Maciamo's Blog

Sia Partners examined 135 banks from 17 different countries around the world, mostly in Western Europe, the USA, Canada, the Middle East, and East Asia.

The two best banking apps were both from Belgian banks, KBC and Belfius. KBC's app has a digital assistant in the line of Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana. It lets you ask questions and requests operations in English, Dutch or French. Its capabilities are not limited to managing banking operations. Customers can book train tickets, monitor if the parking meter payment is close to run out, get recommendations on cheaper utility...

 

Travelling in different countries I couldn't help but notice that the brands of cars on the road can vary quite a bit. Obviously people tend to buy more cars from their own country, either for patriotic reasons or because the marketing is better, the cars are designed in accordance with the expectations of the local culture, or simply because their are more car dealers in rural areas, which makes it more convenient for the maintenance. Countries that do not have local car makers may therefore be more interesting to compare if one wants to get an idea of what kind of car people really like...

 

I was reading in The Economist that "many of society's ills, from economic stagnation to poor social mobility, could be solved by creating a more entrepreneurial society." The timing couldn't be better as I had been thinking about that very issue lately. Why is it that northern European countries, especially Germanic ones, have for so long had a lower unemployment rate than other countries, regardless of the economic climate ? I believe this indeed has something to do with the fact that northern European people are a particularly entrepreneurial bunch. Not only are they...