I’m sitting in the house. It’s snowing. Look. This is big news. We don't get snow in Britain anymore. Global warming saw to that. So when it's snowing, it's major news headlines. Non-stop BBC reports saying: "it's snowing". And so it's snowing, and Britain has stopped. Literally. Everything has closed down. We couldn't even get…
Just checked out Safaricom's results presentation for the first half-year 2009-2010, and found some interesting slides on M-PESA: Fascinating results … especially as Safaricom were not the instigators of M-PESA. At the start, they could not commit to a risky project of this nature with resources and so Vodafone brought in a…
After various predictions yesterday, including the return of Glass-Steagall and a Chinese bank buying an American or European one, today it’s the turn of technology. There are lots of questions about technology, such as: Will Google make us stupid? Will we live in the cloud or the desktop? Will social relations get better? Will the…
With the announcement that the cheque is ending its existence in 2018, I wonder whether Gordon Brown inspired this decision. This is because one of his cheques bounced way back in 1972, during his student days. It was sold on eBay for £3,100 yesterday (double click to enlarge). That's 1,000 times more…
I was just writing a paragraph about mobile for a client's report, when I realised what I had written: This year has seen dramatic innovations in mobile usage, such as those of the Bank of America in the USA. According to Doug Brown, SVP at Bank of America responsible for their mobile banking channel, they…
It's forty days since the introduction of the Payment Services Directive (PSD), so there has been lots of chat about the PSD this week, and how it’s working or not working. Derogations and interpretations are rife, with the hottest and most contentious issue being the fact that charges are now meant to be shared (SHA…
It's forty days since the introduction of the Payment Services Directive (PSD), so there has been lots of chat about the PSD this week, and how it’s working or not working. Derogations and interpretations are rife, with the hottest and most contentious issue being the fact that charges are now meant to be shared (SHA…
It's forty days since the introduction of the Payment Services Directive (PSD), so there has been lots of chat about the PSD this week, and how it’s working or not working. Derogations and interpretations are rife, with the hottest and most contentious issue being the fact that charges are now meant to be shared (SHA…
I’ve had a couple of good debates in the last week or so about the value of real-time everything. Everything is instant, immediate, no waiting, it’s real-time. We expect instant gratification in everything we do and, any waiting, it’s click and delete. Case in point: the PC gets stuck. How long do you wait before…
