Latest opinions that Chris Brown has shared on Finextra

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Chris Brown

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Member since

13 May 2016

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Chris's opinions

Beyond Passkeys: Why Financial Services Need a Stronger Path to Passwordless

For years, the financial services industry has wrestled with the weaknesses of traditional authentication. Passwords remain a prime attack vector, while one-time codes (SMS, email, and even TOTPs) continue to frustrate users and drive up fraud and support costs. In response, big tech companies have promoted passkeys as the new passwordless standar...

15 September 2025 /security /identity Biometrics

FIDO2 Was a Game-Changer—But It Can’t Be the Finish Line in Authentication

Fast IDentity Online 2 (FIDO2) was the second iteration of a standard released by the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It was designed to replace passwords as a means of authentication on the internet with cryptographic logins using device biometrics or security keys. When FIDO2 came onto the scene in 2018, it promised to bring u...

09 September 2025 /security /identity Biometrics

Cryptocurrencies: where to from here?

Cryptocurrencies have shown the world a new way of paying for goods and transferring money using an international currency unconstrained by national boundaries and national politics. A new democratised, decentralised way of managing money. There are problems in paradise however. The current crop of cryptocurrencies are swiftly turning into an en...

20 September 2018 Blockchain Observations

Who else will eat the banks' lunch?

An industry has built up due to the inability of banks to work together directly. PayPal ($70.7B) first came into existence to add a layer of ease and security to the card schemes because the card schemes don’t provide the banks the flexibility to provide it for themselves. At that stage PayPal was eating the crumbs from under the banks' table. B...

15 September 2017 Fintech

Does PSD2 have to be complicated?

There has been a huge amount written about PSD2 recently and much of it appears to be, with the greatest respect, over complicating the issue. Very fundamentally, to provide for all of the requirements of PSD2, we have three transaction types: balance, transaction list / statement and payment. Obviously, since these requests are coming from co...

28 July 2017 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

An upgrade for Credit Unions and Community Banks?

Credit unions have been a hot topic for me this week. I have had two completely independent conversations with people about them. On Tuesday night I met a chap from the US at an investor summit who mentioned he felt the US credit unions, although more numerous than the UK, were technologically challenged. The following day I met with a group, from...

21 July 2017 /retail Innovation in Financial Services

Banking on a pre-paid card platform

In recent years there have been a significant number of new "neo-banks" or "challenger banks" launched with much hype, here in the UK. Many of these appear to have been brought to market quickly, on the back of a pre-paid card platform and are buying customers now with a plan to build a revenue model in the future. Whilst I a...

14 July 2017 /startups Fintech innovation and startups

What will replace the card schemes?

There has been much talk recently about how card payments will replace cash altogether in the future. I have talked previously about my opinion that the card schemes (Visa, MasterCard, Amex etc) are past their sell-by date and we need an alternative. I have also discussed my vision of a future with a different type of payment network support

07 July 2017 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

A new payments network... for a brave new world

As mentioned in my previous blog there is much that's wrong with the existing payment networks, but it is always easy to criticise what others have done and rather more difficult to provide a solution to a problem. The network I envisage is modelled on the internet itself, with no central hub. Let's have a look at some defining characteristics o...

30 June 2017 /security /payments Innovation in Financial Services

The current payment networks are no longer fit for purpose.

“The current payment networks available to the financial institutions around the world are no longer fit for purpose.” I think that this is a statement that has been generally agreed by all those involved but let’s go through them just to be clear: As discussed in a previous blog, the card networks are expensive to join, expensive to transact on,...

23 June 2017 /security /payments Innovation in Financial Services