Opinion

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…

A dreadful question I know, but one that comes up regularly in discussions about work/life balance and, more importantly, money/happiness debates. The question is at the heart of where you prioritise: family and community or work and wealth. It came up again during the last few weeks of scandal in the City, and the conversation…

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…

With all this talk of greed and corruption in the City (more on that later too), everyone is demanding a return to basic banking. I’ve heard this several times in the past week and over the past few years. Just yesterday, over lunch, my colleague was recalling the days when you needed credit from the…

Just spent a few days in Moscow. It’s my third visit here, and each time I find the country intriguing, enlightening, engaging and frustrating. By way of example, the society is still very rules-based but everyone ignores the rules because no-one enforces them properly. The traffic is jammed all day on the freeways, and cars…

Talking with a friend this week, they said that they had found my blog entries a little over the top lately.  “Calm down”, she said, “and stop being a rebel without a cause.” But that’s where she’s wrong. I am a rebel (?) with a cause: the disruption of banking as we know it. Now…

We talk a lot about the threat of mobile carriers and telecom firms moving into banking and eating our lunch.  We cite examples such as NTT DoCoMo buying a credit card firm or Safaricom becoming the biggest financial transactor in Kenya, and what that will mean to banking in the future.  We see O2 and…