Death Of Swiss Banks As We Know Them!

Two things come to our mind when we hear of the name Switzerland - first those awesome watches they make and second their banks. We all know this article is not about the Swiss watches however incredible they are, we sure are going to discuss the future of Swiss Banks.

Swiss Banks enjoy huge deposits every year due to their Bank Secrecy Laws. Through carefully guarded legacy for decades, Swiss Laws prohibit banks to expose their clients' information even to the respective governments. On the other hand criticisms towards this mechanism was that it encourages unaccounted money & money laundering as it seriously hinders investigations regarding corruptions. Although Swiss claims they have placed strict mechanisms to fight Money Laundering, CIA World Factbook says the Switzerland is still vulnerable to layering and integration stages of money laundering. According to Helvea study Swiss has around 800 billion Swiss Francs of illegal money deposited into its banks.

But how long can Switzerland continue this elite state of unaffected fund inflows? It doesn't seem so in front of the newly enacted U.S. based Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA). For those who are not aware of, FATCA is the new law that will give IRS access to financial accounts maintained by their tax payers in Non-U.S. banks even outside U.S. boundary like Switzerland. To know more about FATCA read here.

The tentacles of the law tightened more around the mid-European country when it signed on a treaty with U.S. to comply with FATCA. We don't know how it happened but U.S. simply dictated to Swiss to give up their bank secrecy state (at least w.r.t. U.S. Citizens) and provide a direct window into their bank records. Every year Swiss banks have to report the account information of their U.S. customers to IRS. Who can stand eye to the Big Daddy?

So what is the implication of this FACTA? Although it doesn't prevent U.S. citizens to invest in Swiss banks directly, it takes out the essential benefit of investing in them. How? The whole point in going to a Swiss bank is its ability to protect its customers account information. In past the Swiss had been subject to so much pressure so many times to expose their clients' information but they never budged in, not even slightly. Even during Nazi regime the Swiss tried as hard as they could to protect their client information. This increased their credibility and many high network individuals who had surplus funds invested in Swiss banks. But if their hands are twisted to give out their U.S. client's account information, those clients will be accountable for that money. Since their invested money is accountable in either case, investors would rather invest in their own country and save themselves from cross border risks.

This is not the end of the story. It is not only U.S. that is doing FATCA. The five major economies of European Union the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are together working on a pilot model of tax information exchange which will prevent tax evasion by their citizens. These economies can also potentially force Swiss banks to reveal their citizens accounts. Of the estimated 800 billion Swiss Francs illegal money in Swiss banks, a major portion comes from Germany alone.

The BRICS nations are also working on a tax information exchange. It won't be far when these nations come up with a platform of their own and ask Switzerland for their citizens' information. Essentially this all led to a drain on the bank secrecy status of Switzerland and its banks. Many critics have also started arguing against the possibility of Money Laundering happening in Swiss systems and thus encouraging illegal activities across the globe.

It is not the end of the Swiss Banking days, definitely no. But unless they change their Unique Selling Point from Client Secrecy to a more competitive strategy like Service they won't be able to sustain in the long run.

Mass - The Boss (Project 3 - Toastmasters)

This is the transcript of my Toastmasters P3 speech. So you may find the article more 'speaking' than written. But I left it that way to preserve the delivery for which it is intended. I am sure you will also find enjoyment in reading this.

Mass - The Boss

Good Evening! I would like to start by asking you a question. How many of you here want to be an entrepreneur? How many are entrepreneurs? How many have left back your ideas just because you thought that the idea may not work well or you thought you won’t find an investor? Fine, Let’s leave this aside for a while.

I would like to tell you a story. Scott Wilson, a Chicago based industrial designer designed a watch that could convert an iPod Nano into a multi-touch watch. Although the design was impressive, he was not able to find a manufacturer for the watch. After trying with many investors he turned towards the people of the world. His objective was to raise $15,000 pay for manufacturing expenses. But the project received such a good response that people end up over investing in it. Any guesses how much investment was made? Codenamed Lunatik the project attracted some 13,500 investors investing about 1 Million dollars. The watch is now sold by all major U.S. retailers including Apple’s very own iStore. Just months back the watch was struggling to find an investor but now it is a massive hit among ipod users.

So who are these PEOPLE, the Angels who came to Scott’s rescue? They are none other than people like us, the common men, the mass, the crowd. The process is called Crowd funding or crowd sourcing. It enables people like us to become investors. If you want to be an investor in crowd funding, you can be one with as little as Rs.50 or… no Rs.60, can’t trust Rupee these days. It is falling like anything. The only time Rupee goes up these days is during a toss J. So to be safe let’s say you can be an investor with as little as $1.

So how this crowdfunding works? I will tell you how tradition investment process works and then how crowdfunding works. In the traditional process, once I conceive an idea I will go to the market and conduct a feasibility study to establish the commercial viability of the project. If found viable I will create a business proposal after which I will go to an Angel Investor who will provide seed fund to start the initial operations of the venture. If the venture remains profitable after 2-3 years another guy called Venture Capitalist comes in and puts in more money to expand venture. The catch here is, getting to an Angel Investor or a Venture Capitalist is very difficult. It is more difficult than getting MMS open his mouth and speak louder.

In Crowd funding the process is pretty simple. After due diligence, I will present the proposal on the crowdfunding platforms. Note here that all the crowdfunding platforms are online and hence proposals are required to be in Video format to be more interactive and lively. People who visit these platforms, if the find my idea interesting, they will invest in my project. An added advantage of Crowdfunding is that the immediate feedback it gives about your idea. Here decisions are taken by 1000s of investors unlike traditional process in which decisions are taken by 1 or 2 persons. It is always better if some 1000 people say your idea is better than a few individuals saying so.

Lunatik is not the only success story that came out of crowd funding. Many projects had raised funding to kick start their operations. One more interesting fact of crowdfunding is the innovative ideas it encourages. For example consider this crowd funded project in which a team of students and lecturers working on a 6 foot giant spider robot in which a person can actually ride on. Amazing isn't it?

Crowdfunding doesn't only support commercial and fun projects. In fact projects like philanthropy, disaster relief, community projects are also funded through this platform. A platform called indiegogo.com gathered around 200K$ for Sandy cyclone relief fund –that rocked eastern part of United states last year.

So all you entrepreneurs sitting here, I would like to ask you to reconsider your ideas. Roll up your sleeves and get them back from the racks. Propose it on to the crowd and be assured we, the people, the mass is always there to support you. Life is lived only once. Let’s pursue our dreams and make the most out of it.

The Repetitive Renaissance

Renaissance is one curiously weird word. Apart from symbolizing the liberalization of literature from the tight clutches of the Church into the free hands of the masses, it also has one more unique property. It is popularized by the course of events that are described by it. Renaissance marked the liberalization of literature after which only people started using this word more and more and hence it can be seen as a self-popularized word.

We all know renaissance happened in the medieval age but there is a renaissance happening today also. In fact renaissance happens in every era. Generally the trend is after the advent of a new technology it will remain in the hands of elite for few years and slowly transition into the hands of the masses.

After print media the major innovation is the screen media and the television (or broadcast media). Cinema had impacted our life the way no other media can do so. But Cinema production remained exclusive to the very few because of the high production costs involved in making a movie. This is unlike Church imposed medieval pre-renaissance restrictions on literature.

A scene from Raja Harishchandra – the first Indian Movie

So for more than half of the century Cinema remained in the hands of the few. They had decided what to make and the masses had followed what had been made. This worked well for earlier times but lately concerns were raised upon whether those few can actually represent the expectations of the masses. Nevertheless it is a tedious task which had been showing in the increasing number of not so well doing films each year. Nearly 1000 films are produced each year by the Indian cinema but we can assuredly say there are only a handful of films that makes an impact on us. Besides the movie outreach is just to 45 million compared to the 1.2 Billion populations in India.

So how to take this dream media to masses? Here comes the renaissance to revive its present day role. The advent of electronic era provided high technology recording devices like HQ Mobile cameras, DSLRs into the hands of the masses. While a common man can record videos on his own anytime, broadcasting this to the world is made much easier by the internet video platforms like youtube, dailymotion, etc. The result is one of the major discoveries of all time – “Short movies”.

No one would have believed a decade ago that a bunch of adolescents can come up with a compelling movie yet this is what happening now days.

The increasing awareness for shorts and their ability to convey a message or entertain in a matter of 15 – 30 mins makes the film viewing much easier than a regular movie where a person has to go to the movie hall some 30 mins before, get his seat, watch the movie for 2 to 3 hours and come back. Besides commuting in city traffics could take hours to reach back. Success of reality shows like Nalaya Iyakkunar has also increased the awareness of short films. Short movies are the T20’s of the cine industry.

As an extension of this trend, crowd funding has also started to pour in for short movies. For those who aren’t aware, crowd funding is a developing area in finance where projects are funded by masses. This can be compared to stock market as many will join hands by investing in a particular movie project and the expectation of the masses will determine which movie project to invest upon.

From the select few movie production is slowly moving into the hands of the masses. Today anyone can take a movie with minimal handled devices. Also the move towards crowd funding will be a major turn around and will stabilize the movie industry for a longer term.

A Fanfare in Transition

The first person through the wall is always bloody. This is an unbeatable universal. No matter which industry you choose you can see the proof to it. Starting from the Jewish bankers, to the intellectuals like Socrates and Galileo the world had unanimously casted a nasty look on the pioneers.

The highly looked upon industry of today, the dream factory is not an exception to this view. Starting from branding the actors as lowly creatures, the industry had cast a very dirty look upon the actors in the initial days. In fact the first of the actors came into acting because they do not have any other profession. Those were the 40's when cine industry was in the hands of producers. We still hear stories of actors were not being allowed to sit in chairs in front of producers. Since acting is not so different from drama many have successfully moved from drama industry into the cinema.

Then eventually the movie industry went into the hands of the directors. Many directors innovated various styles of movie making starting from Satyajit Ray to Bharathi Raja and took the control gear from producers into their hands.

Then came the reign of the actors. Compared to the initial days for actors in cinema the generation in 70s and 80s had usurped a great surge in fanfare. From Amitabh to Rajni this trend is all same. There may be variations in the time frame but the evolution sequence is same in all the industries across Indian Cinema. The success of the actors is the way they make you feel about them. In a movie they will make the audience feel like they are their neighbors. In real life however the audience will be left to feel like the foot dust. In fact this supremacy approach had worked for many actors and for few generations.

Imagine the fanfare of 80’s actors’. The season was marked by fans doing all crazy stuffs just to show that they love their actor more than fellow fans. Gigantic garlands, Milk baths for poster cutouts which could otherwise have been consumed and much other craziness. There are instances of mob fighting on the first day of movie releases, fights among school children too. Even instances of murders are also reported just because a person simply had not given the respect to an actor that he deserved(?).

Of course it is not to say that a fanfare following is bad. But too much of anything is definitely not good. So much so it went well the ‘awe’ factor that surrounds the actors is fading these days. Compare the same for the present generation artists with the previous generation? You can definitely see the difference.

But what is the reason for this trend change? There are many theories. Many say people are getting intelligent. Few say employment had improved taking the time out of fans that they otherwise use to show their following.

One major and perhaps a more sustainable reason to this is the advent of electronic media and internet. Both had made making quality videos with SLRs and broadcasting them world over a much easier task. The result is one can easily make a video of his own and watch it on screen. So the right to be seen on screen is getting diluted with the actors, no more exclusive to them.

Starting from being humble with not much of fanfare the actors enjoyed a gradual increase in fan following which went into the levels of worshipping during the late 80’s and the graph is reducing now a days back again to floor level. In the middle many actors had enjoyed a lot of fanfare not because they acted well but just because they got to appear on the screen. They are and will just remain an once overvalued stock that the market realized better to put money somewhere else.

The Arbitrage Life

Ever heard of the word “Arbitrage”? A finance word it is or more specifically a trading word. It denotes a situation where there is a difference in price for a product which a trader will take advantage of by buying at a lower price and selling at a higher price.

Arbitrage can be seen as two types. Market based arbitrages and transaction based arbitrages. Market based arbitrages exploit the price difference between two markets. When a same security is listed in both BSE & NSE while BSE has a lower price for the same stock than NSE an arbitrageur will buy the stock from BSE and sell the stocks at NSE. In common world this is what exporters and importers do. They sense the price difference of a product between two countries and export from the lower priced country to the higher priced country.

In a transaction based arbitrage an arbitrageur will exploit the price difference between the basket sizes of a product. Basically it happens between wholesalers and retailers. For example a dozen of apple may cost Rs.10 and a single apple may cost Re.1. In this case a retailer will buy a dozen of apples from the wholesaler, unpack them and sell them individually to Rs.12 and packet the difference of Rs.2 as a profit.

Although seemingly it looks like a trading word, this word has more implications in other parts of life as well. In fact every activity in this world is driven by one type of arbitrage or another. Though it is very simple when we look at it, mostly we tend to overlook this amazingly common property.

Take for example rivers flow from highest regions to the lowest regions – height arbitrage. This also explains how migration happens. In job market people move from the least to most opportunistic regions, mostly from villages to cities. The Indian outsourcing industry is working on the whole basis of arbitrage advantage, lower service charges compared to western economies. So is the case with China in manufacturing prices.

The idea of gene survival is also dependent on arbitrage. A guy and girl seek each other to fulfill what they lack from self, in order to carry out the gene propagation to next generation.

In fact the whole concept of change is initiating from arbitrage. From natural activities like cyclones and volcanoes (pressure arbitrage), to the evolution of species (opportunity, threat arbitrages) everything is driven by this single seed of difference. Also the whole idea of social imbalance also rests on arbitrage. Any society that doesn't fill the difference between its classes tend to fall apart. Valleys of difference in cultures, economy, race, color had torn many societies into pieces.

This article is just a simple analogy of arbitrage into the common life. It doesn't intend to teach anything nor does it 

Samsung Chat 322 Review (C 3222)

Samsung Chat 322 (C3222) is a dual sim, QWERTY key padded multimedia phone claims to be specifically developed for avid business and social networking users. Priced at Rs. 4500 I can’t say this is a marvellous piece of technology but it is a one good blend of art and technology.

The package contains a battery, Charger, Headset, PC studio CD, Datacable and a free 1 GB memory card.

On the features side this phone boasts a 220X176 TFT screen (2.2 inch). The resolution and pixel clarity are appreciably good. Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, GPRS, EDGE add to the connectivity aspects of the phone.

One other great feature of the phone is its track pad. Not a track ball as you would get with a blackberry, this track pad is exactly like a mouse pad in Laptop and  is a fun to play with. The feel of the track pad is so good and its touch response too. Also you can adjust the sensitivity of the  pad.

A 1000mAh battery claims to have a standby time of 588 hours but to me it’s the actual is lower with my frequent usage of browser and IM applications. And talk time of the phone is around 12 hours.

The phone has dedicated applications for Facebook, Twitter and community applications for Orkut, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, and Friendster. The IM programs available on default are MSN, Yahoo Chat and Palringo multi chat client. But mind you none of the application can be run in background so you can’t stay online in a chat client while you want to read a sms, or even change the music track since there are no dedicated music keys too.

The Netfront browser deployed with the phone is good laying out web pages for the phone’s screen but the track pad response is sluggish in the browser mode which made me frown my eyes.

The phone has around 50 MB inbuilt memory which includes a 4.5 MB dedicated space for applications. Mind you this means you can install apps only up to this limit. The external memory can be up to 8 GB. As for the third party apps, I can’t install Opera on the phone the best mobile browser on earth to me. Also Gmail application failed to sign in though it installed successfully. Also Google Maps was not able to show my current location on phone though other features are displayed well. But what good a map can do if you can’t identify where you stand in it?

Keys in the QWERTY pad are little small that are difficult to operate with my broader fingers but I’m getting used to them and its not a bigger problem. In fact the keys are specifically designed to operate with both hands.

Signal reception seems to be one other bigger advantage for the phone. As my other phones picked signals of strength for the same SIM on 3-5 point range, this one lingered mostly in 5. Call quality too is good and I don’t find many noises on the call but the person in the opposite end reported the call was not clear while I am on move.  Sound quality very good and the out speaker though is not very loud, it can make a good audible music. But the earphones are really good at effects even though they seem to look like cheap ones.  If you ask me the track pad, Signal reception and Sound quality alone are worth for the money.

The phone includes a 1.3 MP camera with Camcorder. Picture clarity is very good for a 1.3 MP camera but this could have been at least a 2 MP camera as 1.3 seems to be outdated these days. Further details on the camera are below.

Shooting Mode                 : Single, Mosaic, Continuous, Frame

Picture Resolution           : 1280x960, 640x480, 320x240

Brightness Adjustment : Yes

Timer                                    : Yes 0, 2, 5, 10 secs

White balance                   : Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy

Night Mode                        : Yes

A 3.5 mm jack and micro USB says the phone is universally compatible with new standards for these ports.

Though the phone misses many good features, I would say you it has more than what you would expect from a budget phone. If you are a profound business user you can go for the phone but to those social networking pals who want to stay online all time, I would advise you against this. Buy it and you wont regret doing this.

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Yesterday i happened to test the 5.1 channel output of the phone and its really better. Also the sound effects are far better compared to Nokia 5800. The preset equalizer does a decent job and various settings too are good.  Actually I'm beginning to like this mobile... :-)

Who am I?

Some one said "You could only exceed if you do what you love". Well said, but what do i really want to do?

On my initial school days, during the first five or six years, i wanted to become an ambitious police officer. Guy who beats off criminals, who mostly are my school mates who make quarrels with me and my friends. (hey, still they are criminals as they are against my team... :-)). Then it turned out to those great super heroes. You may think a police officer and a super hero are not much of a difference to a child, tell you, super heroes are really good at enhancing your child's imagination. I can say i literally warded off my boring class hours dreaming how i could save those innocent (mostly beautiful girls) people and earn their love and respect. Not surprisingly the attention gradually shifted towards Astronauts as my super heroes usually come from space ( a realistic move you may wonder). But to make for the reality factor i was fantasizing a space warrior within me, guy who fights off those dangerous people hungry aliens.

I still remember of a dream where i would jump off my school balcony right in time to be caught by my mind controlled Fly Wheeler (like a water scooter but it flies, exactly like our heroes jumping off the balconies on to their running horses). Then i would team up with my fellow warriors ( of course with some spectacular stunts for the onlooking crowd to wonder) to race up to the alien ship to attack it.

Moving on i somehow wanted to become an artist. I have no idea how i got there but i tried some pencil sketches and most of them got appreciations. I think its the weirdest idea that came over to me and it still lingers somewhere in my mind.

Last, i stepped into the IT industry with a dream of something big, but whats that big thing's still a mystery. I think knowing that would make no sense before achieving it. Actually the virtual world in the IT was so promising to fulfill my big dreams. Imagine a world with no bounds and limits? Even its impossible to find the word impossible printed in Oxford Dictionary but the word impossible is nothing in IT's virtuality.

Though i was successful in writing codes, my fantasy of creating and doing that big thing never turned face towards me. And it seems unlikely to happen in those jungles of corporate world.

At last i stepped out of the virtual world after 3 years with another goal of pursuing a premier MBA. Fortunately my CAT attempt failed ( though with a mediocre score, but i don't want to go into a B grade B school) and i am waiting for my XAT score (Pray this would get me somewhere...). Now its time for my preparation for GMAT and to look after my dad's business in the mean time, i am still confused what am i doing or even if i belong here?

Looking back, my mind races over one major question, "Should we do what we love?" or "Should we love what we do?" and settle for the sake of marriage and start producing children ( i dont think we are really in a stage to give importance to human reproduction these days, as the survival of human race is not in jeopardy but its the major problem the earth is facing these days). My parents have already started persuading me for the ultimate goal of our life (yeah, the ritual called marriage) but i dont even have any plan after GMAT. Though the business is good and flourishing I still feel that hunger in me.

Should i settle and learn to love what i do or should i pursue my invisible goal ? Let me wait for time to take me somewhere for i am too tired to make a decision. Whatever i still believe i would land somewhere in a no man's land and build my dream empire over there.