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Shaping the future of finance

The Finanser’s Week: 5th March 2018 – 11th March 2018

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The main blog headlines are …

Making a hash of it

I’m having lots of discussions about tokenisation and cryptocurrencies, and it often boils down to hashing the data. Hashing data is taking the source information which may be your account details or card information and shortening it into a machine-readable link that doesn’t share the …

Why being made redundant was the best thing that ever happened to me

Today, I appear to be pretty well-known and respected in the FinTech community. Often voted as an influencer, invited to give keynote speeches at megaconferences and the successful author of 15 books, as well as chairing and being an advisor to many companies, life is …

What’s next for blockchain?

I recently wrote an article for Bloomberg’s Business Week, and thought it worth sharing with y’all here: What’s next for blockchain? Everyone got very excited a few years ago about blockchain technologies, the ledger system that was spawned by the arrival of bitcoin in 2009. …

Which big banks are most digitally ready?

I shared this list of banks that are supposedly the most digital of the large players on twitter the other day: Banco Santander Bank of America Barclays BBVA BNP Paribas Citi DBS Bank Deutsche Bank HSBC JP Morgan Chase RBS Société Générale UniCredit Wells Fargo …

 

I recently wrote three linked articles relating to financial inclusion in Africa:

Unleashing $3.7 trillion of productivity through a mobile phone

I just hosted a conference in Africa and you cannot attend a conference in Africa without financial inclusion, mobile wallets and microfinance coming up. It’s always on the agenda and top of mind, because most Africans have been excluded from financial services to date. In …

A unified model of banking the unbanked

As mentioned yesterday, I always get a new take on life when I come to Africa, and this visit is no exception. I’m chairing conferences where a range of start-ups, telco’s and banks are talking about their experiences and views. Halfway through the dialogue, a …

The stepladder of inclusion

A last post about financial inclusion and banking. I pondered the thought of how people who get inclusion will gradually rise and upscale to full service banking. I see it almost as a ladder of steps from exclusion to banked as follows: Step One: Financially …

 

The latest news headlines …

SWIFT Claims 'Huge' Progress on DLT Bank Pilot - Coindesk
Interbank messaging platform SWIFT has published the results of a long-running distributed ledger proof-of-concept project.

Amazon could become the third-biggest US bank if it wants to: Bain study - CNBC
Amazon could rival the nation's big banks in as few as five years, capitalizing off its digital prowess and massive consumer base, according to a Bain & Company report.

Elizabeth Warren attacks 'dangerous, wrong' bill to relax rules on US banks - The Guardian
Democratic senator says Congress has forgotten the ‘devastating impact of the financial crisis’ and vows to stop bill passing the Senate Congress has forgotten the “devastating impact of the financial crisis”, Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Tuesday as Republicans moved closer to relaxing banking regulations implemented after the financial crash

RBS agrees to pay $500m in New York mis-selling settlement - The Telegraph

Is this the future of money? - BBC
Remotely explore a virtual shopping centre or pay with a swipe of your hand. Is this how we might shop in future?

City watchdog bans ex-Co-op bank boss for sending emails about sex and drugs - The Guardian
FCA says Paul Flowers lacks the ‘fitness and propriety’ required to work in financial services The disgraced former Co-operative Bank boss Paul Flowers has been banned from the financial services industry by the City watchdog for inappropriate use of the bank’s phone and computer systems to access premium-rate chat lines

Virtual currencies are commodities, U.S. judge rules - Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Virtual currencies like bitcoin can be regulated as commodities by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Brussels and Paris to rebuff May’s Brexit hopes for City - Financial Times
Blow to financial services as Tusk rules out preserving single market access

Brits are souring on app-only startup banks - Business Insider
A survey by business intelligence provider RFI Group found a decline in appetite among UK consumers between the first half of 2017 and the second half of the year. People's willingness to bank with a digital-only startup fell from 78% at the start of 2017 to just 54% at the end of the year.

Amazon Checking-Account Plan Sees Banks as Partner, Not Prey - Bloomberg
Amazon is in talks with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Capital One Financial Corp. about the product, people familiar with the matter said Monday. The targets are millennial consumers, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

 

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Chris Skinner Author Avatar

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...

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