I write from, time to time, about financing, strategy, impact startup and entreprenurial experiences, financial inclusion and sustainability. While I have professionally been financing impactful projects, my personal focus in sustainability started with financial inclusion, moving onto care and most recently, greentech.
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Stick, Carrot or Mouse?
Banks in the UK made the news again this week for not meeting small business lending targets. A £2 billion shortfall was estimated for Project Merlin, the deal struck between the UK Government and five big UK banks. The deal, which is yet to demonstrate the outcomes desired, was not without critics and various calls…
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Paper or Plastic?
I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal today talking about measures being taken by some banks in the USA to reach out to small business customers. There was a nice anecdote about an enterprising branch manager walking with a customer around the supermarket to discuss his borrowing needs. The same article mentions a…
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What’s the Magic Number? Part 2
This month an online survey of small business financing was conducted by a well known auction site. The results were unflattering to UK banks, however, as pointed out in the article, it may not be as simple as getting banks to lend more. Lending margins (especially for small businesses) seem to have widened (as apparently…
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What’s the Magic Number? Part 1
Small business financing remains a hot topic. The Obama administration passed a small business bill recently, while policymakers in the UK, concerned by lending, held wide consultations on lending to small business. The banks, who have already seen heavy scrutiny on bonuses and expenditure, have also been criticised for the drop in lending. The depth…
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Watering the Seeds
At a venture meet-up yesterday I sat in a hot room listening to questions posed to an expert panel on prospects for start-up funding. Having been a capital-raiser for my own business as well as for a variety of entities ranging from SMEs to public sector monopolies, I always found it fascinating how important we…
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Planting the seeds for African Agribusiness: policy, infrastructure & the supply chain
In 1997 I was in a Southern African country when what would turn out to be the first of a series of colossal blunders against a national economy was launched. At the time, no one could have foreseen how bad things would get. From our perspective, we saw the opportunity to expand production and thus…
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Got change for a billion?
As I watched the live televised debate between the incumbent chancellor and opposition shadow chancellors, my mind wandered to the realities facing emerging/frontier market finance ministers and central bank governors. Whilst their developed market counterparts can dissect tax credits and layered allowances in the knowledge that they have a reasonable handle on their national income…
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In some places, it’s still the wild west
Whilst there are areas we would undoubtedly wish to see improved, the relative homogeneity of the banking sector in the UK has its advantages. While I previously complained about the stickiness of bank deposits when trying to move money between institutions, I did not realise how much more we are offered relative to our cousins…