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I would like to thank all of you that have been so very kind to send me Seasons Greetings either by electronic media or by postal service.

This year when I was about to start thinking about sending the usual Christmas cards I was informed that we do not have any cards in the company this year but I could send an electronic Greeting.

For me that created a bit of an emotional conflict as I do believe in the physical card with a beautiful picture on it. It can be a picture of a mountain, a city skyline, the sky or sometimes it can be more related to Santa Claus. In general cards are very beautiful and make you feel happy. The beautiful cards arrives in envelopes with stamps on and just by that you can see from which country the greeting comes, sometimes the stamp is also a special Christmas stamp that has been created by the postal service just for this time of the year. You open the envelope and by then you can see who the kind person is that have sent you this greeting for the season.

As you might have gathered by now I’m a favorite of cards sent by postal service but as I mentioned in the beginning we did not have any this year so I was trying to adjust my mind to send the electronic version but just as I had come to grips with this for me very revolutionary thoughts I heard that we might be able to find some old fashioned cards after all. The cards arrived eventually but a bit late for me to be able to have them in the post in time for the holidays.

My Seasons Greetings have been stuck somewhere in space this year and it is not even cyber space, I will now save the physical cards for next year when I will once again be able to send a card in a envelope with a stamp on.

I believe that I’m quite good at using modern technology as well as social media but I strongly believe in some of the traditional ways of communication as well. We must not forget the joy of getting a real letter in these days of emails, facebook, twitter etc.

The ironic bit of this is that after making a speech about physical cards I will end up wishing you all happy holidays through a community!

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year

Hello all BB users and others!

My recent blog was about the extensive use of tools to be online all time, this blog will be along the same topic but from a very serious angle; Blackberry crise!

For the last few days everyone that use a Blackberry have been in great despair on and of. No emails have reached the little device and it has been difficult to send emails. Then all of sudden you get a whole bunch of emails and you think that the problem is over but that was not be trusted! A few hours later the problem is back again!

Personally I have been enormously worried about this behaviour from my little blackberry! And I do depend a lot on a well running flow of emails.

I have now realized that this is global problem, 30-40 million blackberry user have problems right now all over the world. That is about 50% of all blackberry users!
My conclusion of this is of course that the problems with Blackberrys have negative effects on the global business environment!

Maybe it is about time that we realize that Blackberrys are part of the systemically important infrastructures of the world, do the authorities realize that the have to take measures to make the situation stable? Or is this a chance for me as a addicted Blackberry user to realize that I have a chance to take a break from the constant urge to always read emails.....

Tomorrow is Holy Thursday in large parts of the world including Sweden and it will be celebrated in various degrees depending on where you are. One odd thing in Sweden is that Holy Thursday means half day for most companies and that is of course creating a very special situation for most businesses including the banks. A full day of work has to be completed and all tasks that is normally done in around 8 hours have to be fulfilled in half the time. I must seriously challenge this tradition and ask why we really put ourselves in a situation like this?

It is difficult for the employer who will have problems with making sure that every task is completed, it is strenuous for the staff who will have to work twice as hard during the day. It is a surprise for clients from other parts of the world that naturally have never heard of the strange phenomenon of half days and of course would like to contact the bank in the afternoon as well.

For the staff you can also add the situation how to do if he or she would like to take the day off, is it good to use one whole day of holiday when it is only half a day of working?

To make this Swedish habit even more odd you should know that is viewed as half day but in reality it is only a day shortened with 2,5 hours. This fact is something that is pretty much waived and we all look at it from being half day work instead of a full day. Other strange effects of this half day mess are that we will go for lunch earlier and by that of course disturbing normal habits.

Then add to this that we will repeat this awkward habit several more days during the year!

Can’t we just be like normal countries and get rid of all this half days and maybe introduce another full day holiday or maybe two?

When is was young in the sixties and were at school we actually had school on Saturdays and my father was at work. These Saturdays where not full days and luckily enough it went away and we now take Saturdays for granted as a day off, it is now time to get rid of the half days as well and by that act wisely as country

I have just returned from a full week at SIBOS in Amsterdam. SIBOS is a big conference hosted by Swift that target bankers from all over the world. To gather almost 10 000 bankers in the same place might be a bit scary for some but for me it is wonderful.
I just love SIBOS and I have been attending since the beginning of the nineties. This year was the largest ever and compared to the last 2 years the general mood at the conference was also very good. I found that instead of focusing on the Financial crises, that was the topic both in HongKong last year and in Vienna the year before, the focus this year was very much on business opportunities.
One other area that was very much in focus this year was the regulatory Tsunami that we are facing right now!
Is this really going to be beneficial to the community?
Will the regulatory initiatives actually give the protection to investors and stabilize the financial system that should be the driver of all this?
I sometimes have a feeling that just the number of regulatory inititives will be difficult to handle and implement in the best way.
Do we get regulations that actually adress the correct issues?
I can also see a risk that regulation will drive cost and by that be negative to the investors in the long run. At worst case it might be so restricitve to the financial industry that growth is affected negatively.
In general Sibos provided a very good basis for interesting discussion and I would of course like to hear your view both on how you experienced SIbos, if you were there, but even more your thoughts on the developments of what I would like to call the "Regulation industry"

During my almost 25 years in the financial industry I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries around the world. During some years the number of days on the road has maybe been more than is good for myself and definitely for private life. It has for most of the time been exciting, interesting and fun. The possibility to meet clients and colleagues around the world is always a great driver for me in my business. During this time and all the years traveling it has been a lot of changes that affects me as a traveler and it is not just me getting older!

One thing worth mentioning is that it is more stress in traveling than it was in the eighties, you need more time at the airport, the waiting time is a lot more extended, your are surprised if a flight leaves on time and your are definitely surprised if it brings you to the destination in time. During the years the security controls have become a day to day part of traveling and take a lot of your time at an airport. Of course you should be grateful about the security controls but I must say that I miss the good old days when that wasn’t viewed as a normal part of traveling.

Leaving the more basic features of traveling I would like to touch on one of the most important changes during the last 10 years; communication! When I traveled 20 years ago there was no way to get in touch with me except at the hotel that I would stay in, I acquired telephone cards to make it easier and cheaper for me to call both my family and the office, if your were late for a meeting it was not possible to call up from the taxi and say that you were late. Looking back it is really strange that we could manage and my kids of 20+ probably wouldn’t think t possible to live that way.

Today I have my mobile-phone, my Blackberry for emails and may laptop. On the television I can follow everything that happens in the world through CNN, BBC etc. The other day I sat in a hotel room in Beijing with my laptop connected to my server in Stockholm at the same time as I was talking to my colleague in Oslo on the phone and watching CNN on the TV in front of me. This hotel even had a 10 inch TV screen in the bathroom mirror which made it possible for me to watch the news when I was shaving and brushing my teeth! Imagine missing the news when you brush your teeth! Is all this really good for us? Do we actually need to be accessible all the time?

From Beijing I was flying to Tokyo and during all my visits to Japan in the past it has been impossible to use mobile and blackberry so I actually was looking forward to a few days without being able to be reached all the time. At entering the flight in Beijing I switched of the blackberry thinking that you have deserved a bit of rest for a few days! Landing in Tokyo a few hours later I just by natural habit turns on the blackberry and it immediately starts to download emails, it all of a sudden works in Japan as well! I was very happy with this as it made it possible for me to be reached again and it is actually making worklife easier.

At the same time is it really good for us that we have this constant flow of communication and that we always can be reached? The only way of getting a few hours without be accessible is by flying, I do hope that we will keep it that way! One alternative is of course to switch off the phone….

Goran