Brilliant quote from the Big Picture blog. The Big Picture | Real Estate I like this quote from Christopher Wood, chief strategist at the broker CLSA: “This is not a sub-prime crisis. Sub-prime has merely exposed the bigger scam of structured finance; a scam that is about pretending that bad credit is good credit.” Technorati Tags: sub+prime Continue reading Crisis, what crisis?

Ed over at Wells, asks about Mint, who were at TechCrunch40 this week.  Pertuity | another way to look at your finances « The Bankwatch What do you think of Mint, the latest “Communal Finance” tool in this space? I had thought I would give them time to get some customers, and see how they do.   It seems kind of like a Quicken with a touch of Wesabe.  We know that Quicken was too complicated, and appealed to only a narrow group, so its refreshing to see Mint promote simplicity.  After all the aggregation talk in 1999, we also know … Continue reading How refreshing is Mint?

Great article in this weeks Economist on algorithms.  The theme lies in the mind numbing amount of data avalable now, and how mathematics can help solve complex problems, varying from the UPS driver and plane scheduling to Tesco product targetting. Algorithms | Business by numbers | Economist.com It works by assigning attributes to each of the products on Tesco’s shelves. These range from easy-to-cook to value-for-money, from adventurous to fresh. In order to give ratings for every dimension of a product, the rolling-ball algorithm starts at the extremes: ostrich burgers, say, would count as very adventurous. The algorithm then trawls … Continue reading Ostrich burger, and a medium mortgage to go …

This first transaction brings Canada closer to being in line with Asian and European countries with chip and pin protection for debit and credit transactions.  [hat tip to Payments news] Interac Association – Media > Press Releases Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 2007– As part of its commitment to providing the safest and most secure payment network, Interac Association today announced the completion of Canada’s first INTERAC debit card transaction at the point-of-sale terminal using chip technology. The transaction was processed today by TD Merchant Services using a BMO Bank of Montreal chip debit card at Mercato Giovanni’s Fresh Food located … Continue reading Chip transaction protection comes a step closer in Canada

Interesting subtext to the sub prime crisis, as credit card companies, target those same sub prime mortgage borrowers. Credit card companies pursue subprime borrowers – International Herald Tribune For credit card companies, the subprime market is a profitable one, analysts and consumer advocates say. Subprime customers, charged higher rates than those with better credit, are more likely to make minimum payments, maintaining balances that generate interest revenue for card issuers, consumer advocates said. Continue reading Credit card companies pursue subprime borrowers

Interesting and thought provoking post here on the value of Net Promoter Score (NPS).  This is one of those topics that generates much debate.  The general theme in that debate, lies in the value of a relatively simple metric, and the extent that will drive appropriate behaviours, that will translate into improved customer loyalty, and revenue.  Detractors might suggest that a simple metric cannot provide detailed actionable ideas. Laura Brooks, VP Research & Consulting, Satmetrix: Building Value One Customer at a Time 1) Net Promoter is simple but not simplistic. 2) Net Promoter tracks to growth. 3) Net Promoter is … Continue reading More on Net Promoter Score

 Congrats Paul and Finextra on going live with embedding community into their site, with their professional network.  It has been in beta for 6 months, and just went live. I have been posting over there periodically, and posted this today.  In general, I think it will tend to be future oriented things I do on Finextra, but still working that out. ‘Build your own Bank’ to become customer centric? They are financial and social; two characteristics that were never expected to be operating together, but that genie has now left the bottle. Both Wesabe, and Prosper have shown there is … Continue reading ‘Build your own Bank’ to become customer centric? | Finextra