Google.  This is a consumer-focused play and the New York Times …

I’ve been hung up with office bingo for years and hate it when you hear words and phrases like scenario, paradigm shift and value-added.  The reason is that the phrases are meaningless buzzwords that people throw out to sound intelligent but often just sound like …

I’ve been hung up with office bingo for years and hate it when you hear words and phrases like scenario, paradigm shift and value-added.  The reason is that the phrases are meaningless buzzwords that people throw out to sound intelligent but often just sound like …

Once news has broken, it becomes an avalanche. Jerome Kerviel loses €5 billion … 7,000 news items later and it’s old news. Credit Suisse panned over an unexpected $2.85 billion write-down … 2,000 new items later and it’s old news. Northern Rock goes down the …

Once news has broken, it becomes an avalanche. Jerome Kerviel loses €5 billion … 7,000 news items later and it’s old news. Credit Suisse panned over an unexpected $2.85 billion write-down … 2,000 new items later and it’s old news. Northern Rock goes down the …

Over the weekend, there were lots of references to animals in banking.    It started with the Financial Times discussing the issues of Jerome Kerviel and the fact that traditional commercial bankers should stay out of investment banking.  In this context, it refers to most …

Over the weekend, there were lots of references to animals in banking.    It started with the Financial Times discussing the issues of Jerome Kerviel and the fact that traditional commercial bankers should stay out of investment banking.  In this context, it refers to most …

Over the weekend, there were lots of references to animals in banking.    It started with the Financial Times discussing the issues of Jerome Kerviel and the fact that traditional commercial bankers should stay out of investment banking.  In this context, it refers to most …

I’ve spoken about community currencies regularly, but some folks find them hard to visualise. Well, there’s one project alive and kicking in the Devon town of Totnes, as described in the Observer and many other articles.   This BBC coverage of the Devonian Totnes pound shows …

I’ve spoken about community currencies regularly, but some folks find them hard to visualise. Well, there’s one project alive and kicking in the Devon town of Totnes, as described in the Observer and many other articles.   This BBC coverage of the Devonian Totnes pound shows …

Maybe all the talk of Facebook’s privacy policies being a concern are finally having an impact on people networking online as Facebook had it’s first drop in usage in January.  According to Nielsen’s ratings, the number of unique visitors in Britain fell from 8.9 million …

I had a fascinating conversation with a group of information security professionals yesterday.  We were talking around the issues of data leakage and covered a wide variety of subjects from accidental leakage to deliberate theft, from human frailties to ISO27001 standards, from the challenges of …

I had a fascinating conversation with a group of information security professionals yesterday.  We were talking around the issues of data leakage and covered a wide variety of subjects from accidental leakage to deliberate theft, from human frailties to ISO27001 standards, from the challenges of …

"Where’s the best place to head office the bank?" is a question asked regularly by folks like HSBC, and the answer may be quite surprising. Obviously, key contenders would be London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Chicago, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore … in fact, any …

"Where’s the best place to head office the bank?" is a question asked regularly by folks like HSBC, and the answer may be quite surprising. Obviously, key contenders would be London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Chicago, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore … in fact, any …

There’s been a recent storm of controversy over the ECB’s decision to accept mortgage backed bonds from Spain.  In effect, Spain has had a disastrous subprime mortgage collapse and has been bailed out by the ECB.        This Investment Markets note of last week …

There’s been a recent storm of controversy over the ECB’s decision to accept mortgage backed bonds from Spain.  In effect, Spain has had a disastrous subprime mortgage collapse and has been bailed out by the ECB.        This Investment Markets note of last week …

A mate pointed this out from International Banking Systems Journal, December/January issue:  "Italian payment network provider, SIA-SSB, is seeking to move firmly into SWIFT’s domain, with plans to extend its SIAnet broadband network. It is taking its current infrastructure, which provides connectivity between banks and …