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Imagine a space where you can share your account details with friends or business partners securely for the purposes of collaboration? Something like a file-sharing solution for your banking needs?
Well, the N26 Bank recently announced the launch of a feature dubbed ‘Spaces’. This new addition provides a fast and easy way to set aside money based on your personal preferences.
With Spaces we give users the freedom to set up their financial world without the limitations of traditional banking, Valentin Stalf, CEO and Co-Founder of N26.
What does that mean?
You will now be able to instantly move funds to your personalized “Space” and back to your main N26 Personal/Business/N26Black/Metal account.
This provides control over how you organize your money and keep track of multiple financial goals.
This also means that for the first time in banking, one can create tailored sub-accounts to save or allocate money for specific things.
So, your purchases and experiences: whether it be shopping for a wedding, starting a small business or planning a holiday, can all be clearly budgeted for.
Your ‘Spaces’, therefore, are set up as separate sub-accounts. It makes it even easier to maintain discipline over your daily spending. Some of you(referred to as penny-pinchers) are disciplined enough to be already doing this.
Spaces will help you avoid using tedious spreadsheets or pen and paper.
You are now given the flexibility of customizing ‘Spaces’ by choosing names, transferring money seamlessly between accounts with simple drag-and-drop motions. You can also open and close the spaces as when as needed.
*The personal card is free of any monthly management fees and available in EU and soon in the USA.
So, what kind of things can this ‘smart’ tech do? Just 4 months ago, an AI machine managed to complete a University level math exam 12 times faster than it normally takes the average human. How? Through the art of machine learning; where computers learn and adapt through the experience without explicitly being programmed.
Furthermore, Facebook made headlines earlier this year when their chatbots created their own language. Some Fake News stories claim that the engineer’s pulled the plugin a panic as they were getting too smart. However, the truth is that for Facebook’s purposes the chatbots needed to stick to English rather than developing their own shorthand. Their machine learning chatbots did nevertheless, create their own language outside their explicit programming.
This evolving area of computer science is the future for service businesses, and it’s already affecting the way we live and work today. In fact, research firm Markets and Markets estimates that the machine learning market will grow from $1.41 billion in 2017 to $8.81 billion by 2022!
So buckle up because these technology trends will affect every part of your business, from marketing to operations all the way through to payroll and here’s how.
AI and Social Media Marketing
In April 2017, CRM software provider, Salesforce conducted a study of marketing leaders worldwide, and the results were mind-blowing. Respondents said they expect to see improvements in efficiency and advancements in personalization over the next five years. More than 60 percent of marketers also envision leveraging AI to create dynamic landing pages, websites, programmatic advertising and media buying.
The main way AI will affect marketing is through nurturing leads through social media. But how? Through personalized, real-time content targeting that produces 20 percent more sales opportunities. With behavioural targeting methods, AI will be able to locate and start the nurture process, for example, a marketing stack that employs AI algorithms might learn that a specific buyer who checks into LinkedIn on Monday mornings has recently started looking for a new CRM tool. The software can then suggest (or even create) targeted posts to be published on the days and times that they’ll see them: one that asks their requirements of the software and another follow up piece with a comparison of the CRM ecosystem.
Currently, savvy marketers that are using social listening as way to nurture leads don’t have the necessary enhancement of AI and is, therefore, time-consuming, manual and not in real-time. So how do you start to get ready for this type of future content marketing distribution?
Firstly, you will need to have your buyer personas (using the consumer black box theory ) well defined. Taking a solid look at your CRM will give you tons of hints for content that will get qualified leads to respond. By taking a step back and analyzing your channel’s content (like emails, phone calls and social media messages) you will start to get the right kind of insights that will prompt a lead to take the next step into the second phase of your sales funnel. For instance, a C-Suite executive might respond best to data-driven whitepapers and infographics to peak their interests, whereas a fellow marketer might be more suited for an interactive case-study or video.
The only way to get these kinds of insights is to do a deep dive into your CRM platform and conduct a thorough review of customer details – using semantic analysis to understand the level of buying intent behind the words your qualified prospects use.
Hot tip: Starting to run your analysis now and developing strong personas will be key to implementing AI algorithms to your social media in 2018 and beyond.
Marketing and Machine Learning
Put simply, machine learning is about understanding data and statistics. It’s a technical process where computer algorithms find patterns in data, then predict probable outcomes – like when your email determines whether a particular message is spam or not depending on words in the subject line, links included in the message, or patterns identified in a list of recipients. This is a perfect example of how machine learning can be applied in marketing to optimize for successful campaigns.
Businesses can also use machine learning to up-sell the right product, to the right customer, at the right time. In 2018, marketers will continue to rely on machine learning to understand open rates when it comes to email – so you know exactly when to send your next campaign to increase click-through rates and ROI. The next big thing? It might sound small but ticket tagging and re-routing can be a massive expense for small businesses – costs that can be saved with machine learning.
Having a sales inquiry automatically end up with the sales team, or a complaint end up instantly in the customer service department’s queue, is going to save companies a lot of time and money, and this is all being made possible with modern technology.
And while solving issues in record time and delivering successful email campaigns is great, this is just the beginning.
You’ve been shopping for a new pair sunglasses on Amazon, then before you know it, your Facebook feed is filled with multiple eyewear ads and related trends for summer: this is machine learning. In fact, this example of analyzing data based on a user’s purchase history or online shopping behaviour is the future for e-commerce.
Retail companies are also tracking what ads or images you’re most likely to stop scrolling on, in order to target you with specific content. For example, if you always click on ads that contain happy women and some text, then a machine will log this as preferred content so that you are only targeted with ads that fit this description. Machines can also track what time of day you are most active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and/or Pinterest, in order to present these ads to you at an optimal buying time.
Then when it’s time to purchase, machine learning is applied to reduce the risk of credit fraud in small businesses. How? Machines learn from historical datasets that contain fraudulent transactions and can identify patterns that represent a typical fraudulent transaction – similar to the way spam emails are detected and deterred. Machine learning will start to affect other parts of your business funnel as well, just take a look at the rise of Chatbots.
There was a time in which chatbots were only thought of as manmade pests on the Internet, but through machine learning, they are getting smarter and businesses are embracing them en mass.
In 2018 and beyond, chatbots will play a key role in the future of customer service. Why? Chatbots can help achieve a faster customer service resolution, as well as provide quick histories of each customer for impeccable customer service. There are some key benefits that chatbots have over solely human interactions:
This emerging tool for businesses already has significant buy-in from thought leaders around the globe. In fact, Larry Kim, Founder of Wordstream, is all in on chatbots as he has started his own company where his bots are currently in beta. With this move, it will be interesting to see how businesses will leverage robots throughout other aspects of their business. The final trend we’ll explore is Automation and how it affects businesses today.
Though Machine Learning and AI are hot topics in the tech world, it is not to a point that small to medium size businesses can leverage it in the immediate future. But there is still hope for them with automation. Powered by the Cloud, this type of technology has already revolutionized Marketing and Sales workflows and interactions but it is also starting to touch the various other parts of a business. For example:
Operations Automation
Once you win an important sale, you’ve got to deliver the product or service you’ve promised to the client. What does that process look like for most businesses now? You all will have a kick-off meeting and hope to cover all the promises that marketing and sales have given to your client.
However, with the use of operations automation and a powerful CRM, you will be able to read the interactions and see all the various touch points a client had with your company before that kick off call even happens. This will give all service businesses a head start in providing great client relations and managing expectations. This category of SaaS products is called Service Operations Automation, or ServOps for short.
Accounting Automation
If there is one data-entry heavy department it would be Accounting. The problem is that as humans, we are fallible and much slower at data entry than a machine. Innovations with bank feeds, rules-based categorization and integrated payments have dramatically reduced the workload of clerical and bookkeeping staff and given business owners more timely access to accurate financial information for their businesses.
Research, done by Xero, (a popular financial software provider) suggests that by 2020, automation will be commonplace in accounting, and a significant number of finance professionals will be using the next level of analytical tools to help them add value to business models across the globe.
Payroll/HR Automation
Finally, the Cloud and Automation have come to the Payroll and Human Resources sector. These important areas of a business too often suffer because small businesses aren’t big enough to afford a full-time HR department. What’s the alternative? Having only part-time efforts of founders and principals which can often lead to serious risk to the business.
For instance, Zenefits will automatically submit forms to the national tax authorities on the behalf of companies. With new automation technology, compliance is automated by platforms and the effort of keeping time-off approvals in sync with PTO balances and payslips becomes a thing of the past.
In the near future, we will see the rise of great technology, powered by the Cloud, Automation, AI and Machine Learning. This truly is the start of the Golden Age of Information Technology and it is time for businesses to take a hard look at their organizations and find ways to start integrating these tech trends.
This is a slightly shortened re-blog from a marketing post on Tenfold.com *
We are living in exciting and innovative times with futuristic technology literally at our fingertips. But for the longest time, small to medium-sized businesses were not serviced by the latest tech trends enterprises have been able to benefit from.
That is, until now. This piece explores these technology trends and how they will impact business in 2018 and beyond.
So, what kind of things can this ‘smart’ tech do? Just 4 months ago, an AI machine managed to complete a University level math exam 12 times faster than it normally takes the average human.
How? Through the art of machine learning; where computers learn and adapt through the experience without explicitly being programmed.
Furthermore, Facebook made headlines earlier this year when their chatbots created their own language. Some ‘fake news’ stories claim that the engineer’s pulled the plugin a panic as they were getting too smart.
However, the truth is that for Facebook’s purposes the chatbots needed to stick to English rather than developing their own shorthand. Their machine learning chatbots did nevertheless, create their own language outside their explicit programming.
This evolving area of computer science is the future for service businesses, and it’s already affecting the way we live and work today. In fact, research firm
Markets and Markets estimate that the machine learning market will grow from $1.41 billion in 2017 to $8.81 billion by 2022!
So buckle up because these technology trends will affect every part of your business, from marketing to operations all the way through to payroll, and here’s how.
In April 2017, CRM software provider, Salesforce conducted a study of marketing leaders worldwide, and the results were mind-blowing. Respondents said they expect to see improvements in efficiency and advancements in personalization over the next five years.
More than 60 percent of marketers envision leveraging AI to create dynamic landing pages, websites, programmatic advertising and media buying.
AI will affect marketing by nurturing leads through social media. But how? Through personalized, real-time content targeting that produces 20 percent more sales opportunities.
With behavioural targeting methods, AI will be able to locate and start the nurturing process. For example, a marketing stack that employs AI algorithms might learn that a specific buyer who checks into LinkedIn on Monday mornings has recently started looking for a new CRM tool.
The software can then suggest (or even create) targeted posts to be published on the days and times that they’ll see them.
Currently, savvy marketers that are using social listening as a way to nurture leads don’t have the necessary enhancement of AI. This is, however, time-consuming, manual, and not in real-time.
So how do you start to get ready for this type of future content marketing distribution?
Firstly, you will need to have your buyer personas (using the consumer black box theory ) well defined. Taking a solid look at your CRM will give you tons of hints for content that will get qualified leads to respond.
By taking a step back and analyzing your channel’s content (like emails, phone calls, and social media messages) you will start to get the right kind of insights. The ones that will prompt a lead to take the next step into the second phase of your sales funnel.
For instance, a C-Suite executive might respond best to data-driven whitepapers and infographics to peak their interests, whereas a fellow marketer might be more suited for an interactive case-study or video.
The only way to get these kinds of insights is to do a deep dive into your CRM platform and conduct a thorough review of customer details – using semantic analysis to understand the level of buying intent behind the words your qualified prospects use.
Hot tip: Starting to run your analysis now and developing strong personas will be key to implementing AI algorithms to your social media in 2018 and beyond.
Put simply, machine learning is about understanding data and statistics. It’s a technical process where computer algorithms find patterns in data, then predict probable outcomes. An example is when your email determines whether a particular message is spam or not depending on words in the subject line, links included in the message, or patterns identified in a list of recipients.
It’s the perfect example of how machine learning can be applied in marketing to optimize for successful campaigns.
Businesses can also use machine learning to up-sell the right product, to the right customer, at the right time. In 2018, marketers will continue to rely on machine learning to understand open rates when it comes to email. This way, you know exactly when to send your next campaign to increase click-through rates and ROI.
The next big thing? It might sound small but ticket tagging and re-routing can be a massive expense for small businesses – costs that can be saved with machine learning.
Having a sales inquiry automatically end up with the sales team, or a complaint end up instantly in the customer service department’s queue, is going to save companies a lot of time and money, and this is all being made possible with modern technology.
You’ve been shopping for a new pair sunglasses on Amazon, then before you know it, your Facebook feed is filled with multiple eyewear ads and related trends for summer.
This is machine learning.
In fact, this example of analyzing data based on a user’s purchase history or online shopping behaviour is the future for e-commerce.
Retail companies are also tracking what ads or images you’re most likely to stop scrolling on, in order to target you with specific content. For example, if you always click on ads that contain happy women and some text, then a machine will log this as preferred content so that you are only targeted with ads that fit this description.
Machines can also track what time of day you are most active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or Pinterest, in order to present these ads to you at an optimal buying time.
Then when it’s time to purchase, machine learning is applied to reduce the risk of credit fraud in small businesses.
How? Machines learn from historical datasets that contain fraudulent transactions and can identify patterns that represent a typical fraudulent transaction.
Similar to the way spam emails are detected and deterred. Machine learning will start to affect other parts of your business funnel as well, just take a look at the rise of Chatbots.
There was a time in which chatbots were only thought of as manmade pests on the Internet. Through machine learning, they are getting smarter and businesses are embracing them en mass.
In 2018 and beyond, chatbots will play a key role in the future of customer service. Why? Chatbots can help achieve a faster customer service resolution, as well as provide quick histories of each customer for impeccable customer service.
The final trend we’ll explore is Automation and how it affects businesses today.
Though Machine Learning and AI are hot topics in the tech world, it is not to a point that small to medium-sized businesses can leverage them in the immediate future. But there is still hope for them with automation.
Powered by the Cloud, this type of technology has already revolutionized Marketing and Sales workflows and interactions but it is also starting to touch the various other parts of a business. For example:
Once you win an important sale, you’ve got to deliver the product or service you’ve promised to the client. What does that process look like for most businesses now? You all will have a kick-off meeting and hope to cover all the promises that marketing and sales have given to your client.
However, with the use of operations automation and a powerful CRM, you will be able to read the interactions and see all the various touch points a client had with your company before that kick off call even happens.
This will give your service businesses a head start in providing great client relations and managing expectations. This category of SaaS products is called Service Operations Automation, or ServOps for short.
If there is one data-entry heavy department it would be Accounting. The problem is that as humans, we are fallible and much slower at data entry than a machine. Innovations with bank feeds, rules-based categorization and integrated payments have dramatically reduced the workload of clerical and bookkeeping staff.
This gives business owners more timely access to accurate financial information for their businesses.
Research, done by Xero, (a popular financial software provider) suggests that by 2020, automation will be commonplace in accounting. A significant number of finance professionals will be using the next level of analytical tools to help them add value to business models across the globe.
Finally, the Cloud and Automation have come to the Payroll and Human Resources sector. These important areas of a business too often suffer because small businesses aren’t big enough to afford a full-time HR department.
What’s the alternative? Having only part-time efforts of founders and principals which can often lead to serious risk to the business.
With new automation technology, compliance is automated by platforms. The effort of keeping time-off approvals in sync with PTO balances and payslips becomes a thing of the past.
In the near future, we will see the rise of great technology, powered by the Cloud, Automation, AI, and Machine Learning.
This is a slightly shortened re-blog from a marketing post on Tenfold.com *
*This post was guest-authored by Tara Callinan and Jenneva Vargas from Accelo
At times, we can all become frustrated by political agendas, misfortunes, and perceived lack of planning by various governments around the world. As a result, not quite often see the bigger picture – or the economics of how countries work.
Naturally, the political fracases provide fuel for media companies who in turn bombard us with their 24-hour news cycles. But we need to understand that politicians are only temporary custodians of the country and its economy. Each economic model is built on the same premise that started many hundreds of years ago – that of bartering.
There are two main mandates or rather tasks that a ruling party is assigned by the electorate when it comes to governing. These are: controlling the country’s fiscal and monetary policy.
Fiscal policy is the internal running of the country and basically deals with tax and how it is allocated. The fiscal budget is then awarded to the various sectors of any economy.
These include education, transport, healthcare, finance, trade and industry, defense, agriculture, and many other building blocks of your country.
How the government prioritizes the spending on each of these sectors will determine its policy priorities.
It will also be a signal of its wider political intentions. And this not only to voters but also to its neighbouring countries in regard to international trade and security.
A nation concerned with information and its human capital will prioritize education in its budget. There are however other approaches to budgetary allocation such as funding trade and industrial activities.
This leads to job creation that will, in turn, drive a need for tradesmen and women to diversify and obtain the new skills required.
This also provides an incentive for state-run schools, privately funded schools, and institutions to develop new skill sets. Doing both is ideal – as governments must foster innovation by promoting and funding higher learning institutions where top talent can be nurtured and developed.
Fiscal policy forms the larger mandate as this budget is derived from the collective taxation of income, capital gains, trading and customs, sin taxes, corporate, and simple public services.
That way allocation of the fiscal budget to finance will pave the way for monetary policy to function.
International trade is the key to generating further income as a government cannot rely on an internally driven economy to sustain wealth. The same applies to business so an agreed trade policy would need to accommodate all aspects of the country’s economy.
Every thriving nation has been built on either skilfully utilizing internal resources or have created global demand for a service or industry.
The UK has strong financial and corporate offerings plus its geo-positioning (GMT) allows it to be a central commercial trading point for the world.
Germany has always had a rich source of steel enabling the production of cars, rail brands, and manufacturing.
In addition, it continues to be a market leader in developing technologies to complement those industries thus allowing the country to thrive as a major European power.
The Nordic countries are rich in mineral resources of which they have converted the revenues into national trust funds. These are used to aid its citizens; many of whom develop skills in trade, innovation, and finance (and now Fintech).
Though Japan is geographically smaller and is made up of two islands it continues to prosper by becoming a global leader. This comes from its exports of tech innovation, artificial intelligence (robotics), and fishing stocks.
It even ‘exports’ financial aid (loans) to other countries due to its strong and disciplined monetary policy.
The US has invested heavily in services, human capital, and innovation – to large extent immigration has played a major role in these areas of growth.
Russia is mineral-rich and has outsourced its intelligence gathering skills, military technology, and training for years.
China continues to grow and subsidizes its agriculture and manufacturing industries fully utilizing the abundance of manual labour at its disposal.
China even exports this labour thus gaining influence and soft power enabling Chinese goods and services to be exported more freely to other economies.
The ability to offer the global economy a form of expertise or goods/service can attribute hugely to each country’s economic wealth. Israel – military and intelligence; Brazil agriculture and tourism not to mention countries in the Far East – oil and fossil fuels.
Most African countries obtain their sources of income (though not as much as they should) from natural minerals, agriculture, and tourism.
Ghana has gold and cocoa; Nigeria – oil; South Africa – gold and many mineral resources; Kenya and Tanzania – tourism. Even a poor country like Zambia has survived because of its coal and coffee reserves.
Any country without resources or the ability to offer goods and services would have to be more subsistence-like. This usually means having to rely on aid or import goods and services.
That, however, comes at a price and leads to the country functioning with an unsustainable debt burden.
This then gives way to various trading blocs, which over time have been built, broken, or renegotiated when it was not suiting either of the participants.
The strength of a country’s currency is primarily determined by supply and demand for its sovereign currency. This demand can only be fostered by trade.
The more the demand for a countries commodity the greater the demand for its currency. This is the medium we use to compensate for transactions. In terms of a country’s monetary policy, it is more of a singular relationship between a government and its banks.
Banking is the system to which you can place your disposable income (gross income after-tax) in a digital repository. The central (reserve) bank regulates the money supply into the economy ensuring that locally, inflation does not corrode the value of its currency. The central bank controls how much it lends to local banks and at which payable interest rate.
The central bank is independent of the government. They have their policies shaped by fiscal influences and are under obligation to impact the strength of the economy through its interest rates and exchange rates.
So, the central bank sets the mandate by which banks offer security interest, loans, and building deposits to help you benefit from their hard-earned cash.
Banks, however, have a wide range of consumer charges so transacting doesn’t offer much protection against inflation. In some cases, banks offer you zero interest on savings deposited!
You can therefore understand the frustration of citizens who would like to see increased corporate taxes, especially for banks. This especially as they reward executives with excessive remuneration packages even in a failing economy.
The new wave of Cryptocurrency aims to shake-up these long-standing benefits banks have enjoyed. Benefits such as the bailouts from taxpayers’ money from risk-taking behaviour that nearly brought the global economy to its knees.
Banks behave like a petulant child knowing well that their ‘parents’ will only mildly reprimand them. This ultimately enables the continuation of behaviour with as they get away with only a slap on the wrist.
Governments tolerate bank’s excessive salary packages and risk-taking because they play a strategic role in the stability and growth of an economy.
Creative destruction has become our new favourite buzzword. It also aptly describes this new wave or phenomenon of Crypto-mania driven by the blockchain and its shining star – the Bitcoin.
Suddenly, people who normally would not bat an eye at trading are now asking how to invest in Crypto.
We must note that anything that goes up very abruptly and abnormally – eventually comes tumbling down. The same way the big dot.com bubble burst and left many in dire straits after they over-indulged in overvalued tech companies.
Bitcoin will eventually find its peak and there will be a mass sell-out and a ‘crash’ at some point.
We even had the likes of an ironical skeptic – the dubious Ponzi-scammer dubbed ‘the Wolf of Wall Street’ Joel Belmont. He attempted to pre-empt a crash of Bitcoin.
The funny thing is, however, most of the critics are people who have not invested themselves. Perhaps they suffer from a case of ‘sour grapes’ or they simply don’t understand how it works to even get involved.
Doubt is prompted by fear of an unknown. Most investors themselves don’t understand the complex algorithms that went into designing the blockchain. However, it is proving to be resilient and gaining intrinsic value by the day.
Bitcoin (at the time of writing), which was hovering around $17000 after breaking its latest resistance level, and poised to reach the $20000-mark.
Creative destruction does not result in the reinventing of the wheel. It does, however, make the previous version look ancient very quickly. So while Bitcoins may not even last long, it has brought about its add-ons or spill-over effects.
There are now hundreds of cryptocurrencies. While not all and most will not experience huge price surges like that of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or recently Dash, they are still in circulation.
One of the spill-over effect includes the creation of jobs for new entrepreneurs, gamers, and developers across the globe.
Though it might be too late for investors to delve into the above-mentioned ‘big boys of crypto’, institutions are constantly developing blockchain solutions.
The fact of the matter is that the use and process of a blockchain makes sense and will, and is in the process of removing the old currency system.
Now, this may take a while before it completely phases out fiat money. This will also hopefully, much to the delight of governments and fiscal authorities, help eradicate the scourge of counterfeiting.
Think about the big picture, the blockchain technology will allow you or any institution smart enough to copy or modify a part of the anonymously written code. Blockchain is open-source, so anyone smart enough can create their own.
We can now have Crypto for shopping, for buying cars; getting your salary paid by a multi-national company irrespective of where you are based; or paying for using Internet services (IoT).
The latter already exists and is called IOTA – read more about it on the resources page.
This technology can enable one to find creative ways to monetize a cryptocurrency to serve any purpose. This while providing a secure and lightning-quick means to transfer funds.
Litecoin and Dash boast amazing speeds of under 10 seconds to complete international money transfers.
It would be interesting to observe any bank try and beat that without charging an arm and leg for that type of service!
The critics, who thought Elon Musk was crazy for inventing electrically powered battery motors to run engines and now trucks – are now eating their shorts.
Not only did Tesla´s market capitalization beat that of Ford and recently BMW, but it also outperformed petro/diesel-powered vehicle companies. Outdoing them in speed and performance, attractive looks, and practicality – Tesla is changing the motor industry.
Manufacturers like Volvo, Porsche have now rolled out their own hybrids cars. They are looking to go the route of fully electric motors within a short matter of years.
Such notable paradigm shifts in the way we do things embody the beautiful concept of creative destruction. Those that shun it get left behind.
And while it is not all about the monetary gains, you can own the coins to use for transactions rather than for investment.
It will serve you better, in the long run, to get in the know of what is out there.
Be wary and vigilant, as like with money and investment, there are sharks out there (offering deals). The aim is to exploit you and many other unknowing technophobes looking to make a quick buck or two from Crypto.
Mining Cryptocurrencies (is particularly conducive for gaming enthusiasts) and using them to benefit you quickly and securely in the way of a new digitized future.
Some Internet pirates in desperation use anonymous digital currency such as Monero. They now use java-scripted mining devices (hidden behind ads) to drain hash power unsuspecting from your web-page browsers.
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the action! There are also legitimate paid commission-based add-ons for trading as well – opening up a new world of digital earning online.
Don’t get left behind. But as with any investment, and a caution to the wise: Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and should not substitute any investment portfolio. They should only and always account for a fraction of your overall investment.
The implementation of globalization has not been without its major flaws. Abolishing it, however, is paramount to anti-socialist behaviour or looking inwards. This concept is against the tendencies of human nature.
If you read up on any definition of globalization, you will see that the intention was always genuine. The need to integrate and collaborate for the mutual benefit of nations.
It can, however, like any product (like knowledge), be exploited out of selfish desires and lead to exploitation.
Of course, it also doesn’t mean that globalization must apply to every sector of your economy. Some inward investment is always healthy. It should, however, not lead to extreme nationalism for a fear of loss of national identity.
The problem, like many others, lies in the hands of politicians who are controlled and dictated to by a handful of large corporations. These ‘corps’ have one and only self-interest – profit, power, and control.
The main concern for sovereign governments is that ‘giving up’ or sharing one’s technological, innovative, or manufacturing secrets to other countries. The premise is that this would make them ‘vulnerable’.
The real issue lies in a lack of trust – leading to the notion: “I will not let you know how I do it because you may use it against me – in trade or war”.
Despite the existence of supposedly ‘compartmentalized’ trading blocs and free trade areas like NAFTA, EU, ECOWAS, SADC, etc, the rate of globalization has sped up significantly in the past decade.
This is due to boundless advances in information technology as accurately predicted by Neoclassical Growth Theory.
Information technology has now given us valuable new tools to identify and engage in economic activity.
Tech provides access to and faster, more informed analysis of information, transfers of assets, and collaboration.
A globalized world means that with the aid of technology, you can buy and sell shares of an Italian firm from a desktop in Namibia!
You would then only have to deal with the commissions and transaction fees (capital gains tax) locally pertaining to your online trades.
And think about it, on a micro-level. If globalization is entirely a bad concept then no-one should be using Amazon, eating MacDonalds, or watching Netflix in protest. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?
We must praise its positive outcomes and work hard against the negative impacts. The negative ones are also giving rise to a new era of extreme nationalism or populism.
You can only do your bit by promoting and backing policy-makers who can enforce good trade laws. This would force both local and international competitors to play by the same rules.
Penalties for financial misconduct should be a lot greater to deter exploitation. Rather, perpetrators still get the proverbial slap on the wrist.
The creative destruction of the financial system will be brought about by cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain technology.
Depending on its uptake, and whether the authorities can legitimize its legality, we may see individuals and governments using decentralized currencies.
The Venezuelan president is investigating the concept of a national cryptocurrency dubbed ´Petro´. They would use it to alleviate dependency on (heavily interest-ridden) loans.
When it comes to providing means of storing, sending, and receiving money, banks and their affiliated institutions, have enjoyed a monopoly for centuries.
They (especially central banks which allegedly are owned powerful families) have the authority to influence countries and their governments. We will not go into the level of control as this paves the way for conspiracy theories which though not proven – are not farfetched.
So, it’s only expected that when some new and unknown entity threatens their prosperity, they start to react.
How banks are responding is evident by how they are fervently building their own blockchains. This, however, defeats the purpose of a having decentralized system.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies get their appeal not just because they are very secure. But because unlike fiat money, they are not heavily regulated and can be mathematically restricted.
The 21 million unit limit on Bitcoin by default places it closer to the status of gold (which is also not infinite). But what happens when all are mined in 2041?
Bitcoin’s current ‘value’ of over $30 000 (adjusted), could move up again, according to the traditional laws of supply and demand as it becomes rare.
To unlock more value the creators will split it again. The first major splits (forks) gave rise to Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Both cryptocurrencies are racing to newer heights daily.
Now back to the banks – they make money from our deposits and these deposits are backed up by our reserve banks.
Reserve banks lend retail banks money which they essentially just print. The banks must ‘turn it’ and pay it back with interest (repo rate).
So, technically we ‘empower’ banks by depositing our money so they can invest the funds in all sorts of mechanisms. Such mechanisms include the credit and loans to you, your businesses, equities, and property.
Then, they also invest in high-risk investment vehicles like currency trading, derivatives (futures). They are essentially the biggest regulated and legal Ponzi-schemes. They also make a significant amount of the daily fees they charge you.
Let’s quickly put things into context. A bank with over a million customers transacting daily. Let’s say they charge you a 10 cent (conservative figure) transaction fee for depositing, withdrawing from another bank, or an intra-bank transfer.
They then make 0.10c x 1 000 000 = 100 000 units of the currency on the day. This equates to 1,2 million Euros, Dollars, Rands, or Yen annually. And that is just off your transactional fees!
Then they also charge you monthly service/maintenance fees. Those are to cover the convenience of you having an account and, for services like online banking.
This is what cryptocurrencies can potentially wipe away from banks we all go the digital currencies route. Granted, how you acquire and transfer Cryptocurrencies are not as straightforward as receiving paper money – yet.
That, coupled with the stigma around ‘Cryptos’, means there is still a barrier to entry for the ‘open-source’ monetary system.
Banks will try and bring about their own blockchains to address security concerns around making transactions. For them, however, it would still be business as usual when it comes to the charges.
Some newer financial institutions, however, are already progressing in the favour of you and me – one such is the European based N26 Bank.
We often end up paying for things all month without even having to go to an ATM. It works as a traditional bank would, however, allows the (smart) card to be used as a credit card (backed by Mastercard) would.
This allows you to quickly purchase goods online, book events, flights ticket, and accommodation. Basically, all things you still can’t do with your debit card.
In countries like Sweden and Estonia, card and digital systems have been a thing for a long time now.
Some of these Fintechs are adopting or partnering with Cryptos companies to deliver their services. One such as the relationship the one between a German bank and the crypto Ripple.
It would be interesting to see what governments and financial institutions do to ‘protect’ their payment systems. Likewise, it will be equally fascinating to observe how they adapt in general to the new digital era upon us.
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