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• How fast can China recover from the Wuhan flu? February 4, 2020
  Notes on some of the raw economic numbers from the Wuhan virus 2020 vs SARS 2003, for scenario painting purposes In 2003, during SARS, China was 7% of global GDP. In 2020, China is 17% of global GDP. China’s own GDP growth in 2003 was 10% for 2020 to drop below 6%? Just announced possible […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• Why DBS is not the “world’s best bank”….. December 19, 2019
  I am being asked a lot lately about Singapore’s DBS Bank. I have been very reluctant to write the following opinion and postponed it as much as I could, but my assessment of why DBS is not the “best bank in the world” that it claims to be is important, not just for DBS but […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• The network effect of the Hong Kong protests October 20, 2019
  I had two views of China on its national day this year. I spent the morning of 1 October 2019 in Beijing, with throngs of people who had stayed in the city to try and get a glimpse of the 70th anniversary national day. It was so well and tightly organised, nothing was left to […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• On “identity” as a common good and payments as “messaging on steroids” September 25, 2019
  Greg Kidd, the serial startup investor who helped found Square and Twitter and is currently investor in GlobaliD, opens up in this wide-ranging and open-ended interview about his career in identifying and helping found innovative startups. He shares his insights on the relationship between globalisation and localisation and how these relate to innovation Most of […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• China’s digital currency similar to the Uruguay e-peso pilot September 16, 2019
  When I understood that The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) launch is not as revolutionary as it sounds because it copies almost entirely from the confidence established in the Uruguayan pilot project run in 2017-2018, I was somewhat relieved. I had not realised the extent to which the global regulatory […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• Farewell to Daryl Lee Eng Leong September 14, 2019
  The video is the eulogy given at the funeral of a Raffles Hall university mate, Daryl Lee Eng Leong on 1 September 2019. Credit to Willy Soleysto for taking the video. The transcript is as follows: START If you think that this is a funeral where you have to feel sorry for someone or a […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• Ping An’s Xie Yonglin’s fascinating journey to an “AI bank” August 10, 2019
  I had the chance to sit down with Ping An Bank’s chairman Xie Yonglin who shared with me what I thought was one of the world’s most authentic ambitions to become a leading technology centric financial services player that brings together traditional banking with insurance, brokerage, payments and related services. I also explored his own […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• Finance as a conversation, payments as content July 16, 2019
  I further developed two very important points for me on the future that finance should be aspiring to from attending the RISE Technology Conference 2019 meant for startups in the digital economy. The conference featured everything from Spotify (personalising music), GIPHY (“Google searches account for only 1% of all words, so we create visuals for words”), Stock X (“monetising […]
  kladmin
• Facebook Libra will pass congress and set the stage… July 3, 2019
  The following are my assessments of the formative next steps in the evolution of Facebook’s Libra: I do believe that the US Congress will eventually approve legislation to promote the proliferation of digital currency, particularly the Libra variety which is a “stable coin” (meaning it finds its value against a real indicator, like fiat currency […]
  Emmanuel Daniel
• Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales on the rules of the collaborative economy May 26, 2019
  A chat with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, on the eve of our own Future of Finance Summit 2019. My questions were designed to get Jimmy to discuss how traditional institutions will survive in the shared economy, given that Wikipedia was essentially an effort by a world full of volunteers. He brilliantly outlined the rules […]
  Emmanuel Daniel