BIT Coins and PayPal

An announcement was made yesterday that Pay Pal is on the verge of accepting Bit coins as a payment consideration as an alternate payment mechanism. The payments group enthusiasts in the Quora group have welcomed this and are happy about the developments.

I am not impressed, as I feel that Bit coin can not replace the 'money" we know. I am making an effort to study the entire bit coin universe and payment mechanism universe.

Meanwhile for those in reading the announcement,

FOLLOW THIS LINK

Apple Vs Google

My comments to the comments to the article  appeared in Linked in:

Reading all the 954 comments is going to be a difficualt task for me unless I will be interested in taking that up as research project. However my comments are :

1. Apple has its own market  and persons who would like Apple will continue to support Apple. ( no arguments on that, but does it mean that Apple will continue to dominate the smart phone market?)
2. Even in India people who can afford Apple buy it and it has a sizable population. ( I do not say that Apple does not exist in India, but what is the market share?
3. Article is not about technology, but about marketing strategy. ( It is both. Mac is popular in US but in emerging markets let us not forget, it is Windows. What is Mac to US, Windows is to the Asian countries. Is it not a fact that the profitablity of Microsoft came , not from US but from rest of the world?)
4. The companies with whom google has tied up source their materials from China and there are not Indian manufacturers of Chips. ( for that matter, even Samsung gets its components from China. How does this matter? I do agree that there are no big chip manufacturer in India on date. But does it mean that there will not be in future also?Incidentally manufacturing chips does not matter as the topic being discussed here is an operating system)
5. (Indian population is very huge and affrodable phone will certainly increase the market share and it will be difficult for Apple to penetrate with such low margin and high volume game. )
6. ( One of the manufacturer with whom Google has tied up is Micromax. This company was nowhere in the horizon till five years back. They are next to samsung in the market share of mobiles in India. There marketing strategy was simple - affordable phones with long battery life. The target segment was average income group from rural and small towns. Today they are expanding into Russia. A clear advantage to Google.)
7. (I do agree Apple though its secure payment method has an edge over others. But how long? The NFC technology is nothing new and others will catch up fast.)
8. ( The article has its merits and rest of the world is larger than US.)

I have provided my views in the brackets against the original comments by other participants. It is a very interesting article resulted in 954 comments.

Read the full article and comments Here

Apple Vs Google

My comments to the post in Linked in

Google is thinking right. Comparing strategy of google with apple is being commented upon as comparing Oranges with Apples. I have read comments referring to " cost" and margin available to Apple compared to the " thin margin" the manufacturers in emerging markets. All these comments can be attributed to loyal Apple followers, who miss the central theme of the article.

Yes, US may be Mackintosh...but Microsoft earned from Windows of emerging markets. The term emerging markets was coined only when it is realised that the local market is getting saturated.

What Google has done is treading the Microsoft way and they are right.


Read the full article here

BITCOIN revisited.

My post in Quora.com

Bit coin- my journey

I had raised some doubts in my last post. Curious, I am, wanted to know more about bit coin and why it is being debated constantly. In a group in Linked in there was a reference to a paper published by the FED RESERVE US.

Page on linkedin.com

The publication was simple and provides a fundamental view on bit coin.

My reaction is that Bitcoin can only be speculative money and can never replace today's currencies. One interesting fact I observed is that the number of bitcoins that can be mined is limited. If that is true, then the value of  bit coin will become phenomenal, of course, with increasing demand of bit coins. Natural corollary is that the original creators of bitcoin will become the wealthiest persons. In fact they will become the rulers of the world if the entire world population is prepared to accept bit coin as the money. Human mind , will not permit such single ruler or group of individuals.  Human mind accepts the GOD because they can not identify him. Religious belief is based on this simple human psychology. We will, as a society,never accept another living individual as GOD. Having said that I do not expect this world to accept an universal currency whose value can be volatile and is purely a function of demand and supply. The trust will cease to exist.

Rightly the Bank of England has to come to the conclusion that Bit coins can never replace the existing currency.

Here’s What the Bank of England Thinks of Bitcoin

Applied Lending Techniques

The chapter 2 of the book deals with personal finance. As he had rightly pointed out, in todays world, credit scoring becomes the most important factor in evaluating such requests. Yet Mr. Rouse goes ahead and presents five case studies, It is surprising that all the case studies advice 'caution." After studying the case studies, you have a feeling that personal finance is not good at all. The advent of credit scoring as a decision tool probably came into being, by virtue of all bankers having such attitude. This is more evident when you read the classification of personal borrowers, by Mr. Rouse. As per him, there are only two kind of borrowing personalities. One credit averse and who has their personal finance in good condition and two , those who spend in anticipation of expected cash flow. All the case studies provide a conclusion that the borrowers do not have financial discipline. A third type of borrower exist: who borrow for the purpose of creating an asset. The chapter does not take those types into account. As  usual, Mr. Rouse has approached the subject in a simple and lucid manner.

Learning is a continuous process

Are you efficient now? Are you proficient now? If yes, read on
Will you be efficient three years from now?
Will you be proficient three years from now?
If you are willing to learn and adopt to the ever changing world , then you can say a BIG  yes to the second set of questions.
Sharpen the saw - Stephen Covey.
This simple effective habit of successful people is highlighted in the  article

Are You Ready To Become Obsolete? What I've Learned About Continuous Reinvention.

by JOSH Bersin in the LinkedIn 

READ HERE THE FULL ARTICLE

Stupid Questions and Smart Answers

Great article by Liz Ryan in Linked in Pulse. As a interviewer, I also asked the same stupid questions:
1. what are your weaknesses?
2. Why we should hire you?
3. How do you see yourself five years from now?
4. Tell me something about yourself.

Liz Ryan rightly points out that these scripts were written almost sixty years earlier and for some funny reasons, we continue the script,even in this technological world. The post gets more interesting when she provides two set of answers to the above stupid questions.

Her alternate answers,I am afraid, will make me continue to look stupid with those stupid questions.

Read the article here

BIT COIN No.. but the process ... may be yes.

An interesting offshoot of Bitcoin. Bank of England has fallen in love with the process of "decentralised record keeping." May be it is worth looking at..

read the article here.

How to make one eat a hat?

The answer is with Mr. Brian Roemmele, who is a self declared "Alchemist and metaphysician"  in Quora, He believed strongly in Apple payment Systems. He made a VC to eat his hat. Details of the 'eating " is better if narrated in Brian's word.

In Brian's words

Applied Lending Techniques

A good primer on lending techniques. The introduction chapter highlights the approach of the author Mr. C N Rouse on the lending principles. He is not exaggerating that professional lending does not mean immediate and quick decision. His comments on historical financial statements such as

1. Remember the figures are historical and does not guarantee the future performance.
2. Remember the figures on the balance sheet is on a particular date providing opportunity for "dressing.".
3. Remember the balance sheet is only financial figures and does not represent the quality of management and character of the company.
4. Remember that the accountant prepares the accounts with a prime view of saving taxes. Thus be focused on items which can be manipulated easily.

His comments on management accounting is worth reading. He rightly observes the attitude behind the projections and warns the lenders be aware of this attitude and study the projection critically.
As committed by him in his foreword, he provides a case study for better understanding.

The case study in chapter 1 suddenly brings in an advanced concept of funding for take overs. However, the comments are on more critical eye needed than in depth study of take over funding.

Interested in the book ?

TenCent- Have you heard the name?

The not much talked about company from China. Tencent.

 "Chinese companies are much more innovative [than U.S. companies] in integrating social media, gaming, ande-commerce to make an amazing user experience," says Sun Baohong, associate dean of global programs at Beijing-based Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business."

The company has entered US markets. 

Tencent Goes Global

With one word in 2012, Tencent announced its philosophy of global expansion--and that word was "WeChat," the friendly English name it gave its international version of Weixin. WeChat, an app with many of Weixin's most popular chat functions, was marketed aggressively across Southeast Asia, and results were strong: It gained more than 100 million users outside China by last summer, and it was the second-most-downloaded app in India in 2013.

But despite WeChat not being so explicitly Chinese, the shadow of the Chinese government has followed it. India's government has expressed concern that the app poses a "security threat." Tibetan activists outside China tell their community to switch to other messaging services. Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident, who has claimed that Chinese officials knew about things that he had communicated only on WeChat, has called it "a monitoring weapon in your pocket."

In the U.S., for now, WeChat has mostly been adopted by Chinese expats who use it to talk to friends back home. And following the scandal over the U.S. National Security Agency spying on emails--in which American tech companies played a role, but can at least oppose such efforts publicly--American users may be a hard sell on an app with this much government contact. "The difference is that here in the U.S., at least there are some legal controls," says Internet expert Mackinnon. "In China, if the State Security people ask for something, they just get access."

It's not clear how much all this will stymie Tencent's efforts in the U.S., largely because it isn't clear what Tencent's U.S. plan is. David Wallerstein, a Chinese-speaking tech entrepreneur, opened the Tencent office in a converted church in Palo Alto in 2007. A Tencent spokesman said he is "quite reticent to speak to any media," which is certainly true: After months of requests from Fast Company, he finally agreed to speak--though the publicist said he would limit the discussion to topics such as "why we are unique." After many delays, though, he backed out entirely. The publicist explained that, in the process of preparing for the interview, he'd written down thoughts that he ultimately decided should become a memo sent out to his own staff instead.

For now, Tencent's public moves in the U.S. tell a cautious tale of small-time acquisitions and investments. Mostly, the company seems interested in startups whose technologies might be useful to Tencent back home. It participated in a $22 million funding last fall for Plain Vanilla Games, which had just launched QuizUp, a super successful multi-user mobile quiz game. "Tencent has been less focused than other investors on strategies of prevaluation and growth multipliers and profit," says Thor Fridriksson, Plain Vanilla's founder. "They say, ‘Don't worry about revenue right now; just focus on the user experience.'"

Tencent's larger investments, a $330 million stake in Epic Games and the purchase, for $400 million, of Riot Games, which produces the incredibly popular League of Legends, also seem aimed at expanding access to killer content for its Chinese users. "Having the most popular e-sport title is such a huge marketing advantage," says Piers Harding-Rolls, who leads a team of gaming industry analysts at London-based IHS Technology. "They are building their capabilities to provide an end-to-end entertainment experience."

Tencent's investments have a more ethereal role as well: Local partners become Tencent advocates, and help its stateside image. "Tencent really understands engagement, how to push the emotional factor to our users," says Chase Adam, whose philanthropic website, Watsi, received a Tencent investment. Vibhu Norby, whose social networking company Origami got early Tencent funding, says he's learned a lot from the company about how to scale up a user base and its storage architecture. "You can't support all those millions of users without incredible backend technology and creativity," he says.

If Tencent does decide to aggressively push its own products in America, its sheer size will make it an instant competitor. For example, Tencent recently offered 10 TB of free cloud storage to users--an offering 100 times larger than what Dropbox, Box, Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Drive, and even Mega (run by Kim DotCom) offer combined. If you want 10 TB of storage from Google, it will run you $100 a month.

But Silicon Valley's big shots are no doubt watching--and preparing. It's hard to imagine that Mark Zuckerberg purchased WhatsApp for as much as $19 billion without having the similar WeChat in his rear-view mirror. Bonus for Zuckerberg: Facebook is blocked in China, but WhatsApp isn't.

Bitcoin and doubts

I posted this in my page in Quora.com

It is Quora who introduced me to the world of Bitcoin and even now I am not fully familiarised with it. Mr. Faisal, I observe from his posts, is a great fan of Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

I have been reading lot of posts for and against  bit coins. Some States of US, I understand are on the verge of providing legality. My thoughts on the Bitcoin Ecosystem are :

From time immemorial, money was something that had some intrinsic value. It gave birth on the necessity of standardisation, but was always based on tangible assets. The necessity of economic opportunities, led to the fall of gold standard, but still money is based on some tangible ( or intangible?) promises by a central and accepted authority. Value of such money centres around demand  and supply with additional factors logged in. But still it has or had a basis. Does not the bit coin, if to be called as money, should be based on something tangible. Does it have a base. There can be an argument that the intellectual property which creates the digital currency can form as a basis, then how to value that intellectual property. Is it prudent to create a standard out of nothing? 

The international trade is progressing, besides the other factors, mainly on the incentive of different valuation for different currencies. By adopting a uniform currency, will it hamper the international trade ?

Assuming a scenario, that different countries recognise different digital currencies, is it not a replacement of the existing printed notes, without any central authority, by a different name?

Having understood that generation of bit coins is more a mathematical and technical algorithm, will it stand the test of availability of digital currencies as and when needed? ( remember the logic of abolishing the gold standard)

Is Bit coin or digital currency is another hype of the silicon valley?

  

Democracy for real?

A study by Princeton University concludes that an average American does not decide the policy any more. It is the groups and wealthy who dictate the policies, whichever party is in power.

To quote :

" Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters. "

Read the talking point memo HERE

Appeal to PayPal

An evangelist of payment systems Mr. Faisal Khan makes an appeal to PayPal.

1. He has been writing for ten years inviting paypal to pakistan
2. A detailed metrics is provided justifying the business model
3. Regulatory fears are allayed.
4. Is it terrorist funding? Mr. Khan points fingers at western world than Pakistan

He rightly asks then why not ?

Hope atleast this communication will get a response.

Open letter to President Paypal

Twitter Invented in 1935?

Great article by Braden Kelley is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons. Braden is also the founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy, and an Innovation Excellence co-Founder.

Rightly he askes the question, whether innovations are real innovations? He rightly points out the timing is the factor which makes an invention an innovation. He also raises the pertinant question whether we should look at the past to inspire ourselves to be innovative?

Yes, History repeats itself and I hold the view that nothing is invented but everything is discovered.

read the full article here

Banks are becoming more security concious.

Barclays UK has introduced Finger-vein Scanners to protect the online transactions in the accounts. Please re read the sentence. it is not finger print but finger-vein meaning the pattern of the veins in the fingers. The most interesting aspect of this that the pattern will not be stored with the bank, but will reside in a sim of the scanning device.

Read more about this in:


Full article here

Payment issues in Europe: A comparison between US and Europe

1. Standardisation amongst the Euro Countries on E commerce platform is the big issue.
2. SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area) has set in.
3. Credit card usage by corporates are not as popular in US.
4. IBAN consists of country code, check digit code and account number. ( where is the bank code?)
5. The payer and receiver are overworked and are tired of  the regulations.

Read the full article by Elizebeth Mcquerry
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140904131054-1671773-top-of-mind-payment-issues-in-europe?trk=object-title

An announcement

I have been following various forums and social networking sites. It has given me immense satisfaction and consolidated my faith in the humanity that there are persons who would like to share their experiences and knowledge with the society at Large. As a small initiative I propose to share what I read and found interesting on the field of finance mainly.  I will not fail to make references to the forums as well as the original contributor. Every such posting will be preceded by a small paragraph of what I understood.