What is time famine? It is a mental feeling of being starved for time; always feeling there is not enough time to do everything that we want to do and a state of being where the time is always less and the to-do list always longer. The term, Time Famine came about in scientific literature around 1999 and is now commonly understood to mean a mental state of not having enough time. Time Famine makes us rush through the motions of life; sprinting across the days feeling exhausted and overwhelmed as opposed to savoring the existence. Time Famine can lead to mental health issues such as burnout, a ..read more

The OCC released their semi-annual report, Semiannual Risk Perspective for Fall 2023 last week on the state of the banking industry in the US and notes that state of banking industry remains sound but challenged while the economic headwinds are receding due to strong consumer spending, strength in labor market and resilient corporate profits. However the report highlights challenges that inflation remains above long term goal (2%); job growth is slowing and warns that consumer savings have been depleted due to strong spending and end of pandemic assistance. Some interesting nuggets from the re ..read more

It has been a long gap since I last wrote and much has happened in the financial world in these past few months (FTX trial, CZ arrest, Bitcoin resurge, inflation cooling, new Basel regulations etc). However I am starting from where I had left off in my last post which had observed common gaps between the two crypto banks that had collapsed in March leading to an upheaval in the banking system in spring of this year. Eight months later, Basel Committee has released a post-mortem report on the 2023 banking crisis which is now recognized has having been the most significant and most severe since ..read more

In September last year crypto lenders Celsius, Vauld and Voyager Digital closed and now the collapsing dominoes of crypto have reached the crypto banks with Silvergate and Silcon Valley Bank (SVB) closing last week. There are three common factors behind the 2 bank failures this week; first both had concentration risk in their deposit base as they went ‘all-in’ for certain sectors – crypto in case of Silvergate and start-up and venture capital firms in case of SVB. Second common factor is that both banks had poor risk management and were ill-equipped to deal with the age-old ‘run on the bank’ o ..read more

I was recommended Radical Candor by Kim Scott and I have found it to be a treasure trove of practical and invaluable leadership and management advice. After reading it, I felt compelled to share what I had learnt; the information was too rich to digest alone. Key insight behind Radical Candor is that command and control can hinder innovation and harm a team’s efficiency and that collaboration and innovation flourish when human relationships replace bullying and bureaucracy. The goal of Radical Candor is to help managers and leaders achieve collaboratively what they cannot achieve individually ..read more

The Office of Comptroller of currency (OCC) released it’s annual report which provides the official status of the federal banking system to the Congress. For the general public, the report is a useful barometer of the banking industry and additionally provides the priorities and initiative’s of the agency (OCC) and their view of the top risks facing the US banking industry. The report covers all of the 1,068 banks supervised by the OCC ranging from the small community banks to the four largest, most globally active banks which hold 60% of the banking assets in the country. In their 2022 annual ..read more

Introduction: The dominoes continue to collapse in the crypto world. The failure of a some big name crypto lenders shows that contagion risk is not confined to the physical world but also front and center in the digital world. Failed crypto bank, Celsius filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in July and declared a $1.2 billion shortfall in the company’s balance sheet. This was not a surprise as Celsius had stopped customer withdrawals earlier in the summer and now has stated in it’s bankruptcy filing that it owes more than $4.7 billion to customers. Similar fate could come for customers of another c ..read more

Introduction: OCC (Office of Comptroller of Currency) which supervises national banks and agencies of foreign banks in US released it’s semi-annual risk report last week. The report presents risks facing banks that “pose threats to the the safety and soundness of banks and their compliance with applicable laws and regulations”. The report presents an optimistic message – while the risk of downside growth is increasing due to tightening financial conditions and geopolitical uncertainty the banks continue to be financially strong having navigated the pandemic well and are adequately capitalized ..read more

Summary: 2021 saw a huge increase in price and popularity of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) which followed the rise in cryptocurrencies and it was the year that NFT’s became mainstream with celebrity endorsements and even a mention in the Saturday Night Live show. This year, NFT’s have declined in price and volume along with with cryptocurrencies and other asset classes with the rise in interest rates and now doubts are being raised about their future. However there is wide potential use of NFT that has not yet been explored and NFT’s may stay as an alternative asset class and be a feature of the di ..read more

The latest US jobs report released on Friday by Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that the US economy is close to regaining all of the jobs lost due to the pandemic with unemployment at 3.6% compared to 3.5% at Feb 2020 . The underlying numbers such as the long term unemployed (without jobs for 27 weeks or more) and labor force participation (without jobs but actively looking) are also showing continued solid recovery; the long term unemployed moved down to 1.4 million and is now just marginally higher than Feb 2020 by 235,000. The labor force participation was 62.3% and is now 1.1% belo ..read more