The problem of derivatives is raised by Mark Mobius of Templeton at a speech in Japan. Mobius: ‘Another financial crisis around the corner’ The total value of derivatives in the world exceeds total global gross domestic product by a factor of 10, said Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion. With that volume of bets in different directions, volatility and equity market crises will occur, he said. The global financial crisis three years ago was caused in part by the proliferation of derivative products tied to U.S. home loans that ceased performing, triggering hundreds of billions of dollars in writedowns … Continue reading Derivatives have grown to 10 times world GDP

We all take internet for granted.  I worry about where internet will be in the next few years.  The words ‘unintended consequences’ leap off the page on most things we read about regulation or freedom of expression online. On the one hand we have the academic leaders of internet freedom in the US, and the counterpoint is probably the European contingent lead by France and Germany who want to control every cookie it seems. So in concert with the G8, France produced the e-G8 that has some very interesting participants including Eric Schmidt, and Mark Zuckerberg, but also some others … Continue reading Injunctions, super-injunctions and internet meet, and it is not pretty

Payments might just get a little more interesting Thursday when Google promise to introduce a phone based payment method in partnership with MasterCard and Citi. Google to unveil mobile payments Thursday: Google invited reporters to attend a "partner event" on Thursday in New York to demonstrate what it called its "latest innovations." It plans to unveil a mobile payments system that will run on the Android operating system and be available on phones from Sprint Nextel Corp, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. What could make this interesting is the potential for international coverage.  However the devil will be in the details … Continue reading Google introduction to payments coming Thursday in New York

While banks march on apparently as if nothing happened in 2008 nor the years leading up to it, there continues to be a host of regulatory and investigative work continuing.  The latest is from the New York attorney general office who are pursuing an inquiry into pooling practices, ie, the dreaded derivatives and Asset Backed Commercial Paper in particular. New York Investigates Banks’ Role in Fiscal Crisis | NY Times Officials in Mr. Schneiderman’s office have also requested meetings with representatives from Bank of America,Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized … Continue reading NY Attorney General launch inquiry into pooling (derivatives) practices amongst big banks

Customer service and marketing can easily get out of sync with each other.  We were trying to sign up for a movie tonight on Rogers and the service kept crashing.  I phoned the technical support group, and got the usual suggestion from the CSR to reboot the box.  However when digging deeper with him he readily admitted that the Rogers service had capacity issues and had had service issues for the last several months.  The frustrating part of that conversation is that he knew why we had a problem before we began but the company still made him put us … Continue reading Marketing and technology must work together | Rogers please listen

I missed the rumour that Ally Bank is in talks with ING Direct.  It was put out there first by the NY Post on 10th May, 2011. Sources told The Post that Ally, the automobile and home mortgage lender, is looking to acquire the online banking business to boost its deposit base and further fortify the lending giant, which accepted a taxpayer handout during the height of the financial crisis. ING Direct could fetch as much as $10 billion in a sale, according to source This follows the EU Commission requirement that ING in Holland divest its insurance business following … Continue reading Background to the ING Direct story and the rumours of Ally Bank interest