I remember some years ago that Nikolas Sarkozy wanted to bring in a law that would force call centre operators to tell French citizens where they were located, due to the backlash over offshore call centres. I wonder what he would make of today’s world, where most French and European banks have given all their…
There’s a great write-up by one of my guest contributors Alex Johnson, about the bad sales culture of most banks. Admittedly, he says it’s partly inspired by my blog of last year about challenger banks, but his write-up takes it further and has a swipe at the whole bank culture of cross-selling and being retailers…
I have a few favourite FinTech firms: Ripple, Prosper, Lending Club, SoFi, Zopa, Monzo, N26, TransferWise, Klarna, Stripe, Alipay, WeBank and more. A lot of it is because I knew these firms as fledglings and have enjoyed watching them grow up. One firm in this crew is Wirecard, the German bank behind many of Europe’s…
I’ve been writing a lot about purpose-driven banking, a theme that resonates around the idea that business focus should be more than just making money. It should also focus upon doing good for society and the planet. So, I was particularly struck by this quote from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, in an interview with…
The non-stop coverage of coronavirus, global markets slumping, an economic armageddon, the end of the world due to a climate emergency, the melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice, rising of the oceans, weather fatalities, a farce of a US election, the UK and EU in a stand-off over Brexit, the cancellation of the Olympics…
As usual, during this period of pandemic, there’s been a rollercoaster of events for those of us involved in financial markets. We’ve seen global stock indices drop dramatically, cryptocurrency going up and down faster than Donald Trump’s spin doctoring, and everyone feeling there’s little joy out there economically, financially or socially. That’s what a pandemic…
