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 Banks and financial institutions are not just users of technology. They have driven (and continue to drive) innovations in technology. ATMs were widespread before the PC revolution, the SWIFT network allowed global electronic money transfer before there was any Internet. Stock and commodity exchanges trade trillions electronically every day. We tend >>read more… Some weeks back, at the INET conference in Bangalore, we were treated to a variety of “expert” opinions on the future of the Internet in India. There was the usual tom-tomming about growth, and how with 100+ million users, India is now No. 3 in the global >>read more… Over the past few months, the news has been depressing for investors (and many others as well!). Internationally: The Greeks, Italians, and sundry other Europeans threaten to bring down the Euro The US government does not know how to revive its listless economy Even >>read more…  An inescapable and only too visible trend is the rapid urbanisation of India. Existing cities are growing rapidly (and haphazardly) in all directions, those that cannot (like Mumbai) are growing vertically, and many villages now resemble towns. Current estimates of “urban” population are in excess of 300 million, and likely >>read more… Last week, I was at a conference where one of the speakers was a Commissioner of Customs. Inevitably, given that the Finance Minister’s budget speech was a few days away, many questions were focused on the budget. One of these was about how the budget was kept secret. His response >>read more… A couple of weeks back I was in Bangalore for the Aero India show. Never having attended this event, I was amazed at the scale. To begin with, there were the hundreds (thousands?) of spectators getting their thrills from somersaulting planes and models of missiles, guns and other military hardware. >>read more…  Last week, the new Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr. Vyalar Ravi was widely quoted in the media as saying that his “top” priority was to ensure that Air India regains its “lost glory”. Anywhere else, such a statement would have drawn criticism for its partiality towards a single player. However, >>read more… The unfolding saga of the fraud by Citibank India employee, Shivraj Puri, is, like all such scams, both sordid and unbelievable. All frauds are sordid, so let’s focus on the unbelievable. As expected, investor ire and media attention are being focused on the “big bad” Citi. “We cannot believe that Citibank >>read more…  Despite so much evidence to the contrary, our esteemed ministers remain ignorant about the positive effects of market forces. The latest example of this is the brouhaha (love the sound of that word) over domestic airfares. The Aviation Minister, Mr. Praful Patel publicly came out against the “exorbitant” airfares charged >>read more… The IPO of SKS Microfinance has generated much angst amongst the righteous, Indian leftist fringe. And our financial press is only too happy to highlight their views, regardless of logic. After all, how can an institution that seeks to serve the poor, make so much profit? How dare they go >>read more… |
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