Oil is down 30% in the last 3 months. There are strong hints this is a systemic shift and not an aberration. Market rout as oil slide rocks energy groups ft.com He compared the surge in North American shale to the dotcom and subprime mortgage booms, and said Opec’s objective now was “to get small producers with large debts and low efficiency to pack up and leave the market”. Is hard to tell who is really behind it. Middle east producers attempt to kill off smaller US shale producers who have produced a world oil surplus US influence on Saudi … Continue reading “Market rout as oil slide rocks energy groups” | Are we entering the next economic crisis

This is probably a screw up but its funny given the tenure of those involved. First Scoble has this post and mentions Openstack. That link was interesting so I clicked and got this link. I arrived at the Gigaom site and clicked the lead story. (This experience might change as they add stories, but this is too much fun to ignore.) There I clicked the lead story “Why eHarmony is rebuilding itself atop Hadoop and (probably) OpenStack”. That link took me back to Scobles story. Round and round we go! It is a classic circular reference. I love it that … Continue reading Echo chamber classic

The world of payments is going crazy. Payments is supposed to be about SWIFT and land in SIBOS annually. Darn. The usual suspects at SIBOS Boston in October past must be suffering from brain exploding thoughts about Singapore next year. But seriously payments ain’t what they used to be. Apple Pay certainly drove payments front and centre, but Stripe have been quietly making significant moves the in the background. Here are just three stories tonight from the interwebs. Payments have been a story for a while but finally they are showing as consequential change, and banks are not in the … Continue reading Payments – whats going on?

And pigs can indeed fly. Visa and MasterCard have finally caved in to pressure from Canadian competition authorities and agreed to set a 1.5% ceiling on interchange rates in the country for the next five years. But I have to wonder with the pressure on large institutions including telcos to reduce locked in periods, fees, and exits costs, that similar pressure was expected on interchange, and maybe this was a way to get head of the regulators. Continue reading Visa and MasterCard reduce and cap interchange fees in Canada

For non Americans the significance that it took the President to sign an Executive Order is large. An Executive Order is required for either inconsequential items, but more often those which cannot otherwise be agreed upon by the legislative Congress who are generally governed by lobby groups, and therefore cannot make a decision. US Banks have been stuck in the past and refusing to buy into Chip Cards. They have even been balking at PIN rather than signature. This is the country with Miles and Gallons of course. Most wanted to stick with Chip and Signature, as indicated in this … Continue reading US Banks payments jump from days of the Beatles all the way to 2005’ish for rest of the world

This brings in a whole new level of mobile access. Its a bit hard to imagine First world regulators permitting this kind of dual access, but then again it has not been tested and certainly represents a new angle on the fastest growth technology area. Equity Bank to take on M-Pesa with Thin SIM technology Safaricom earlier this week lost a legal battle to block the roll-out of Equity Bank’s Thin Sim technology, when the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) and Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) dismissed the telco’s objections to the technology. Safaricom had claimed that the dual SIM … Continue reading Equity Bank’s Thin Sim technology represents a novel threat to most successful mobile app in Africa

In Aug 2013, I picked up on Stripe, and was impressed by their ‘start up’ approach to a space banks should have owned, but failed since day 1. Stripe – simple online payments … Today this piece at Bloomberg surprises with the extent that Stripe have become engaged in the payments eco-system that matters. This piece is worth the read just to see the big name players Stripe have engaged. Stripe Lands Apple in Quest for $720 Billion in Payments They are integrated with Apply Pay, Alibaba and have these backers: Stripe has the backing of investors including Sequoia Capital … Continue reading Stripe are heading towards becoming leaders in payment processing