British businesses must seize this chance to tap into Asian potential February 28, 2018 The Brexit vote has amplified the incentives for UK companies to look further afield than established EU economies – and not a moment to soon. The level of trade with Asia is currently lagging. The EU remains by far the UK’s largest trading partner – China, Asia’s largest market, is only fifth. The “golden era” [...]
Disruption is everywhere – but so are the investment opportunities February 27, 2018 I’m not usually a subscriber to “this time it’s different”, but when it comes to the emerging disruption in so many industries, “this time it’s more than average” doesn’t really seem to cut it. This time I have a feeling it really may be different, because today’s disruptions are everywhere, and that means that there [...]
Editor’s Notes: MPs should summon the hedge funds if they want to understand Carillion, Carney’s catty comment and RBS’s robot February 23, 2018 In their quest to find out what happened to doomed outsourcing giantCarillion, MPs are asking the right questions but they’re not necessarily addressing them to the right people. This week the committee investigating Carillion’s collapse grilled accountancy firms KPMG andDeloitte, but while the beancounters can provide valuable insight into the final hours of Carillion’s life, [...]
The ‘big tech’ backlash: How sustainable is the success of Google, Facebook and Amazon? February 22, 2018 In recent months it has felt like the tide is turning against big tech. Google has been fined for market abuse in the EU. Silicon Valley heads have been hauled in front of the US Senate and the UK Parliament to answer for the abuse of their platforms by extremists and Russian saboteurs. The repeal of [...]
Fears of evil innovations are as wrong as they’ve always been February 22, 2018 Whenever an impressive new technology comes along, people rush to imagine the havoc it could wreak on society – and they overreact. In the sixteenth century, parliament banned mechanical gig mills, and the hosiers guild ran William Lee out of Britain for inventing a better knitting frame. In the early nineteenth century, Luddite stocking knitters [...]
NatWest has recruited a “digital human” called Cora to help customers February 21, 2018 NatWest has developed a new “digital human” prototype called Cora to have conversations with customers and help them out with some 200 banking queries. Since the start of last year, NatWest has been using a text-based chat bot which customers can use on its online help pages. Now though, the bank has drawn upon “advances [...]
StatusToday, a startup tracking employees with AI, backed by Brent Hoberman’s Firstminute Capital, Saul Klein’s LocalGlobe and Notion Capital February 21, 2018 A startup using artificial intelligence to track employees and improve their productivity has raised fresh cash from top investors, including lastminute.com entrepreneur Brent Hoberman. StatusToday has landed $3.9m (£2.8m) from the serial entrepreneur and investor’s newly launched venture capital firm Firstminute Capital, along with Transferwise and Citymapper backer LocalGlobe and Notion Capital. Read more: This [...]
A new fintech accelerator is launching in London as Investment Association plans VeloCity February 19, 2018 London is getting a new tech accelerator that will focus on fintech, in particular startups looking to shake up the asset management industry. VeloCity will be launched by the Investment Association later this year to bring innovation to the industry. Read more: Maybe it’s time we ditched fintech? Members of the group, which represents more [...]
What’s the difference between artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning? February 16, 2018 We are witnessing just the beginning of the artificial intelligence (AI) era. The computer program AlphaGo defeated the world’s top player in the complex Chinese board game of Go for the last time in May 2017. The program had run out of human competition. Instead, its developers designed AlphaGo Zero to simply play against itself [...]
Bank of England survey shows UK pay rises might finally be on the way February 14, 2018 A long-awaited pay rise for UK workers is finally here, according to a Bank of England survey of businesses. According to the February update, private sector business leaders are expecting an average pay settlement rate of 3.1 per cent in 2018, compared with 2.6 per cent last year. Only the construction sector is predicted to [...]