Innovation

Innovative BRAC microcredit securitization honoured

Colin Henderson

 During 2006, BRAC secured $ 180 million in the capital markets to fund microcredit to the poor.  Financing was arranged by several with Citibank as lead. The connection of capital markets to microcredit is highly innovative, and time will tell if this trend continues. Some may view as junk bond type financing. The deal brought the global financial markets to the doorsteps of nearly 1.2 million households in Bangladesh. BRAC is the world’s largest national Non Government Organization (NGO) with over 5 million borrowers (mostly women) and 100,000 employees and BRAC focuses on poverty alleviation with funding given to village organizations … Continue reading Innovative BRAC microcredit securitization honoured

Profitability

ePolitix.com – Banks performing ‘biggest robbery in Britain’

Colin Henderson

Bank fees will always be under pressure, particularly under times of political instability, such as the run up to elections in UK, or in times of economic downturns.  Banks are “mugging” their own customers by levying illegal penalty charges, a senior Liberal Democrat MP has said. Source: ePolitix.com – Banks performing ‘biggest robbery in Britain   Technorati tags: bank+fees, politics Continue reading ePolitix.com – Banks performing ‘biggest robbery in Britain’

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Finextra: Natwest launches Polish account in the UK

Colin Henderson

News from Natwest, and Lloyds with introduction of Polish Banking.  This is in keeping with the earlier pieces we had on addressing immigrants’ needs and seeing that as an opportunity for market protection.  I don’t see this so much as innovation, because anyone can do that.  However failure to implement such services, will doubtless result in reduced market share over time, as the population becomes more mixed. Natwest says its new Welcome Account comes with a related money transfer feature that enables Polish customers in the UK to send money back home. Customers can transfer funds straight from the current account into the … Continue reading Finextra: Natwest launches Polish account in the UK

Security

The PayPal Security Key – PayPal

Colin Henderson

PayPal have gone mainstream with the addition of a security token, for 2nd factor authentication.  They charge a one time fee of $5. Hat tip Nishad. We protect your PayPal account with one of the highest levels of online security available. Now you can add even more protection with the PayPal Security Key. Source: The PayPal Security Key – PayPal   Technorati tags: security, two+factor+authentication Continue reading The PayPal Security Key – PayPal

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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: Keynote text analysis

Colin Henderson

We all have the opportunity to speak somewhere, a meeting, a presentation, externally or internally.  Courtesy of Todd Bishop at the SeattlePI Microsoft blog, here is something you might find interesting. This analysis compares Jobs, Gates, and Dell’s keynotes using tags and English analysis. On average Jobs sentences are precisely half the length of Gates!  Gates talks in more generic terms, while Jobs speaks of products and brand names.  Check it out … and make your own observations on which is better. At the suggestion of a reader, we ran the text of both speeches through the tag-cloud generator, a program that displays the … Continue reading Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: Keynote text analysis

Business Models, Innovation

Challenging business models and getting beyond iterative thinking

Colin Henderson

 For me, understanding and predicting future business models is fascinating, and highly relevant to Banking, which has remained relatively unchanged, hence my conviction that it will disintegrate – the key being, how, when and what. So I enjoy this type of post from “A VC”, that challenges thinking in ways that brings almost uniform ridicule.  That suggests to me he is on to something.  Yes, this setup is still expensive. Yes, not everyone wants to “rent music”. But I agree with David that “music dialtone” is the future of music, not iTunes, iPod, or iPhone Source: A VC: David Kirkpatrick … Continue reading Challenging business models and getting beyond iterative thinking

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NSCU – site review

Colin Henderson

Now that we sorted out who was first 🙂 with RSS autodiscover, it prompted me to take another look at the NSCU site.  This is a great site, no questions asked.  Customers will love it, why? simple and clean lines – easy to find everything log-in on the home page – note the entire site is secure/https just as Wells Fargo do.  No-one else has figured this out yet, but its the only way to generate an integrated site.  RSS autodiscover on the home page 🙂 (although its not clear what it is subscribing to until you click it) Clear tabs, … Continue reading NSCU – site review

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Snap preview – thumbs up, or down?

Colin Henderson

I just noticed that WordPress have turned on these Snap previews, when you hover over a link.  Its cool the first time, but I think it gets annoying.  It might be handy for the comments area. Let me know either way in the comments – thumbs up or thumbs down? There is an option somewhere, that I can turn it off.  I will let it ride for a bit, and based on reaction, will decide.   Technorati tags: snap+preview, wordpress+extras Continue reading Snap preview – thumbs up, or down?

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Web Worker Daily | Different Ways to Manage Your To Dos

Colin Henderson

 This is simply a marvelous compendium of all the ways to manage your to-do’s. How many ways are there to manage your task list? Almost as many as there are people with tasks to do. Here are 20 different ways of tracking your to dos, with examples of each. Source: Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 20 Different Ways to Manage Your To Dos « Being impendent required me to update my own tools, and here is my selection of tools.  My criteria are simple.  free, or at least very reasonable web based, and works in blackberry browser as well as … Continue reading Web Worker Daily | Different Ways to Manage Your To Dos

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‘gethuman’ standard and some thoughts on customer service

Colin Henderson

gethuman.com is a fascinating concept bringing together technology and human interaction in a useful way.  Its not clear if this site is still being maintained, and it does make it clear that its free and volunteer, but the concept is fascinating. (hat tip Tara) The concept is to list large companies and a phone number or instructions to ensure you get through to a human on the phone. The need to create such a site speaks volumes.  The gethuman standard is a specification for how customer service phone systems and support should work. The gethuman standard will improve the phone systems … Continue reading ‘gethuman’ standard and some thoughts on customer service