Community

Back in the early days of the world wide web, a story caught my eye. The state of Iowa decided to put its DMV (depart. of motor vehicles) database online. For those outside the US, your driver's licence contains your address, height, eye colour, (sometimes weight!) and, until recently, your social security number.

People went mental. How could the state make this type of personal information public? The point is, they weren't making this information public, the DMV database had ALWAYS been public - just, now, it was on the internet.

High School gossip, water cooler bitching et all has always happened. Is it now just amplified by social media? Is corporate censorship and 16-page documents on 'what you can say on Twitter' really the answer?

With social media - the barn door opened ages ago. Trying to rein those horses in is just a task I think most corporations have little time to devote to. Self-censorship, as we find our feet in this digital, and less than private world, is more the road I think we should travel on. 

(editorial disclosure - I actually went to the same high school as Robert, four years behind, but I think I spent less time in ass. principal's office.)

Well done Web Team. Without you we'd just be a few FinTech geeks texting each other.

Stanley, it is a shame you did attend the Digital Money Forum last week in London. Ignacio Mas from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave an inspirational (as a cynical journalist, I do not say that lightly) talk about brining formal financial services to the world's poor. ( a blog is forthcoming).

Those services are delivered, more often than not, through the mobile phone.

1.6 billion people live on less than $2 a day (and that does not include their dependants) only 10% of those have access to formal financial services.

Ban the mobile if you wish - but one man's annoyance, is another man's lifeline to financial stability and survival.

This isn't surprising. The Deutsche Borse admitted to me a few years ago that the sole purpose of the floor at the FWB was to provide a backdrop for German financial televsion.

I believe some of you are ignoring Matt White's real point about the impact mobile banking will have on the developing world - serving the unbanked and initiatives like micro-loans.

In fact, Deutsche Bank are making mobile banking and remittances a priority strategy within the bank.

Great innovation changes the landscape of whatever environment it affects. Mobile banking will allow areas without broadband, or bank branches, to enter and deal with the first world marketplace.

We aren't talking about buying a latte with your iPhone. Do not confuse online banking in the first world with the soon-to-arrive revolution in mobile banking globally.

I like the quote from God (I mean Paul Krugman)

"At this point, however, it's hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes."

A video interview with Chi-X Europe CEO Alasdair Haynesis scheduled to go live on the FinextraLive channel on March 9, 2010.

Macquarie Bank have just annouced David Kiely will keep his job - BBC

Streambase CEO Mark Palmer comments on Twitter about his firms' amnesty programme.

"RT @TonyBaer: @bmichelson Love that term "amnesty." Were Aleri/Coral8 custs criminals? :) #CEP <-- Ha! No, just misguided souls :)"

It doesn't matter who answered the question, my beef was with the question itself.

Men outnumber women in management positions. When you ask "who's better a man or a women?" you are not comparing apples to apples. Percentage wise you are more likely to poll people who have never had a female boss at all.

These types of 'polls' only serve one purpose - to start a discussion about all the disasterous female bosses everyone has had. That debate is not only unfair, but, fundamentally, does nothing to further the advance of women in professional roles. 

I know you and Women in Technology are passionate about promoting women throughout IT and financial services. Just let's depense with the tabloid-friendly findings - because behind every "I once worked for a real bitch" story is a 40 year old women, with two children, working 60/70 hours a week in an IT department in a bank who, frankly has better things to worry about.