That's me done ... will return here on 3rd January so, in the meantime, Joyeux Noël and Feliz Navidad.
Here's a few of my favourite ecards this year.
First, the Financial Services Club's of course ...
You may recognise it as our favourite new badge, and this is the specially commissioned Club cartoon by Hugh MacLeod.
There's then a few more traditional ecards, such as this one from the German firm Helaba:
I like traditional ... bring on Michael Buble.
OK, whatever.
Then we have the "let's use Christmas to advertise our business" ecards, the best of which is simple and sweet:
Use us for your savings, with a sweet little Christmas piggy bank. I like it.
Less liked is this:
Look, if you're going to be so crass as to try to use Christmas to advertise and sell, do it with kids ...
Yes, far better.
Mind you, I can see the connection above, but some are less obvious:
With our technologies, your kids are half-baked?
That leads nicely into the more abstract cards:
I've been racing all 2011 ... can't we stop now?
If you want to be abstract, then please do it properly:
#innotribe rules!
A few folks then went to the trouble of making their cards interesting, such as Markit who have a poll to see what we think might happen in 2012:
Tiger Woods to win a Major? Major Blonde or Major Brunette?
Interaction is good, and a few others sent similar themes.
Then there is the plain scary, such as this one:
OK, they're Swiss, so I'll let them off.
Finally, there's the NSFW (not safe for work) category of card.
One such card came from Innopay with their version of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction turned into Pay Fiction:
Nice.
I can beat that though ...
Finally, to leave you with the enthusiasm to face 2012 with energy, optimism and a smile, this video should be seen by one and all:
Season's Greetings, Joyeux Noël and Feliz Navidad.
See you in 2012.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...