Here's my latest retail payments focused presentation. It's premise is that there's loads of innovation out there, with micropayments and iPhone apps being hotbeds of innovation for developed economies whilst microfinance and 2G GSM messaging being creative fields for developing economies.
However, all of these innovations are just froth on the cake of the payments infrastructure and the core of that infrastructure - the clearing and settlement services that underpin these services - is still pretty rotten. There's still lots of legacy infrastructure out there, which needs updating to operate in our 21st century world ... but sits languishing because banks are slow to act.
And the fact that banking protects banks through bank licensing, means that none of the innovative firms - including PayPal - can make much difference to this rotting core.
A little bit over-stated, but I think it makes the point.
You'll notice some of my usual slides in here, but I've also added quite a few new ones, including several that list stunning numbers ... such as Facebook currently uses over 30,000 servers!!
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
