Future

Sep 5, 2012

The Future of Hacktivism: the Collective Party

During the week, I’ve been discussing various aspects of risk and riot in the system, from the potential for an uprising to how anonymous works. One of the key areas to consider is also where all this goes in the future. That’s what I thought would be good to talk about today. I should be…

Sep 3, 2012

The uprising

I spent some time contemplating history last week, and realised just how many times we have been through moments like this. The Civil War in Britain; the storming of the Bastille in France; the Russian Revolution; the themes of many German philosophers during the 1800s, such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche; and more. Throughout…

Aug 20, 2012

What is the alternative to LIBOR?

After the LIBOR debacle and the money laundering affairs of Standard Chartered and HSBC, the UK’s banks reputation are in the toilet. Now we have to rebuild, and this is where it gets interesting and challenging. After claiming that the Americans were holding our banks to ransom last week, we now see the potentially true…

Aug 8, 2012

The City of London in 2050

I’ve blogged a lot about the history of the City of London, but what about its future? Right now, we could all imagine there won’t be one, but there is. It’s just going to be different. Now, I could speculate on the wholesale restructuring of British Banking and British bank regulations, as that’s definitely going…

Aug 6, 2012

Olympic Visions: the television you will be watching ten years from now

Technology develops at a pace and this is no more vividly illustrated than by the Olympic Games, as I discovered in a visit to the BBC’s Olympic theatre yesterday. The BBC has been involved in the Olympics pretty much since they were first established back in 1922 and the Olympic Games are the perfect showcase…

Jul 31, 2012

Data not only measures progress, it inspires it

I liked what Hillary Clinton said about data in yesterday's blog: “Data not only measures progress, it inspires it.” The reason I liked it is that it brought me back to the basics of what I do in banking: data leverage. There’s an old chart we used to knock around about data creating power: The…

Jul 25, 2012

Forget about rebuilding trust … it won’t wash

Rebuilding trust. A phrase that is used regularly throughout the banking industry since the crisis began. I particularly remember it being used as a theme at SIBOS two years ago; it was a theme that ran through Bob Diamond’s Today Lecture in 2011; and it is a theme that is running throughout the City still,…

Jul 20, 2012

What’s banking got to do with the Price of Fish?

Professor Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris (see bio's at end of blog entry) are regular guests of the Financial Services Club, and were invited back to close the London season of meetings with an engaging discussion about the Price of Fish. You may wonder what anything in banking has to do with The Price of…

Jul 19, 2012

Get ready for Facebook banking

There’s a buzz that’s started about Facebook banking asCommonwealth Bank of Australia and ICICI Bank get into Facebook banking apps, with Citibank fast to follow. What’s going on? Originally, we all though Facebook would take over bank functions through stealth creep via Facebook credits. Facebook credits are in fact worth around $1.5 billon a year…

Jul 19, 2012

Bill Clinton: “Being pessimistic is dumb”

And so to my final blog piece about Re|source 2012: Bill Clinton’s speech. Source: Getty Images What can you say about the man, the legend? The man who has felt more ladies knicker elastic than Marks & Spencer’s head underwear tester. No, that’s not important. You know, I was amazed about the reverence, excitement and…