Shaping the future of finance
Just been reading this month’s Bloomberg Markets, with the lead story: “Woman Who Couldn’t Be Intimidated By Citigroup Wins $31 Million”. The story proves to be an intriguing in-depth analysis (4,000 words) and is not an indictment of Citigroup per se, but of the corporate mentality of any global business today. You may disagree with…
Just spent a few days in Moscow. It’s my third visit here, and each time I find the country intriguing, enlightening, engaging and frustrating. By way of example, the society is still very rules-based but everyone ignores the rules because no-one enforces them properly. The traffic is jammed all day on the freeways, and cars…
I was recently asked to make a comment on the UK Building Societies sector. Like American credit unions, most building societies exist in the interests of their members as mutual organisations. They balance customer interests with their portfolio of business, and try to manage all on an even keel. Unlike most other financial institutions, the…
There’s a strong dialogue about why new services such as PayPal and Square take off so fast, and the answer is a combination of usability and accessibility. If something is easy and it works, then it can gain critical mass fast. That’s true of Facebook, Twitter and other social media. The more intuitive, accessible, easy…
The shock news this week is that JPMorgan, that mighty institution of financial stability that has steered through this crisis with ease and made Jamie Dimon, its CEO, the sage of finance … has been rocked by a trading scandal on the scale of a Nick Leeson, Jerome Kerviel and Kweku Adoboli. This time the…
Flying around all the time, you sometimes forget to absorb the ads around you. There’s one particular ad I’ve spotted for some time now, but only today got around to investigating. It’s HSBC’s latest campaign. Moving on from the world’s local bank, they’re now heavily into the future. That’s my space (not myspace). In fact,…
Flying around all the time, you sometimes forget to absorb the ads around you. There’s one particular ad I’ve spotted for some time now, but only today got around to investigating. It’s HSBC’s latest campaign. Moving on from the world’s local bank, they’re now heavily into the future. That’s my space (not myspace). In fact,…
I’ve spent my life working with banks and technology firms, trying to align technology with business strategy and vice versa. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that these two industries are ripping each other apart. The fact is that banking was managed in a risk averse way for centuries through diligent book-keeping…
I’ve spent my life working with banks and technology firms, trying to align technology with business strategy and vice versa. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that these two industries are ripping each other apart. The fact is that banking was managed in a risk averse way for centuries through diligent book-keeping…
