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There’s an old joke about the guy who’s lost driving in the countryside who stops to ask a pedestrian how to get to the city.  The pedestrian replies: “oh, if you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here”, and this is exactly how banks feel today.  They want to get to the nirvana…

I was interviewed by UBS’s wealth management team a month ago, when the bitcoin bubble was in full bloom. The price had exploded, tripling in a month. Now that it has burst, the interview seems quite prescient so, here it is … UBS interview with Chris Skinner Cryptocurrencies – digital currencies based on encryption –…

I was reflecting on a question posed to me recently by a Turkish banker.  He asked me: “why is it that the Western banks are always talking about legacy?”  I knew exactly what he was getting at, as the banks I deal with in USA, UK, France, Germany and other European nations are always fretting…

Last week was Money 2020 Europe week.  This year a gathering of 6,000 odd people – and I mean ODD – assembled in Copenhagen to talk all things FinTech and stuff.  That’s 50 percent up on last year’s first outing and, due to the numbers and a few brown envelopes from the Dutch, the whole…

I spend a lot of time talking with my friends in Turkey, particularly since the big change in climate after the protests last year.  Nevertheless, from a financial markets point of view, it’s a fascinating place.  One of the first to be contactless and, more recently, one of the first to offer social retail banking….

I’ve written a column for The Banker magazine for the last 15 years and, during that time, have collected their special July edition each year.  Every July The Banker publishes their analysis of the Top 1000 banks in the world.  In the 1990s, the top 10 were mainly Japanese; in the 2000s, American; and today, Chinese.  This…