Chris Skinner's blog Shaping the future of finance

Welcome to 2008 folks, and I hope you all had a wonderful holiday break. I did … but what goes on at Xmas, stays in Xmas as they say (hic!). Anyways, a year ago, I made a bunch of forecasts for the year 2007.  This …

Gary Silverman, the FT’s US news editor, wrote a column about his surprise to find he and his wife each had a $119.99 charge from TLG Hotline on their JP Morgan Chase credit cards. "We pay our cards automatically, and I don’t always examine the …

Probably it’s just a coincidence that ING has two longish stories in the 4 January FT – one an innovative management framework from Bain that helps the bank keep its international operations in synch and another on how the bank is quietly extending its global …

Way back in mid-December Chris Skinner did a review of retail banking. Here’s an idea he may have overlooked — think about how customers actually use your bank, and for American banks, offer some support for people who work internationally. My personal example, if you …

Way back in mid-December Chris Skinner did a review of retail banking. Here’s an idea he may have overlooked — think about how customers actually use your bank, and for American banks, offer some support for people who work internationally. My personal example, if you …

Way back in mid-December Chris Skinner did a review of retail banking. Here’s an idea he may have overlooked — think about how customers actually use your bank, and for American banks, offer some support for people who work internationally. My personal example, if you …

Plus it’s free, and Web-based. Mint allows users to automatically track and analyze their financial transactions, set budgets, and even send balance updates in text messages to cell phones. From the Forbes interview with its 26-year old founder, Aaron Patzer: “The average user, when they …

            Despite Chris Skinner’s prediction, in an intelligently provocative recent piece, that 2007 was the year that Microsoft committed suicide, even he didn’t say the process would be quick – he predicted the company’s first lost to appear in 2012.      …

I know we aren’t quite to 2008, but I wanted to get a jump on the FT’s nominating committee with "Options, the secret life of Steve Jobs." Written by Fake Steve Jobs, who produces the wonderful Fake Steve blog and by day uses the name …

I know we aren’t quite to 2008, but I wanted to get a jump on the FT’s nominating committee with "Options, the secret life of Steve Jobs." Written by Fake Steve Jobs, who produces the wonderful Fake Steve blog and by day uses the name …

I know we aren’t quite to 2008, but I wanted to get a jump on the FT’s nominating committee with "Options, the secret life of Steve Jobs." Written by Fake Steve Jobs, who produces the wonderful Fake Steve blog and by day uses the name …

I know we aren’t quite to 2008, but I wanted to get a jump on the FT’s nominating committee with "Options, the secret life of Steve Jobs." Written by Fake Steve Jobs, who produces the wonderful Fake Steve blog and by day uses the name …

Merry Christmas or Season’s Greetings, depending upon your personal preference. To finish 2007, I thought I’d share with you a few of my nice little collection of Christmas ecards: SWIFT Eiger Systems LogicaCMG Sybase Diamond Consultants Vocalink If I missed you out, it’s either because: …

From a technology perspective, I think 2007 has seen the biggest changes in the payments world.  From mobile and contactless payments proving themselves to come of age, to new currencies in the form of Linden dollars and Chinese QQ, to corporates demanding change, to new …

From a technology perspective, I think 2007 has seen the biggest changes in the payments world.  From mobile and contactless payments proving themselves to come of age, to new currencies in the form of Linden dollars and Chinese QQ, to corporates demanding change, to new …

From a technology perspective, I think 2007 has seen the biggest changes in the payments world.  From mobile and contactless payments proving themselves to come of age, to new currencies in the form of Linden dollars and Chinese QQ, to corporates demanding change, to new …

From a technology perspective, I think 2007 has seen the biggest changes in the payments world.  From mobile and contactless payments proving themselves to come of age, to new currencies in the form of Linden dollars and Chinese QQ, to corporates demanding change, to new …

From a technology perspective, I think 2007 has seen the biggest changes in the payments world.  From mobile and contactless payments proving themselves to come of age, to new currencies in the form of Linden dollars and Chinese QQ, to corporates demanding change, to new …

I’ve been watching eBay this week as the London Evening Standard has been running a nice little charity auction in there for Plan UK, an international humanitarian, child centred development organisation who work in 46 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Two …

I’ve been watching eBay this week as the London Evening Standard has been running a nice little charity auction in there for Plan UK, an international humanitarian, child centred development organisation who work in 46 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Two …

For most retail banks, the credit crunch’s knock-on effect has made it a fairly depressing end of year too, with tightening of policies for mortgages and lending. Mind you, considering the debt mountain in the USA, it is not surprising that the economy is grinding …

For most retail banks, the credit crunch’s knock-on effect has made it a fairly depressing end of year too, with tightening of policies for mortgages and lending. Mind you, considering the debt mountain in the USA, it is not surprising that the economy is grinding …

For most retail banks, the credit crunch’s knock-on effect has made it a fairly depressing end of year too, with tightening of policies for mortgages and lending. Mind you, considering the debt mountain in the USA, it is not surprising that the economy is grinding …

The end of the year is nigh and not a day too soon for some investment bankers.  Some say, with the $500 billion of subprime losses this year, this has been a major downer for the markets long-term.  Others say that $500 billion is what …

The end of the year is nigh and not a day too soon for some investment bankers.  Some say, with the $500 billion of subprime losses this year, this has been a major downer for the markets long-term.  Others say that $500 billion is what …

This is my final week of blogging for 2007, and so I thought I’d spend it looking back over the year.  Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I’ll focus upon retail and investment banking and payments.  Today, I thought I’d start with a slow …

This is my final week of blogging for 2007, and so I thought I’d spend it looking back over the year.  Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I’ll focus upon retail and investment banking and payments.  Today, I thought I’d start with a slow …

This is my final week of blogging for 2007, and so I thought I’d spend it looking back over the year.  Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I’ll focus upon retail and investment banking and payments.  Today, I thought I’d start with a slow …