Welcome to The Finanser by Chris Skinner. The Finanser discusses all things fintech, finance, banking, technology and, most importantly, the future. To make an enquiry about having Chris write or speak for you, here’s an illustration of his presentations … … Chris Skinner has regularly forecast the changes in finance driven by technology. He is…
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I remember companies like Gartner and Forrester predicting that there would be a trillion dollar market in online sales by 2020 back in the 1990s. Now we are in 2024, it’s a three trillion dollar market, and so I thought it might be interesting to look at the various statistics being bandied about by firms…
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Everyone keeps saying that the core of banking is trust. It’s not ROI, ROE, CI or other acronyms. It’s trust. But what is trust, and how is it created and maintained? That’s a core of where we should focus. In banking, trust is not in the brand or the name; it is in the belief…
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Thinking about the Big Tech firms, most of them are enabling commerce. Amazon and Apple are building specific structures to make buying and selling easy. But one company is enabling fraud, scams and criminal activities. Meta. Meta runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as many other ventures from augmented reality to their X-like idea…
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I just stumbled across a leap in the world. Cordless charging. Forget your cables, everything is now just charged through the air or by putting something onto a wireless charging point. It’s called induction charging and you’ve probably already used it. You put your phone down on a mouse-mat sort of base, and it starts…
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I remember companies like Gartner and Forrester predicting that there would be a trillion dollar market in online sales by 2020 back in the 1990s. Now we are in 2024, it’s a three trillion dollar market, and so I thought it might be interesting to look at the various statistics being bandied about by firms…
Read MoreI just stumbled across a leap in the world. Cordless charging. Forget your cables, everything is now just charged through the air or by putting something onto a wireless charging point. It’s called induction charging and you’ve probably already used it. You put your phone down on a mouse-mat sort of base, and it starts…
Read MoreI just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK is doing well, as is the Netherlands, whilst Ireland has seen a 90% drop…
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I got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks have spent far more on tech. To illustrate the point: JPMorgan spent over $15 billion last year, and is…
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There’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
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There’s nothing more annoying than when you get that note saying that you have just been charged $149 to renew your annual subscription to Youreanidiot.com. I subscribe to lots of different things and often forget that I subscribed. Then you suddenly find that $100s are leaving your account each year on things you no longer…
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I find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
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You may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
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For years, I’ve said that Big Tech will crunch the periphery of finance – payments, cards, credit and such like – but will not try and dig into the core of deposit-taking banking because it’s too regulated and difficult. Instead, they are far more likely to partner with banks than do banking. That view still…
Read MoreI remember companies like Gartner and Forrester predicting that there would be a trillion dollar market in online sales by 2020 back in the 1990s. Now we are in 2024, it’s a three trillion dollar market, and so I thought it might be interesting to look at the various statistics being bandied about by firms…
Read MoreI just stumbled across a leap in the world. Cordless charging. Forget your cables, everything is now just charged through the air or by putting something onto a wireless charging point. It’s called induction charging and you’ve probably already used it. You put your phone down on a mouse-mat sort of base, and it starts…
Read MoreMy family has just been through a hard time. Mother, mum, is old and losing her faculties. My brother is her full-time carer and recently organised the sale of her house. Funds were finally transferred into her bank account, and that’s where the trouble started. My brother isn’t young and, in the spirit of trying…
Read MoreI noted the other day that 60% of UK bank branches have been shuttered since 2015. A lot of people aren’t happy about this and so we see new bank hubs opening where, for each day of the week, the hub represents a different bank. But why do we need branches? I posed this question…
Read MoreI just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK is doing well, as is the Netherlands, whilst Ireland has seen a 90% drop…
Read MoreI got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks have spent far more on tech. To illustrate the point: JPMorgan spent over $15 billion last year, and is…
Read More
I recently did a workshop with a major bank and asked them to send questions beforehand. This is a great way for me to develop a Q&A stream as they asked me lots of questions. The first big question was: What do banks need to do to be successful in the future? Well, if I…
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For years, we have talked about digital identities and how to make them work. The fact is that most countries are lagging behind whilst a few are leading, such as India with Aadhaar. Where it is working, it is totally transformative. For example, India moved from only 35% of the population able to access bank…
Read MoreThere’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
Read MoreI just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK is doing well, as is the Netherlands, whilst Ireland has seen a 90% drop…
Read MoreThere’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and things are a lot worse. I’ve blogged about the confusion of money recently, and it is not only the fragmentation of money…
Read MoreI find it hard to believe that some commentators are still talking about BaaS and the great unbundling of banking. The reason? Well that was the conversation we were having fifteen years ago. Today, the discussion is much more around embedded banking that is intelligent, ubiquitous, everywhere, anywhere, anytime … except that I was having…
Read MoreYou may have seen my shameless plug of the new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You … well, here’s another one. After a podcast with my friends in Finland, who quite like my thinking, Pål Krogdahl wrote up his thoughts on our chat on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed his summary, so here it is. Meanwhile, you can…
Read More
It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald Trump vs Joe Biden, and Biden looking like a loser. Now, we have Donald…
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Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do? Well worth a read but I am biased, but some people aren’t….
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My blog the other day about asking what’s going to change is the wrong question was inspired by the quote from Jeff Bezos and this report from Team8: an unconventional view of the future of fintech https://team8.vc/rethink/fintech/2030-and-beyond/ They delve into three areas: What won’t change? What do we believe are the ‘immutable physical laws of…
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As someone who has been involved in bitcoin since 2011, you would think I would have retired by now to a beach in the Caribbean. Instead, I am still working as hard as ever, as most of my crypto hodling went south (checkout my crypto archives here). Speaking of which, there is a brand new…
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Anton Golib, Founder & President of SwissAssetDAO, just dropped an interesting update on DAO. What is a DAO? Well, let’s turn to Wikipedia: A decentralised autonomous organisation, sometimes called a decentralised autonomous corporation, is an organisation managed in whole or in part by decentralised computer program, with voting and finances handled through a blockchain. In general…
Read MoreI remember companies like Gartner and Forrester predicting that there would be a trillion dollar market in online sales by 2020 back in the 1990s. Now we are in 2024, it’s a three trillion dollar market, and so I thought it might be interesting to look at the various statistics being bandied about by firms…
Read MoreThinking about the Big Tech firms, most of them are enabling commerce. Amazon and Apple are building specific structures to make buying and selling easy. But one company is enabling fraud, scams and criminal activities. Meta. Meta runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as many other ventures from augmented reality to their X-like idea…
Read MoreI just stumbled across a leap in the world. Cordless charging. Forget your cables, everything is now just charged through the air or by putting something onto a wireless charging point. It’s called induction charging and you’ve probably already used it. You put your phone down on a mouse-mat sort of base, and it starts…
Read MoreMy family has just been through a hard time. Mother, mum, is old and losing her faculties. My brother is her full-time carer and recently organised the sale of her house. Funds were finally transferred into her bank account, and that’s where the trouble started. My brother isn’t young and, in the spirit of trying…
Read MoreI noted the other day that 60% of UK bank branches have been shuttered since 2015. A lot of people aren’t happy about this and so we see new bank hubs opening where, for each day of the week, the hub represents a different bank. But why do we need branches? I posed this question…
Read MoreI just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK is doing well, as is the Netherlands, whilst Ireland has seen a 90% drop…
Read More
Someone asked me the other day whether banking mergers in Europe would be a big trend or just wishful thinking. I guess this is because of the imminent acquisition of Commerzbank by Unicredit. Their real point was that the major European banks will need to merge to survive. After all, if American banks can spend…
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For over half a century, post the second World War, Europe has been integrating. From a few nations in the 1950s, led by France and Germany, the Eurozone grew to 28 countries. Then, with Brexit, 27. Now, after Brexit, there are rumours the alliance could shrink further as many countries have issues with the ECB’s…
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I just spotted a blog by Alan Stapelberg, who is Group Product Manager for Google Wallet. Here’s his opening para: “Imagine starting a vacation like this: You arrive at the airport and breeze through security by tapping your phone to a reader, scanning your boarding pass and ID. While waiting to board, you grab a…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Tesla moves $760M in Bitcoin amid cryptocurrency surge (turkiyetoday.com) UK to raise bank ringfencing threshold to ‘improve competitiveness’ (ft.com) Wall Street hits new highs on better-than-expected bank results | Shares Magazine Bank Stocks Shine While Tech Giants Face Setbacks – Finimize Top 10 Digital Wallets Revolutionising Payments in 2024…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … How did a ‘bank snooping’ scandal ensnare politicians in Italy? | Explainer News | Al Jazeera Fintech App Trap: Enraged Customers Struggle To Cancel Their Subscriptions (forbes.com) Natural disasters wreck FinTech infrastructure, proving cash is still king BaaS is dead, long live BaaS 2.0 – FinTech Futures: Fintech news…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Revolut takes on Square with payment terminal for larger businesses (cityam.com) Revolut customers say e-money firm failed them after being scammed – BBC News AI amplifies systemic risk to banks: India Reserve Bank boss • The Register How AI and ‘behavioral banking’ boosts FI revenue – Bank Automation News…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006, World Bank says | Al Jazeera Westpac outage causes app, online banking to stop working for Australians | Daily Mail Bank of England and FCA joint approach to the Digital Securities Sandbox | Bank of England Farther raises $72m Series C…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Why are fintechs worth more than banks? I just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … The FBI made a cryptocurrency to catch crypto scammers (qz.com) TD Bank fined $3bn in historic money laundering settlement – BBC News TSB Bank handed huge fine for failing customers in arrears (cityam.com) Monzo staff to sell shares as valuation soars again to £4.5bn | Sky News Labour’s cosy…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … I am not Bitcoin inventor, says man named in HBO film – BBC News Sectors that are Warming up to Cryptocurrency Payments (cryptotimes.io) The big league: The most funded European fintech companies of 2024 so far – Tech.eu Regulators targeting challenger banks as new fraud rules are introduced –…
Read MoreThings we’re reading today include … Investor turns $800 into $7.5 million as hippo-inspired cryptocurrency skyrockets | The Independent 11 Crypto Platforms Under Review as Hong Kong Faces Criticism on Strict Regulations (financemagnates.com) Cryptocurrency Adoption ‘Fastest-Growing Tech in Years’, Says BlackRock Executive (techopedia.com) Millennials bank on parental handouts (yourmoney.com) Top US banks brace for lowest…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Why are fintechs worth more than banks? I just got the latest Finch Capital report on The State of Fintech 2024. Many of us think that fintech valuations and investments have gone through the floor, and this reports make clear that it depends where you are. The UK…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … US banks invest three times more in tech than European banks I got an interesting question in my recent banking presentation: US banks have spent far more on technology than banks in Europe – will European banks ever be able to catch-up? It is true that American banks…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … Everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers There’s a quote I often use from John Oliver that cryptocurrency is “everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers”. That was 2018. It’s now 2024, and…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Schrödinger’s Cat, qubits and the future of everything I’ve spent a long time trying to get under the hood of Quantum Computing and always come back to Schrödinger’s Cat. Schrödinger’s Cat is a famous thought experiment that demonstrates the idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in…
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This week’s main blog discussions include … What does Kamala Harris think of crypto? It seems weird to debate a US presidential election based on attitudes towards cryptocurrencies but, as previously blogged, Donald Trump is very pro-crypto. His attitude turned with NFTs of his image. Nothing like narcissism. Back then, I was blogging about Donald…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … The secret sauce of Stripe’s success Your morning coffee purchase travels through 15 countries in 0.3 seconds. It’s not magic. It’s a global network of invisible digital pipes and two college dropouts saw their world-changing potential. Two brothers. Meet Patrick and John Collison: the architects of our digital…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Intelligent Money is now audible Earlier this year, we launched a new book Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks For You, which is doing well and reviews are good. The premise of the book? If you can decentralise money and make it intelligent with AI, what do regulators and banks do?…
Read MoreThe main blog discussions this week include … Which European country worries the most about money? I just got pinged with some research about which countries are trying to save money the most from Finansvalp, a Swedish price comparison service and information site that writes about and compares banking services. Usually I ignore such surveys…
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Is the fintech bloodbath over? I find it hard to believe that two years ago I was writing about a fintech bloodbath and, two years later, it continues. The drying up of funding, the post-pandemic recession, the way in which the markets were moving from funding to divesting….
Read MoreThis week’s main blog discussions include … Does the US Presidential race hinge on crypto? I don’t like blogs on a Saturday – we should be relaxing – but this X update from one of the Winklevoss twins (Tyler) caught my eye and so I just thought I would leave it here. Here’s what Tyler…
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Global 100 - 2024 Winner
Chris Skinner - Financial Markets Advisor of the Year - The Finanser - UK 2023
Best Financial Markets Advisor of the Year 2023
