Chris Skinner

London

Blogger at The Finanser

Shaping the future of financial services

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Articles

Don’t Trust It Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes: The Alarming Rise of Deepfake Fraud

5 days ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

Some years ago an elderly gentleman entered the lobby of one of Britain’s biggest banks demanding to talk to someone about the £5 million he had been given by David Cameron. A senior manager at the bank took the gentleman to a consultation room, and it turned out that the man had been notified of a lottery win run by the government and, to claim it, he just needed to give his bank details.
The Relentless Rise of Ransomware: Inside the Cybercrime Surge

1 week ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

There’s a very interesting analysis of the cyber attacks on Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods on the BBC this week. If you have access to their iPlayer, then it’s well worth a watch: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002d2lh/inside-the-high-street-cyberattacks If you don’t, then here’s the summary as it illustrates our fragile digital world today. In April, Marks & Spencer’s systems were taken over by hackers.
China’s Secret Weapon in Fintech: How AI Is Powering a Global Finance Takeover

2 weeks ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

For quite a while, I have been amazed by China’s innovations in fintech from Ant to WeBank. My first visit to a Chinese bank in the 1990s, they were using Abacuses to calculate transactions; now they use rocket science in the form of AI. A lot of this was covered in depth in the deep dive case study of Ant in Digital Human and, around the same time, a book came out called AI Superpowers was released by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee - one of the world’s most respected experts on AI and China. His contention?
Who Needs Coders When We Have AI?

3 weeks ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

Having blogged yesterday about China leapfrogging the world of finance through AI, there are alternative views, particularly in the Big Tech world. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says AI generates ‘fantastic’ Python code, and that it now creates ‘maybe 20 - 30% of the code ...
Why Citi Thinks Stablecoins Will Skyrocket in 2025

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

Surfing as usual, I stumbled across a new report by Citi talking about Digital Dollars, and how banks and public sector would drive blockchain adoption. So, what does the digital dollar mean? Citi’s view is that “2025 has the potential to be blockchain’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ for adoption in the financial and public sectors. A supportive US regulatory stance on blockchain is expected to be the driver of what could be a game changing year.
The Rise of Digital Identity as the Next Global Currency

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

For centuries, we’ve relied on paper, plastic, and people to prove who we are. A signature, a passport, a nod from someone who knows you — the analogue scaffolding of identity. But in a world where everything is going digital, why are we still treating identity like it’s 1995? Let me be blunt: digital identity is broken. And yet, it’s the single most important thing in the future of finance, society, and, dare I say, humanity.
How Can You Prove You Are You?

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

I’m working on my next book which is due for release in spring 2026. The theme is all around how to trust in a deep fake world. As a result, I’ve been talking to a lot of people – technologists, bankers, policymakers, ethicists, hackers (some reformed, some not) – and the conversations is around the one central, slippery idea: digital trust. That’s the focus of my latest book, which is not about technology – although it is full of tech – it’s a book about people.
The Digital Drag: How Technical Debt Slows Banks and Fintechs Alike

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

We often talk about technical debt – the cost of maintaining and updating old systems to keep them operational. In most banks, this is 60% to 80% or more of annual IT budgets; in fintechs it’s less, because they have less history, but even here it is often 30% to 50% of costs. The reason? Things become dated very quickly in a digital world. When I think of this at a personal level, a good example happened just as I started writing this blog.
Billionaire Values: Who’s Saving the World - And Who’s Not Even Trying?

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

There is a regular conversation about the 1% versus the 99%, so I tried to track down: who are the 1%? The numbers surprised me. According to the 2024 Global Wealth Report, the global millionaire count has soared, reaching approximately 58 million. I thought it would be more like 100 million millionaires (and probably is in reality). If you travel between London, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and New York, you pretty much would have to be a millionaire to have a good life there.
AI’s Job Revolution: 170 Million Roles Created, 92 Million Replaced-Are You Ready?

1 month ago | advisorpedia.com | Chris Skinner

Every day there are more and more headlines about artificial intelligence (AI) AI and its impact on life, the world and the future. The latest one is a good one, which is AI is creating more jobs than replacing them! This comes from the World Economic Forum, whose latest report forecasts that, over the next five years, advances in AI will create 170 million jobs while replacing 92 million. The question is: what jobs?