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Friend of the Club and Business Correspondent with the Economist, David Shirreff, has recently written the words to a comedic romp around the financial crisis called "Broke Britannia: the Musical". It gets its world premiere tomorrow night in Barnes, before magically transporting itself to Edinburgh next week for the Fringe Festival. Details below: Broke Britannia!…

Trading goes back to Ancient Sumeria, but today's trading on the world's stock markets can probably be attributed to a particular place in London. OK, as a Brit I would say that but, as I walk around London, I'm constantly amazed by the things you see. For example, was this road sign the inspiration for…

I blogged a while ago about the discovery of BBVA's wonderful Tu Cuentas (You Count!) service. The reason I loved it, is that it is the first bank to really push the boundaries of mobile internet with customisable budgeting tools and alerts … MINT-style comparision of usage, so that you could be advised of financial…

We are pleased to provide our seventh month of monitoring the MTF performances in European Equities trading, in partnership with Thomson Reuters Equity Market Share Reporter (EMSR).  Market Share based upon Euro Value July 2010 June 2010 Source: Thomson Reuters Equity Market Share Reporter Market Share based upon Volume of Trading July 2010 June 2010…

I know Barclays have some imaginative marketing ideas – for example, the excellent game 56 Sage Street, where teenagers are encouraged to play a game to earn money, rewards and responsibilities … … but did they really have to sponsor London Mayor, Boris Johnston?   p.s. they're actually sponsoring the London Cycle Hire Service, which…

I popped down to the launch party for Metro Bank last night, as the bank opens its doors for business this morning. Having previously blogged about the bank a bit and their challenges, to get off the ground is impressive. The bank was under wraps on arrival …  … but, as the Chairman and Chief…

Here’s a shocker. I blog all the time about social media. We all love Facebook, with 500 million people in their community. We love to twitter via tweetdecks 24*7 on our iPhones and Androids. We Google, Amazon and PayPal. The internet is pervasive. It is so pervasive that the country is going to ban paper,…

Having spent much of the weekend absorbing the European bank stress test results, I’ve got to ask why they bothered. OK, so it was to get bank share prices up, but the whole thing was just a typical European sham where every country does things in a different way, with the whole thing designed to…

I've talked a lot about Metro Bank already, and will probably talk a lot more about them as they are the first brand new spanking retail bank to launch in Britain since Charles Dickens popped his clogs. Well, almost. Actually, it's quite strange in that, like buses, you don't see a new bank launch and…