Revolut in Talks to Acquire Major Asian Bank
Revolut is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire an Asian bank to secure a full banking licence and accelerate its regional push. While a takeover of DBS Group is dismissed as financially impractical, analysts point to smaller digital‑only institutions as more realistic targets. The most plausible candidate is Singapore‑based GXS Bank, which already holds a MAS‑approved licence and operates in Malaysia and Indonesia. Acquiring GXS would give Revolut immediate deposit‑taking capabilities and a foothold across key Southeast Asian markets.
What Happens to My Crypto when I Die?
A recent panel of regulators, crypto technologists, legal experts and bank executives debated the looming inheritance crisis in digital assets. Participants highlighted that lost private keys can render cryptocurrency permanently inaccessible, leaving heirs unable to claim rightful wealth. While self‑sovereignty...
A Chat with Wio Bank, a Fully Digital, Platform-Based Bank
Wio Bank, launched in Abu Dhabi in 2022, is the region’s first fully digital, platform‑based bank backed by ADQ and FAB. It began with a focus on SME and creator banking and now serves over 400,000 customers, achieving profitability in...
Tokenization Is Nothing New
The article traces tokenization back to 9,000 BCE clay bullae, the first structured data objects used to record ownership of grain, livestock and other goods. It argues that today’s digital assets and programmable money are not new financial inventions but extensions...
Programmable Liquidity: Five Foundations Reshaping Modern Treasury
Programmable liquidity is emerging as a core capability for modern treasury functions, enabling real‑time, event‑driven payments without restricting spend. The approach relies on a multi‑instrument digital money ecosystem—including CBDCs, stablecoins and tokenised deposits—while AI‑driven payment libraries provide controlled automation. Quantum‑computing...
A Great List of Questions for a Bank’s Leadership
Chris Skinner proposes a comprehensive list of cryptocurrency questions that bank leaders should be able to answer. The list spans basics, blockchain technology, security, economics, regulation, use cases, future outlook, and critical thinking. By mastering at least one of these...
The Finanser’s Week: 16th March – 22nd March 2026
The Finanser’s weekly roundup spotlights accelerating fintech trends, from AI‑driven digital identity tools that turn asset management into a voice‑assistant experience to the rapid rise of challenger banks in the UK. Bain & Co forecast challenger banks will own roughly...
Is the Future Digital Identity Your Heartbeat?
The article envisions a near‑term shift to heartbeat‑based digital identity for financial transactions, replacing cumbersome fingerprint, facial scans and OTPs with a ring‑mounted sensor. It argues that a unique cardiac signature can authenticate trades on platforms like Coinbase or IG...
Peaky Blinders the Movie … and Banking
The new *Peaky Blinders* film dramatizes Nazi Operation Bernhard, a World‑War‑II scheme to flood Britain with counterfeit Bank of England notes and trigger economic collapse. German planners aimed to forge up to £30 billion, eventually producing between £132 million and £300 million through a...
Explain Layer 1 and 2 and On-Chain and Off-Chain
The article breaks down the four blockchain layers—Layer 0 (inter‑chain networking), Layer 1 (core ledger and consensus), Layer 2 (scalability solutions), and Layer 3 (decentralised applications). It explains how Layer 2 mitigates Layer 1’s throughput limits and introduces the on‑chain versus off‑chain distinction, highlighting speed, cost,...
IKEA’s Bank: Their Reality vs My Vision
Ikano Bank, the financial arm of IKEA, has leveraged robotic process automation to streamline back‑office tasks, reporting over 100,000 staff hours saved in a single year. A flagship project automated 30,000 customer name‑change records, a task that would have required...
The State of Fintech, 2026
Fintech in 2026 is defined by a flood of AI tools such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, creating a crowded analytical landscape. Facebook’s entry with the AI‑driven platform Manus signals a new wave of tech giants targeting financial services. An...
The Finanser’s Week: 9th March – 15th March 2026
The week’s highlights cover Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol, AWS’s banking‑on‑the‑cloud report, the U.S. Treasury’s smart‑regulation guidance for digital assets, the industry’s shift toward branchless, cashless banking, and the use of crypto to evade sanctions. x402 promises internet‑speed, open payments that...
What Is X402 and Why Will It Transform Payments?
The x402 protocol, launched by Coinbase in May 2025, introduces an open‑source, web‑native payment standard that treats money like an HTTP request. It leverages stablecoins—primarily USDC—and is backed by infrastructure partners such as Cloudflare, Circle, Stripe, and AWS. By using the...
Banking on the Cloud
Amazon Web Services’ 2026 "Banking on the Cloud" report declares cloud computing a strategic foundation for modern banks. It outlines six trends—agentic AI, hyper‑personalised experiences, unified data platforms, ecosystem banking, resilient infrastructure, and modular architectures—that together reshape operations and product...
How to Avoid Sanctions Using Crypto
A new Henry Jackson Society report reveals that cryptocurrency has become a major conduit for sanctions evasion and money laundering, estimating $350 billion laundered between 2005 and 2025. Russia, Iran and North Korea are highlighted as prolific users, with the Russian...
Things Worth Reading: 9th March 2026
The latest roundup highlights several seismic shifts in finance: HSBC estimates a $100 trillion wealth surge among women, urging private banks to capture the gap, while fintech firms race to tailor services for female consumers. Lloyds Bank announced a bold data‑monetisation...
The Intelligence Revolution
Chris Skinner’s webinar frames finance’s evolution as three technology revolutions: mainframe‑driven automation (Finance 1.0), digital transformation driven by cloud, APIs and platforms (Finance 2.0), and today’s shift to intelligent ecosystems powered by AI, generative models, and emerging quantum and blockchain capabilities. He...
How Crypto Is Quietly Solving Problems That Go Way Beyond Money
Crypto’s rapid development is delivering solutions that extend far beyond speculative trading. Chainlink’s Verifiable Random Function supplies tamper‑proof on‑chain randomness, while the Sign‑In With Ethereum standard replaces passwords with cryptographic wallet signatures. Moreover, on‑chain tokens provide genuine digital ownership, opening...
What Does Programmable Money Mean for Treasury Operations?
Programmable money embeds conditional logic into cash movements, turning treasury processes from batch‑based to event‑driven. It leverages a mix of digital instruments—CBDCs, stablecoins, and tokenised deposits—to meet varied operational needs. AI‑guided payment libraries add automation while preserving governance, and quantum‑resistant...
What Will Money Look Like in 2050 and Beyond?
The article traces money’s evolution from medieval tally sticks to paper cash and predicts that by 2050 physical currency will be a relic. It highlights the rapid rise of digital currencies, tokenisation, and AI‑driven financial agents. The author envisions a...
Things Worth Reading: 27th February 2026
Block announced a 40% workforce reduction, cutting 4,000 jobs and citing AI‑driven efficiency gains. Klarna reported US$1 bn in revenue, positioning itself for further global expansion. The UK introduced stricter buy‑now‑pay‑later regulations, aiming to curb predatory lending, while Lloyds halted new...
Why Punish the Mule, when You Want the Rider?
UK regulators recorded a surge in money‑muling, with 207,889 cases in 2024, up from 170,338 in 2023. Predominantly young adults are lured by promises of quick cash, only to become unwitting conduits for criminal proceeds. Banks, fearing fines, are now...
Things Worth Reading: 20th February 2026
Chris Skinner’s roundup highlights a wave of fintech activity on February 20, 2026. Forbes lists the 50 hottest fintech startups, while Santander signals a push to scale its global investment bank. Regulatory pressure mounts as the ECB sanctions JPMorgan for capital‑misreporting, and...
Sport, Trade and Visa
Visa Consulting & Analytics reports that the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan boosted overseas Visa cardholder visits by more than 60%, with U.S. travelers up 160% year‑on‑year. European visitors, especially from Germany, also surged, driving average spends of €297, €267...
After Talking to 300 Fintech CxO’s, Here’s What We Missed
A recent Finextra survey of 300 fintech leaders shows AI has moved from experimental pilots to core operations, with 85% of institutions now using it and the AI‑in‑fintech market projected at $30 billion by 2025. Predictive analytics are evolving into an...
NPV and PSD3: What Next?
2026 marks a regulatory turning point for payments in the UK and EU. In the UK, a strengthened supplementary safeguarding regime takes effect on May 7, 2026, and the Payments Vision Delivery Committee will release a Payments Forward Plan outlining ecosystem...
How to Be an Intelligent Bank?
The post outlines a roadmap for banks to become "intelligent" by first embedding digital at their core, then embracing open‑banking APIs and modernizing back‑office systems, and finally layering AI‑driven intelligence on high‑quality customer data. It stresses that without clean, actionable...
The Finanser’s Week: 2nd February – 8th February 2026
The post warns that cryptocurrency fraud and money‑laundering remain rampant, urging tighter AML controls. It connects widening wealth inequality to heightened risk of social unrest, suggesting political volatility for financiers. It highlights a shift in perception of AI, citing Lloyds...
Cryptocurrencies Are Rife with Scams and Money Laundering
The cryptocurrency ecosystem is increasingly plagued by scams and money‑laundering schemes, with criminal thefts reaching $3.4 billion in 2025 and individual losses topping $713 million. Blockchain analytics firms report divergent estimates of illicit flows – Chainalysis cites $82 billion in laundering, while TRM Labs...
Things Worth Reading: 4th February 2026
Chris Skinner’s roundup highlights a wave of regulatory turbulence and innovation. Peter Mandelson is accused of lobbying for weaker U.S. banking rules, while rising cryptocurrency activity in Iran has prompted tighter U.S. oversight. The UK FCA announced its first fintech...
Our Bank Is AI Central
Lloyds Banking Group announced a compulsory AI training programme for its entire 67,000‑strong workforce, targeting 100% AI literacy by the end of 2026. The initiative, backed by a multi‑million‑pound digital modernisation budget, starts with a mandatory module on responsible and...
The Finanser’s Week: 26th January – 1st February 2026
The Finanser’s weekly roundup (Jan 26‑Feb 1, 2026) spotlights three intertwined themes: the enduring relevance of physical bank branches, the surge of artificial‑intelligence discourse at Davos and in a new White House report, and cultural commentary surrounding Elon Musk’s self‑described alien persona. Articles...
Why Bank Branches Still Matter
Bank branches in the UK have shrunk dramatically, falling from over 20,000 in the late 1980s to about 6,870 today, with more than 6,600 closures between 2015 and 2024. The Big Five banks collectively shuttered thousands of locations, yet over...
Things Worth Reading: 28th January 2026
Chris Skinner’s latest reading roundup spotlights several pivotal developments across finance. Chainalysis estimates cryptocurrency‑related money laundering reached $82 billion in 2025, while Revolut secured a full banking licence to launch a digital bank in Mexico. Tether’s CEO envisions the stablecoin as...
Things Worth Reading: 26th January 2026
The Bank of England publicly acknowledged its inflation forecasting errors, while European regulators flagged systemic risk in life insurers and encouraged banks to re‑engage with Wall Street. In the fintech arena, Titan received a second SEC penalty for exaggerated crypto...
Is Your Attitude to Money Shaped by Your Genes or Your Learning?
The article revisits the classic nature‑versus‑nurture debate, highlighting landmark twin studies such as the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the controversial Louise Wise Services experiment, which underscore strong genetic contributions to behavior and IQ. It contrasts these findings with...
Things Worth Reading: 20th January 2026
Chris Skinner’s daily roundup spotlights a wave of fintech and crypto headlines, from a $713 million crypto theft to AI‑driven stocks eclipsing digital currencies. It flags quantum‑computing anxieties that led a global investment firm to drop Bitcoin from its coverage, while...
The Finanser’s Week: 12th January -18th January 2026
The Finanser’s weekly roundup highlights the upcoming release of the author’s new book, “Intelligent Bank,” which tackles the growing wealth divide and its potential to spark social upheaval. It critiques conventional remedies such as communism and wealth redistribution, arguing they...
Things Worth Reading: 13th January 2026
Chris Skinner’s roundup highlights several pivotal developments shaping finance in early 2026. Bloomberg predicts bots, banking automation and stablecoins will dominate fintech, while Augmentum Fintech’s Tim Levene stresses the pressure to deliver strong investor returns. Former Federal Reserve chairs publicly rebuke...
My Next New Book: “Intelligent Bank”
“Intelligent Bank” argues that banking is entering a third technological revolution, moving beyond the mainframe and digital eras to an intelligence era driven by AI‑powered insight and delegated decision‑making. The author contends that while digital transformation delivered apps, APIs and...
What Will Happen in 2026?
Saxo Bank’s eight 2026 forecasts range from a premature quantum‑computing breakthrough that could wreck crypto to a SpaceX IPO that may create a trillion‑dollar space economy. The predictions also include an AI‑run Fortune 500 CEO, a gold‑linked "golden yuan" challenging dollar...
The Top 10 Blogs of 2025
The Finanser’s 2025 roundup spotlights the year’s most‑read fintech and tech blogs, revealing a shift toward AI‑driven payments, corporate expansion, and crypto policy debates. Notable entries include Stripe’s GPT‑powered payment engine delivering a 15% conversion lift and 30% fraud reduction,...
Things Worth Reading: 23rd December 2025
Chris Skinner’s December 23 roundup highlights a wave of strategic moves across finance. The UK FCA launched a payments initiative to accelerate “Pay by Bank” adoption, while Mastercard forged Middle‑East alliances to push blockchain innovation. The list also spotlights 2025 fintech...
A Quick Review of #fintech 2025
FinTech funding worldwide slipped 6% year‑over‑year in Q1‑Q3 2025, with deal count falling 27% to 2,654. Average deal size rose to $24.5 million, highlighting a shift toward larger, later‑stage rounds. While Europe’s funding plunged 42% and the United States saw a...
Things Worth Reading: 22nd December 2025
Chris Skinner’s "Things worth reading" roundup for December 22, 2025 curates seven high‑impact stories shaping finance. It highlights the Bank of England’s split decision to cut rates, British banks’ race to deploy agentic AI and the regulatory alarms it raises, and a...
Digital Identity versus Privacy
The post outlines a shift toward privacy‑first behavior as consumers curb personal data sharing and adopt tools like encrypted messaging, VPNs, and tracker‑blocking browsers. Device manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, and Google are responding by integrating on‑device processing, stricter app...
The Arguments for and Against Digital Identification
Fintech commentator Chris Skinner outlines the growing push for digital identity systems, citing government initiatives in the UK, the US mobile driver’s licence, and Apple’s Wallet ID. He contrasts these programs with public resistance rooted in privacy fears, especially around...
Things Worth Reading: 19th December 2025
Chris Skinner’s December 19 2025 roundup curates six fintech stories that illustrate the sector’s evolving landscape. Highlights include Citi’s perspective on funding trends, Aspire’s acquisition of global licences, the emergence of fintech‑driven gambling platforms, HSBC’s £55 million physical‑branch refurbishment, and the Bank of...
A Great Example of a Terrible UX (#Barclays)
Barclays recently altered its online login flow, forcing users to choose between mobile access and a PINsentry card reader, which many customers mistake for their usual mobile PINsentry method. The ambiguous labeling leads to repeated access failures, wasted time, and...
