Samee Zafar Director at Edgar Dunn Company
Central banks have been looking at cryptocurrencies for some time not without trepidation. Bank of England and Swedish Riksbank among others have contributed papers and declared their intent to participate in the emerging crypto universe. After years of talking it down, trashing and dismissing it, governments (and central banks) continue to be myst...
12 May 2021 /payments /crypto
Ban them? Block them? Back them? Governments and central bankers have long been exercised by the disruptive nonsense of cryptocurrencies. Some countries are actively experimenting with cryptocurrencies with rather unimpressive results. These include Uruguay, Senegal, Tunisia, and Venezuela. Venezuela’s cryptocurrency, the petro, backed by the coun...
06 December 2018 /payments
Years ago, at a banking conference in New Orleans, I attended a presentation by Michael Porter, the legendary Harvard Business School professor of strategy. Porter was presenting his theory of competitive strategy to a hall full of bankers. Whatever you want to be, he said, be different. A “me too” strategy is no strategy and an un-differentiated ...
02 November 2017 /retail
Reforming a dubious past Can the notorious, high-flying, volatile, and unpredictable Bitcoin system be gainfully deployed for legal and legitimate business models that have the potential of disrupting the existing world of banking and finance? This article explores an interesting attempt by a start-up called Abra to develop a master plan for a glob...
14 August 2017
Most of us by now have heard, read, and wondered aloud about the idea and impact of blockchain in its various forms and manifestations on how things are done today. Countless commentaries appear in the media. There is detailed analysis by digital pundits every day. There are news and articles about exploratory industry consortiums and pilot projec...
06 May 2017
Deep Blue Sea Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, was famously cautious about competing head-to-head with the world’s largest player eBay: “eBay is a shark in the ocean. We are a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we will lose. But if we fight in the river, we will win,” he said. On January 27 the crocodile finally swam o...
03 February 2017 /payments
A noted historian once observed that history is nothing but the unfolding of miscalculation. If this is true, then the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made history on November 8th when he ordered two large denomination banknotes to be withdrawn from circulation and replaced. No one doubts that criminals, corrupt officials, dodgy businesses,
28 December 2016 /payments /inclusion
Getting it wrong Pollsters whose job it is to talk to people and predict the outcomes of elections, sometimes get things badly wrong: the general election in Britain in 2015 when Labour performed unexpectedly poorly; the Brexit vote this year which took everyone by surprise; and finally, the US presidential election, which shocked the whole world...
30 November 2016
Money laundering crimes, when discovered, are dealt with a heavy hand by law enforcement authorities. Record penalties and fines have been imposed on some of the world’s largest institutions held responsible for supporting money laundering in any way, knowingly or not, and violating laws relating to money transfers and payments. Could the blockc
29 September 2016 /regulation
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