Opinion

I spent a day strategising with one of the Middle Eastern banks about the launch of a direct bank service.  One of the key questions they asked me is: do we organise the back office in the same way as our contact centre and internet bank service? The easy answer would be yes, but that…

This week sees Britain celebrating. No, not the end of a phenomenal summer of sport. No, not the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee again. And no, not the 200 year anniversary of the start of the end of Napoleon after his fatal march to Moscow, although how we missed celebrating that one I don’t know. No, it’s none…

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 of warfare that evades direct…

During the week, I’ve been discussing various aspects of risk and riot in the system, from the potential for an uprising to how anonymous works. One of the key areas to consider is also where all this goes in the future. That’s what I thought would be good to talk about today. I should be…

I spent some time contemplating history last week, and realised just how many times we have been through moments like this. The Civil War in Britain; the storming of the Bastille in France; the Russian Revolution; the themes of many German philosophers during the 1800s, such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche; and more. Throughout…

After the LIBOR debacle and the money laundering affairs of Standard Chartered and HSBC, the UK’s banks reputation are in the toilet. Now we have to rebuild, and this is where it gets interesting and challenging. After claiming that the Americans were holding our banks to ransom last week, we now see the potentially true…

Anatole Kaletsky, the well-known journalist with the Economist and Financial Times, is advocating  Quantitative Easing for the People (QEP) over in his Reuters blog today. The idea is to give every household $6,000 or £6,500 per person to increase consumption and spending.  The amounts are based upon the fact that these are the figures central…