Tag: Regulation
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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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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…
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Droughts can lead to new wells
2008’s meltdown reset the financial services industry. It caused chaos worldwide and for a short while, it brought the masters of the financial universe down the earth. More importantly for me, it was my catalyst, moving me from a pattern of waiting for the right time, to acting and creating various windows. Opportunities. With primary…
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Bank deposits can be stickier than you realise
The last time I was in a bank branch was some time ago. I have queued to exchange travellers cheques in small African countries, done the Saturday morning trudge through the lines of my friendly neighbourhood bank in Bombay, and waited for a personal finance advisor (I only wanted to get a chequebook) at my…