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Jun 10, 2010

The credit crisis was NOT a Black Swan event

One of my holiday books – I’m so geeky dull when it comes to banking – is Traders, Guns and Money, Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives, by Satyajit Das. It was recommended to me a while ago, and has been sitting on the bookshelf ever since, like so many books I…

Jun 9, 2010

Slurls: what are they?

My second book of reading for the holidays is "Slurls: They Called Their Website What?!" by Andy Geldman. This is a collection of the weird and wonderful names firms gave their websites. In reality, these names reflect their company well. Online, they kinda fail because we forget that the name on the sign may translate…

Jun 8, 2010

5000 years of risk … and we still can’t get it right

As mentioned yesterday, the Sumerians invented writing, accounting, money, credit and debt. 1500 years later, interest on debt was causing a lot of issues. For example, Aristotle wrote: “The most hated sort (of wealth getting) and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself and not from the natural…

Jun 7, 2010

How interest bearing instruments were invented

I've talked many times about the Ancient Sumerians creating money for sex, but they also created money for debt. Back then – 5,000 years ago – barley was the main measure of value and was alloted to Smerians according to age, gender and position in society. For example, men received sixty litres of barley a…

Jun 3, 2010

BPO: a very specialised business

I spent the day yesterday discussing BPO, Business Process Outsourcing, an area I haven’t touched on for a while. BPO is a logical extension of Business Process Re-engineering, Business Process Improvement and Business Transformation, and are major contracts of faith as the outsourcee is cutting out a major part of their business. Not a platform,…

Jun 2, 2010

Who are the top financial marketers in Britain?

Marketing Magazine has published its annual list of the 100 most powerful marketers in Britain. The list is filled with eminent names from fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) such as Phil Thomas at Reckitt Benckiser – the firm that sells Colgate, Cillit Bang and Dettol – to Jill McDonald of McDonalds (is that just coincidence?)….

May 31, 2010

Europe: broken nations borrowing from broke nations?

After the downgrade of Greece led to the Greek crisis and the Germans worried about bailing them out, the crisis continues with the downgrade of Spain at the end of last week by Fitch. In fact, it looks like many European countries are worried, with the PIGS now the PIIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece…

May 28, 2010

Bank histories reflecting our histories

After looking at the future of banking yesterday, it’s time to look at the history of banking today. Not in depth, that would be dull but, being a sad banking nerdo, I’ve got loads of history books about money and banks in my office. One of my recent favourites came from the British Museum, and…

May 26, 2010

It’s not personal, just business

I went to see my bank manager this week to discuss a small irritation in the business accounts – that’s a bank account, not a part of the anatomy. The irritation was that I needed to transfer a large amount of money fast – £20,000 – and it could not be transacted online due to…

May 25, 2010

The credit rating agent’s thumb

I dropped into the offices of one of the credit rating agencies this week. The one that caused confidence in Greece to fall through the floor: Standard & Poors. The agencies are interesting places at the moment as many attributed the AAA-rated toxic mortgage derivatives to their watch, so now they’re being cleaner than clean…