Chris Skinner

How banking and fintech improves society and the planet

This presentation looks at everything from how banking plays a role in the climate emergency through to the FinTech world using technology to overcome issues of inequality and inclusion. The themes include questioning the purpose of banking, and whether it is socially useful; how purpose can impact a bank’s role in the climate emergency; the
way in which we can use finance to do good for society and the planet; the latest developments in cryptocurrencies; and more.

After the 2008 financial crisis, banks were described as being socially useless by the UK regulator. How is this changing? Amazingly, through FinTech and digital services, it is changing dramatically. There are now many movements across the network to use financial transactions to be good for society and good for the planet. What’s happening and who is driving this change? What does it mean for banks and what happens when you say you are green when, in fact, you are not? This presentation explores all of these themes in depth and demonstrates that digital transformation and green finance are actually coming together hand-in-hand.

Key takeaways

There are numerous examples of how technology and finance are working together to do good for society and our planet. This presentation hand picks a number of these from China to Europe to Africa and the Americas and, through these case studies, gives detailed insights into the best-in-class examples as to how technology and finance are making things better. Based upon these case studies, the presentation helps the audience to internalise what they can do to make the world better.

There is a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. Many banks say they are committed to meeting ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) goals for example, but how do you do this, and how can technology assist? This presentation answers those questions.

Having worked with thought leaders across all major continents, Mr. Skinner shines a light on everything from the role of leadership to impact of activist investors and consumers, even including his experiences to understand Extinction Rebellion. His conclusion is that the more you work with all groups, whether nice or nasty, the more you get to understand and can act. But what actions should you take? This presentation answers this question too!

The future of money, trade and finance

Banking, money, finance, insurance are all terms that are familiar, but these are terms of the last century. They no longer apply in the 21st century. Terms being used by millennials are around ideas, value, exchange, sharing. As the digital age reshapes the whole structure of commerce and trade, what will the outcome look like? How will society and technology rethink money and finance? Will banks and traditional financial firms be relevant in this new world?

Chris Skinner will provide a view of the next decade of change and how it will reshape the structure of financial services globally.

The next major global financial crisis will be in 2045

Regulators have a problem. The problem is that they are always following, never leading. Right now, they are shaping a new financial market that should be robust for decades to come. Yet based upon historical extrapolation, the likelihood is that the next global financial crisis will occur around 2045, thirty-three years from now. What is going to happen? How? Why is this the likely outcome and where will the issues occur?

Chris Skinner, a leading commentator on global financial markets, will explain.

“Capitalism is dead, long live capitalism”

In 2008, capitalism died. Or at least the model of capitalism promoted by the Anglo-Saxon West. What has replaced it? Or rather, what will? The answer can be seen from the developments of social media and NGOs (non-government organisations) who are becoming heavyweight pressure groups for change.

This group is best represented by the Occupy movement, who have already made historic and fundamental changes to the thinking of policymakers. In other words, capitalism has become social. What does that mean for your business?

The greatest opportunities to grow new banking business (and the greatest threats)

Over the next five years, there are significant changes that will take place in the way in which people bank. This is not just technology change, but fundamental change in the way your customers and the corporations who deal with them, transact and exchange commerce. These changes, many of which you will have observed already such as social lending, will create a new financial landscape where some banks will be leaders whilst others will be demoted to just being the dumb pipes that sit behind 21st century commerce. Do you want to be a leader or a dumb pipe?

If the former, then you should attend this workshop by renowned strategist and blogger Chris Skinner. Chris will use the key forces of change – Political, Economic, Social and Technological – to demonstrate how the bank of the future might look and will give a number of key, actionable items for all attendees to take away and apply to their banks tomorrow.

Why banking will disappear but banks will not…well, not all of them

Over the next decade, a radical shift will take place in the role and function of banking. It’s already started and it’s all about BIG DATA. But it’s more than that. It’s to do with the value shift in society from seeing money to seeing virtual money; from seeing technology to seeing social technology; and from seeing government to seeing self-governance. These shifts have been seeded in smartphones, social networks and the global linkage of every person on the planet to wireless media, and this shift will accelerate over the next decade.

What this means for banks is that they will become hybrid keepers of money and data and anything else their customers believe to be of value. They might even be keepers of cloud secure Facebook photo albums … why not? To see the impact of the key political, economic, social and technological forces of the next decade, Chris Skinner will bring together these themes and outline the vision for the bank of 2021.

Are bankers good or bad for society?

In previous ages bankers have sometimes pecked lower in the order of society than lepers. Jesus declared their usurous ways immoral. Amazingly, from this disadvantaged position in society, bankers flourished over the past two centuries before imploding spectacularly both financially and socially in 2008. Bankers now don’t even trust each other.

This illuminating review of the history and future of banking and society explores why these former outcasts from high society are natural problem children and ponders whether they have a social future and, if so, what will it look like?

Digital banking turns traditional banking on its head

Banks were built in the 20th century to handle the physical distribution of paper through a localised branch network; now they are being rebuilt as digital structures for the digital distribution of data through the global internet. What does this mean for the institutions, staff and organisational structure? More importantly, what does it mean for the corporate customers and consumers? And, most important, what does it mean for competition, innovation and regulation?

These areas are only just being understood and therefore the launch of a market leading commentator’s book on the developments is perfect timing. Digital Bank by Chris Skinner, charts the developments of digital banking, with clear case studies and recommendations of what to do and what not to do. Based upon a career of delivering technology to banks, Mr. Skinner will provide a near-term vision of where digital banking will take us over the next decade. It’s going to be challenging, but a great ride, so come along and find out the future of your bank career at the launch of Digital Bank: Strategies to Launch or Become a Digital Bank.

“Our technocharged world is still in the dark ages”

You think that the world is changing and changing fast. It’s not. The world has progressed at the level of a snail so far, and the next decade will prove to be far more interesting. How will the world look in a decade? Who know … but there are ways to find out. This presentation will show you how.

Branchless banking and a cashless society: fact or fiction?

For years, banks and industry pundits have bet that cash and bank branches will disappear, yet they are still as strong as ever. Sure, cash and branches are reducing in number, but cash in circulation is still increasing as are the number of bank branches in some countries. So is a branchless, cashless future a reality or a myth?

Money is meaningless

Since PayPal began, we have seen money being digitised. Now mobile is booming, the whole mechanism of money and customer interaction is being revolutionised. Add to this Facebook credits and other virtual currencies, and you soon realise it’s not about money but it’s about value.

Value management in all its forms – money, knowledge, ideas, time, goods, services, trade – is the critical focus for tomorrow’s institutions. And, as value becomes exchanged in all forms of virtual and physical form, money becomes meaningless. What does it mean for you?

Why the best authentication is you

As usernames and passwords are so regularly compromised, we are rapidly moving to a new form of digital identity authentication. Digital signatures and sign-ons, enabled by mobile and biometrics, are becoming standard, but where does this take us in the longer term? What will the long-term future of trade and commerce look like, and how will the digital age change us?

Chris Skinner will provide a view of the next decade of change from using your DNA for secure access to exchanging an idea as payment, and reviews how all of this will reshape the structure of financial services globally.

Five things you need to know before you start a Digital Bank

Too many banks are investing in the wrong things. They have made assumptions about what customers want, where technology is going, how banking works and how all these things come together as a customer proposition. But many of these assumptions are wrong. As a result many banks will start their Digital Bank operations again from scratch in a few years, writing off millions in investments in the wrong things.

This presentation will tell you the five things you need to know before you start a Digital Bank. If you know these five things, you’ll get it right. Alternatively, go ahead and waste your dollars.

“Why is everyone so hung up on payments when no-one pays for anything ten years from now?”

We grew up thinking that money was important because capitalism ruled. We have all been proven wrong as money becomes meaningless and capitalism is broken. As the world reconstructs itself to be fit for the 2020s, everything is changing and changing fast. The biggest change is that payments have become perfunctory.

No-one ever wakes up thinking ‘today I’ll make a payment, yay!’, but they do pay for things. That is also going to change, as all of the payments processing disappears into the ether. What is 2023 going to look like? How will banking have changed? What will people pay for and how? These are the big ticket questions that Chris Skinner will focus upon … and answer.

The similarities between banks and landmines

Banks are like landmines that explode in economic terms, in a similar way in which landmines explode and blow away people in the real world. Just as landmines blow the legs away from humans, banks blow the legs off economies.

It’s obviously the case that this is true today, what with the Lehmans collapse with Credit Default Swaps creating the first financial crisis; and now sovereign debt in the Eurozone is developing the second. How can such economic landmines exist in a world where we should have cleared them by now, and how can we avoid them in the future?

The bank of 2020

Banks need to focus upon two numbers with huge implications for modern banking: one and 2020, as the bank of 2020 will also be the Bank of One. One person has always had the power to change the world – but in a highly social, highly networked world, that one person no longer needs to be a President or a Nobel Laureate. By way of example, Molly Katchpole was just a 22-year old college graduate working two jobs to make ends meet when Bank of America announced that they would introduce a $5 monthly fee on debit cards.

She started an online protest that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people joining her within days. Result: the bank had to perform a policy U-turn. Molly Katchpole is an example of one person taking a stand through social media, and changing the policy at one of America’s largest banks. There are many others. In this presentation, Chris Skinner talks about how social media is changing banking and how the bank of 2020 will look as a result.