Numbers

This is so good, I had to extract if for the blog in its own right. Yesterday, I spotted a headline in the Daily Telegraph: “UK traders less distracted than German counterparts during World Cup”. The article discusses a report published by the European Central Bank on Monday that provide in-depth …

We have a continual dialogue about Renminbi (RMB), or Chinese Yuan (CNY) if you prefer.  What’s the difference?  Well, Remnimbi is the proper term for the Chinese currency, as is referring to UK currency as the Pound Sterling and the American currency as the Dollar; whilst Yuan is the more …

I haven’t written much about social media lately.  The reason is that it’s now mainstream and dull.  When you're scanning future views, you’re not as bothered about Facebook and Twitter when everyone’s familiar with and using such services. Facebook's pervasiveness is well illustrated by the Facebook IPO  announcement, which gave a …

I haven’t written much about social media lately.  The reason is that it’s now mainstream and dull.  When you're scanning future views, you’re not as bothered about Facebook and Twitter when everyone’s familiar with and using such services. Facebook's pervasiveness is well illustrated by the Facebook IPO  announcement, which gave a …

PwC conducted research with almost 3,000 banking customers from a range of segments across markets to discover their expectations of banking in the digital age. They selected both emerging and developing markets including China, India, Mexico and the UAE, as well as developed markets like the UK, Canada, France and …

PwC conducted research with almost 3,000 banking customers from a range of segments across markets to discover their expectations of banking in the digital age. They selected both emerging and developing markets including China, India, Mexico and the UAE, as well as developed markets like the UK, Canada, France and …

I joined an interesting webinar yesterday about P2P Lending alongside: James Gardner, author of "Innovation and the Future Proof Bank" Gijsbert Koren, author of "Crowdfunding – The New Investing" Rhydian Lewis, CEO of RateSetter What was new to me was Rhydian’s take on P2P Lending. Rhydian is a career investment …

I’ve recently been thinking about headcount cuts. It’s always hard … And it's getting harder. For example, I wrote in August that thousands of bank jobs were being cut, adding up to an expectation of 15,000 City jobs this year. Each job loss represents a significant loss to the economy, especially …

There’s been quite a lot of coverage recently of the British Bankers Association’s (BBA) report about bank branch closures in the UK. Based upon the stats, UK banks are closing three branches a week.  That still leaves over 9,000 branches out there, but they are shrinking. The reasons are many …

I’ve enjoyed the Banker’s Top 1000 listings for a long time now and, when last year’s listings came out, looked back over the last twenty years to see how things had changed. This year’s list has now just been published (get a copy by subscribing) and makes for interesting reading, especially …

During the spring, we reached out and asked readers and FSClub members to provide their views, via an online survey, of the world's largest payments infrastructures and whether they are fit for the purpose they are being used for today. Last night, we released the results of the research at …

I like numbers and haven't posted any for a while. So I was pleased to find a bunch of useful social stats while crawling the net the other day.   These stats starkly put into context why social networking and social media is important. It's important in all walks of …

I found a mixed bag of themes this week as I’m scooping up numbers. First, some interesting numbers include the fact that Google has 750 people working in their Payments Division, having just hired PayPal veteran Osama Bedier to lead it. This is at the same time as PayPal hire …

Ever since I got my iPhone, I’ve been hopelessly devoted to Angry Birds, along with about 75 million other people. 75 million! That’s 75 million playing a game on their smartphone. That’s more than the whole population of Britain all playing Angry Birds. Wow! How did that happen and what’s …

Want to know the true story of debt in the UK?  Well, here's a few stats and facts: Just to emphasise a few of these numbers: Total personal debt in the UK is running at £1.45 trillion (that's £1,454,000,000,000)  Individuals owe more in personal debt than the country's annual output …