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These lights at Canary Wharf were on BBC yesterday morning.
The company is looking for funding on Crowdcube.
I think that this sort of technology could have its uses. But possibly more when it is integrated into a common unit!
London and other cities have thousands of entry gates for the rail systems. Think how you use these!
You walk up and as you go through the barrier you either enter your ticket in a slot and pick it up again or touch your contactless card on a reader. You may not come to a full stop, but you will check your walk and this will result in you feet pressing a bit harder on the space between the sides of the gate. Thus a pressure pad in every gate would generate a bit of electricity for the station.
Ticket Gates At Homerton
Such an application could be part of a comprehensive energy system for a station, where the warmth from passengers, solar power from the roof and other power sources are collected to make the station less dependent on electricity from the mains. Network Rail have already used energy collection in stations like Blackfriars and the new London Bridge, so footfall collection could be another tool to help.
It could also be used in say a remote unmanned ticket gate on a station, such as where a platform is very long and some passengers need to entry and exit perhaps a hundred metres from the staff.
But although there is a large number of entry gates in the UK and worldwide, I would suspect that the gate manufacturers would develop their own systems.
I wish Pavegen well, but I don’t think I shall be investing.
Peer-To-Peer Lending Is Different In The US
I like peer-to-peer lending and have quite a large sum invested. But after reading this article in the Financial Times, I’m pretty certain that if I lived in the United States, I wouldn’t touch peer-to-peer lending with a bargepole.
The reason is that in the United States, institutional investors get first pick of the borrowers and are developing software, so that the retail investors gets what’s left.
In the UK, the Peer-To-Peer Finance Association has moved to ban this practice and make all investors equal.
The day they give preference to institutions, my money will be withdrawn gradually as it becomes available.
I think we all have to remember that one of the causes of the Financial Crash of a few years ago was greedy bankers, who felt they were a class above the vast majority of people, who have made their money by sheer dint of hard work.
Whatever you do, read the article in the FT. It’s a cracker!
And also look at the Peer-To-Peer Finance Association web site!
Will Osborne Abolish Tax On Savings Interest?
This is said in this article in The Independent.
Tax on income from savings will be abolished for millions of people in the Budget today as George Osborne woos pensioners and “hard-working taxpayers” ahead of the May general election,The Independent has learnt.
So is the paper right?
It would make a lot of sense.
1, It would certainly encourage saving.
2. Encouraging saving may mean that more money will go into peer-to-peer lending, which will help lower interest rates for borrowers and give the banks a bit of a kicking. So a by-product of abolishing tax on savings interest could be better availability of finance for individuals and businesses.
3. I can see those who provide homes for savings like banks, building societies and peer-to-peer lenders getting increasingly innovate in finding ways to create high-interest, instant-access accounts.
4. It could put a lot of financial advisers out of business, as if say you had a lump sum to invest, you could easily work out what would be the best savings account, to keep the money until you need it.
5. But surely, the biggest benefit will be that as savings will now be held in an account, that doesn’t carry any tax, it will simplify tax accounting and returns for banks, building societies and savers alike.
If he does do it, then just imagine how any party who put it back would fare in an election!
On a personal note, if it does happen, I’ll be putting more of my money into Zopa!
Peer-to-Peer Lending And Retirement
This article in the FT, entitled Zopa To Launch Product For Retirement Savers is a must-read for anybody who is retired or thinking about it. This the first paragraph.
The UK’s largest peer-to-peer lending service, Zopa, is developing a new investment product tailored to people beyond retirement age who will have much more flexible access to their pension savings from April.
It sounds that I’m using my Zopa funds in a similar way. There is one big difference though in that I’m doing it using the standard Zopa system, so I’m not paying anybody in the middle for commission or advice.
My use may have advantages, in that as funds comes available they can be stored away in Zopa.
My Zopa Summary For 2014
I’m publishing these figures, as in my view, they are very indicative of a mature Zopa account.
Remember that I started investing in 2008, so some of the money is possibly on its third loan.
I have added to the pot over the years, when I have spare money left over at the end of the month. I’ve also repatriated money at times, when because of circumstances, I have some large bills to pay.
At the start of the year I had £147,000 invested and at the year end that had risen to £156,000.
Over the year, I’ve actually taken out £16,700 and paid in £18,500, so I haven’t really paid anything into the pot.
Interest and repayments to my holding account in Zopa has been almost £96,000, which conveniently works out at £8,000 a month. So I could bring up to this sum into my bank account for paying bills every month. As these payments usually occur around the beginning of each month, it is very easy to juggle them with my approved overdraft limit to avoid paying the wunch, excess fees I don’t need to.
Over the last year, the amount of money I’ve earned works out as a return of five percent before tax.
Because most of my money has been lent out in the last couple of years or so, I suspect that a high proportion of my Zopa money is covered by their Safeguard scheme.
The downsides are that I could earn more with more risky peer-to-peer lenders and I have to pay tax on my earnings.
I never give financial investment advice, but I have found Zopa to be the ideal mattress to put my spare money in a place, where I can access it reasonably quickly. It certainly pays a better interest rate.
Peer-To-Peer Energy
This report from the UK Solar Power Portal makes some good points.
I can envisage a time, when the solar panels on my roof, feed into a system, that gets me the best price and this is delivered at a best price to those that need it.
As a control engineer, I know it’ll probably be totally automatic and the price will be a balance that is the best for micro-generators and consumers. Just as with peer-to-peer lending, the only losers will be the big companies. Except for banks, you will read energy companies.
An Open Letter To Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard
In the article in Friday’s Standard with the front page headline, Force Banks To Fight Web Fraud, you say that the banks must fight web fraud.
I agree that banks must be forced to report all frauds to the Police.
As someone, who has analysed a lot of databases in his time, I know from experience with some of the best consultants in the City, that properly analysed these reports will uncover valuable patterns that will help police locate the perpetrators. The findings should result in sensible advice that would help both the banks and customers.
My worry is that the banks will introduce levels of security, that mean you have to do things like access your bank account with a dongle or install special protection software on your computer. This approach just means that criminals use the new restrictions as new ways to fool clients.
In my view, banks need to think deeply about adding new features to their banking systems for the benefit and protection of customers.
So what would I do?
1. A friend was robbed at a cashpoint and someone took his card and got him to give up his pin at knife-point. I think we should all have an emergency pin, that if typed into a cashpoint, indicates something is wrong. The machine keeps the card and perhaps gives out a minimum amount of money, saying that the client has no funds available.
2. We should be able to set a limit on payments, above which the bank sends us a text message, to say that we’ve just paid £220 to Marks and Spencer. So if say your card details had been stolen, you would at least get an early warning.
3. We should also be able to lock bank accounts. Say you were going away for a month and during that time, you would not be accessing your bank account. You would enter an extra password, which only you would know, that stopped access to your account until it was re-entered.
If banks were to think what customers actually want and not waste their time selling them junk products, we might get a banking system that was fit for purpose and very secure.
Banks should do other things.
1. Some of the work I know was done with my software, allows banks to profile how customers access their accounts. Are they doing enough in this area to fight crime? I doubt it.
2. Banks should also only use systems and programmers based in the UK, as this would mean that those responsible for any serious breaches or problems can have their collar felt.
Personally, I also always access my banking from the same computer, which stays locked in my house and has never left. Those that use apps on their mobile for banking deserve all the trouble they get!
Peer-to-Peer Lending Losses To Be Eligible For Relief
An obstacle to some, who might want to use peer-to-peer lenders to save money, is that any there was no relief for any bad debts. But George Osborne has changed all that and you can read about it in the Guardian. This is said.
And this week the industry received a major boost when George Osborne unveiled a package of measures designed to help it grow. Crucially, the chancellor announced a new bad debt relief which will allow individual investors to offset any losses.
So it seems that peer-to-peer lending is getting less risky all the time.
Zopa Goes With The Flow
This article on CrowdfundInsider talks of a tie-up between a boiler maker; Flow and a peer-to-peer lender; Zopa. This describes the link.
The Flow boiler will be launching in January 2015 and will be available to customers through a new finance package. This will provide a payback time of five years for the complete cost of the boiler. Customers may purchase the Flow boiler using a separate unsecured personal loan via Zopa, with repayments being off-set by reductions in your home energy bill from the value of the electricity generated.
I think we’ll see a lot of deals like this, where two new companies in different fields link up to make two and two add up to six.
This is disruptive innovation at its best.
Zopa’s Courageous Decision
I have believed for a long time, that certain databases should be made public, so that they can be properly analysed.
Suppose for example that a suitably anonymised database of all road deaths, was to be made available.
I will not speculate as to what it might show.
But you can rest assured, that some parties would not like some of the obvious conclusions that were thrown up.
How about to a detailed database of all those in prison?
Because of the power of data analysis, I was very surprised to read that Zopa has decided to make their loan data available for analysis.
It is a very courageous decision, that I hope gets other companies and organisations to do the same thing.
The Anonymous Widower 