Numbers

I recently hosted a meeting of financial market players to talk about how to rebuild trust in banking.  It was an interesting evening, with most of the attendees accepting that trust in banks was at an al-time low.  But how low is an all-time low?

I’ve blogged and presented about this subject many times before, so rather than repeating all that, here’s a summation with a new twist. Money is meaningless because we no longer deal in money.

Back to reality and what’s happening in the world today. I received a bunch of stats and facts from one of my readers last week lookiing at public (governmental) debt across various countries and geographies, and comparing internal debt (money borrowed within country) with external debt (money borrowed from overseas). …

The Sunday Times had a specially sponsored section on mobile business this weekend.  The section gave some interesting stats that are worth repeating (just in case you didn’t think mobile payments is big business):

The Sunday Times had a specially sponsored section on mobile business this weekend.  The section gave some interesting stats that are worth repeating (just in case you didn’t think mobile payments is big business):

The World Payments Report (WPR) has just come out.  It is the 8th report produced by EFMA, in partnership with Cap Gemini and the Royal Bank of Scotland (ABN AMRO previously), and provides a good analysis of global payments movements in the same way as we do with our European …

Interbrand published their Global Top Brands report yesterday, which makes for interesting reading. The world’s most valuable brand is still Coca-Cola, followed closely by Apple and IBM. Tech firms feature heavily in the list, with Google and Microsoft in fourth and fifth place, Intel in eighth and Samsung in ninth …

There’s a great interactive review of investment banking markets on the Financial Times today. The chart compares the fortunes of ten investment banks: Bank of America; Barclays; Citi; Credit Suisse; Deutsche; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan; Morgan Stanley; Royal Bank of Scotland; and UBS. You can check out how their revenues, employee …

Whilst consumers are electing the next major political leader via crowdsourced populism, governments and companies begin developing cyberarms. This cyberwarfare is already rife, with a host of malware targeting middle eastern nations (see end of blog entry). What is obvious from these developments is that cyberattacks are the new form …

I went to see a screening of a new film about Anonymous last night called We Are Legion: the Story of the Hacktivists. The film tells the story about the rise of Anonymous and the hacktivism movement, portrayed through interviews with many of the key players.

I ‘ve been talking about contactless for years now  - I remember talking about the Octopus card system about ten years ago after it launched in Hong Kong in 1997 – and still find it surprising how invisible it is. Sure it got some coverage at the Olympics but some, like Forrester, …

This week’s TIME Magazine has a spread all about how mobile technologies are changing our world. There are stories of how it’s changing elections, charity, privacy and more, as well as getting rid of our wallets of course. The wallet piece is pretty weak to be honest, with the story of one …

More conversations about mobile payments with a wave of news this week: Google, Carriers, Credit Cards Unite on Mobile Payments Committee How Cheap NFC Changes the Mobile Payment Race What Square’s Starbucks Deal Means For Mobile Payments And An Apple iWallet My Mobile Payments floats operations in Britain Deutsche Telekom …

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 …

I just received a Gallup report for the World Bank about gender differences in bank account usage. The headline is that gender barriers exist worldwide to banking. Hmmm … women are less included in finance than men. Hmmm … my initial reaction was so what? No, I’m no misogynist, but …