Innovation

Someone made the comment that I would not receive any business from the five banks named yesterday with the biggest mistakes, so I thought I would rectify that by picking on five good things that banks are doing. It’s harder to find, because it is less reported, but there are a number of banks that…

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…

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…

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…

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…

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about P2P or social lending, mainly because I’ve been involved with Zopa since its launch and followed its siblings: Boober, Smava, Prosper, Lending Club, Ratesetter, Cashare, Loanio … Suffice to say there is a world of direct social lending out there and it’s now big business (Zopa recently gained…

We had a great discussion at the Financial Services Club Central & Eastern Europe (FSClub CEE) this week.  Now in its fourth year of operation, the Club meets regularly at the residence of the British Ambassador in Vienna, Austria (see postnote if you want a laugh).  The theme of the meeting was: “the future of…

In case you didn’t see it, Wired magazine ran an article about Jack Dorsey and Square this month.  Throughout the article, they compare Jack Dorsey to Steve Jobs and Square with Apple. In a long opening – the first page is just about pouring tea! – they finally get to the crunch so here’s my shorter,…

I’ve already given some reflections on last week’s innotribe meeting in my write ups of Metro Bank and Fidor Bank. Now, for a more general write-up, I’ve taken the inputs of Kosta Peric, the SWIFT innovation group leader who runs innotribe; the innotribe start-up details; and the input of participating company Allevo; to put together my own summary…