Being An Entrepreneur On The Cote D’Azur; You’re Probably Right To Be Tempted

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, General, lifestyle and fashion, Moving Abroad, Travel

This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.

Monaco, Cannes, Marseille, Nice, St Tropez; France’s Cote D’Azur hosts some world-famous cities and towns as well as picturesque, sleepy on the surface villages that stretch towards Ventimiglia, in Italy, in the East, and Marseille in the West.

The quality of life on the Cote D’Azur is high; there are plenty of activities, events and festivals, celebrating food, life and culture; there are yachts, superyachts, casinos, nightclubs, fast cars, good food, and all the other trappings of the glamorous Mediterranean that you might expect. It can also be surprisingly down to earth ad friendly. Read more “Being An Entrepreneur On The Cote D’Azur; You’re Probably Right To Be Tempted”

Even Tech Savvy Singaporeans Struggle To Calculate Overseas Money Transfer Rates Correctly, Say TransferWise

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, money transfer

According to a report released earlier this month by Transferwise, the peer-to-peer international money transfer platform featured on The Money Cloud, 75% of Singaporeans are unaware of the real costs of sending money overseas.

Singapore’s citizens enjoy a reputation for being financially literate, well organised and capable when it comes to their finances, but even they struggle to understand the mysterious fees that banks have a habit of adding to their customers’ international money transfer arrangements. Read more “Even Tech Savvy Singaporeans Struggle To Calculate Overseas Money Transfer Rates Correctly, Say TransferWise”

La Cote D’Azur; The Perfect Break For Entrepreneurs & Expats? Plus 5 Top Hotels For Nice

Edmund Ingham lifestyle and fashion, Moving Abroad, Travel

It wasn’t the easy ride he expected, but was it worth it, and should you try it? Edmund Ingham writes about his trip to the Cote D’Azur in snowy December, and his tips for entrepreneurs and expats. 1st in series.

It’s 6.45am and, stepping off the National Express at Stansted Airport, I am feeling smug. Having woken up at 5am and strolled to the bus stop at Stratford, a few minutes from my Airbnb overlooking the Olympic Park, I have arrived on time and have 70 minutes to clear security, and get to my gate. Read more “La Cote D’Azur; The Perfect Break For Entrepreneurs & Expats? Plus 5 Top Hotels For Nice”

The 5 Reasons You’ll Be Sure To Make International Payments In 2018?

Edmund Ingham lifestyle and fashion, Personal Finance, Travel

This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.

“Why would I need to send money abroad?”

Famous last words. International money transfer is one of those things that we rarely plan for, so when the inevitable happens and we have to make a transfer overseas, we have a tendency to panic, rush the process and end up paying a severe financial penalty. Read more “The 5 Reasons You’ll Be Sure To Make International Payments In 2018?”

MasterCard’s Digital Prepayment Platform For Millennials Is Holistic, But Restricted & Might Even Worry Millennials

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, lifestyle and fashion, Personal Finance

MasterCard’s new product – a holistic digital platform that offers a range of “money management” capabilities, such as balance checking, budgeting, setting savings goals and near real-time payments to peers – has just launched in the US.

The US may not be about to embrace a new set of digital payments service directives such as those Europe faces, with the introduction of PSD2 on January 18th, but it’s encouraging to see that the region is preparing for a shift in the way that its population wants to bank.

There’s just one catch, however. Read more “MasterCard’s Digital Prepayment Platform For Millennials Is Holistic, But Restricted & Might Even Worry Millennials”

What Does 2018 Have In Store For Bitcoin? 5 Bold Predictions

Edmund Ingham blockchain, Breaking News, Fintech, Personal Finance

This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.

Bitcoin has been the talk of the second half of 2017, but can the digital currency continue to exert the same fascination, and the same obscene (to some, to others it’s undervalued!) valuation as we enter a new year?

Try as we might to gaze into our crystal balls, it is very hard to predict what factors may affect the short term price, long term adoption, or medium term public perception of bitcoin, yet these are the very factors upon which the cryprocurrency stands or falls.

Below, we list 5 things that we think could affect bitcoin fortunes in 2018, and examine what the potential fallout might be. Sadly we cannot tell you what the price of one bitcoin will be at this time next year, but the below may help you frame your own thoughts and predictions. Read more “What Does 2018 Have In Store For Bitcoin? 5 Bold Predictions”

Banking On The Future Of Fintech? The Money Cloud Joins Panel Discussion At Treasury Leaders’ Summit

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, Fintech, The Money Cloud News

Are rumours of the death of the banking industry being greatly exaggerated? Is the fintech industry ready to consign the infrastructure and techniques of traditional banking services to history? Or could there be a “third way”, where banks and fintech work together to usher in a new age of value exchange.

One where disruptive tech ensures the banking industry as we know it survives, but having, somewhat noisily, undergone a tech revolution?

This was a question put to the audience at a panel discussion last week at the Treasury Leaders’ Summit in Canary Wharf, which I took part in on behalf of The Money Cloud, and as a future technologist and fintech “expert”. Read more “Banking On The Future Of Fintech? The Money Cloud Joins Panel Discussion At Treasury Leaders’ Summit”

10 “Mega Trends” That Will Drive The Future Of Payments

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, Fintech, Payments

The results are in!

Accenture Consulting has revealed the ten trends that they believe will drive the future of payments, thanks to the results of its Payments Pulse survey of 1,500 consumers in the United States – and each trend is intriguing in its own way.

From Gen Z-ers, to the power of “The Network”, to outhinking the “criminals making it their full-time job to out-innovate the payments industry”, it would not be an exaggeration to say that 2018 could genuinely be the most exciting and disruptive year for payments that we have ever known.

In this post we take a look at some of the trends more closely and assess their likely impact. Read more “10 “Mega Trends” That Will Drive The Future Of Payments”

Fitbit Pay On Ionic; Health Fanatics Can Make Contactless Payments With A Flick Of The Wrist

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, lifestyle and fashion, Payments

Fitbit, the health and fitness app that tracks your activity, exercise, sleep, weight and a myriad of other elements all designed to help you feel great in body and soul, is a class leader in a field that, despite the tech world’s best efforts, has sometimes struggled to live up to the hype.

Wearables, and the internet of things were two of the most talked about new tech phenomena of 2016, but this year progress has been teeth-grindingly slow, and public expectations have been dampened somewhat. We will have to wait for our talking fridges, it seems.

There are few standout companies that have successfully implemented wearables and / or contactless / IoT technology and created something life-enhancing and meaningful – but Fitbit is certainly one. Read more “Fitbit Pay On Ionic; Health Fanatics Can Make Contactless Payments With A Flick Of The Wrist”

5 Reasons Bitcoin Is On The Up & Up (&Up?)!

Edmund Ingham blockchain, Breaking News

Surely it cannot be long now before the rights to “Bitcoin – The Movie” are sold. If recent history is anything to go by, if somebody sold them now at the current bitcoin / dollar exchange rate, for £1 million, by the time of the film’s release they could be worth as much as…well, nobody knows in reality, but nearly everybody has an opinion now.

A movie would also be a great opportunity for the Winklevoss twins to reprise the roles they had in the last movie about entrepreneurs, disruptive products, billionaires and controversy – The Social Network. In this version, however, it looks like the twins could be the stars of the show.

To find out why, plus 4 more reasons to be cheerful about bitcoin, read our 5 reasons below outlining why its perfectly possible that the price of bitcoin which keeps on going up, and up, and up, and down a bit (hard / soft fork?), and then up again – is not finished yet – not, perhaps, by a long shot. Read more “5 Reasons Bitcoin Is On The Up & Up (&Up?)!”

Facebook Messenger Pay Arrives In The UK & France – Infographic Reveals How Brits Feel About Being Paid Back

Edmund Ingham Breaking News, General, Payments, Personal Finance

2 years after it was launched in the US, Facebook Messenger Pay has finally crossed the Atlantic. Now it’s possible to make a P2P transaction across the platform in both France and the UK, simply by tapping the blue plus icon to the left of the chat bar, and choosing the green cash icon.

Facebook said in a blog post that it is “not just the transactional act of paying someone back, it’s the emotional importance of doing so”, and said that this is backed up by research they have conducted on Messenger, which you can see in the infographic below. Read more “Facebook Messenger Pay Arrives In The UK & France – Infographic Reveals How Brits Feel About Being Paid Back”