The Next Revolution in our Credit-Driven Economy

This book is a timely and comprehensive description of the rapidly changing financial world. It covers not only the changing role of financial institutions but is also one of the first to analyze the profound impact of technology and big data on financial institutions and transactions. There is no question that the tens of billions of dollars in fines levied on the banks will change their ways of doing business. But, when a world top bank announces that it is hoping major institutional depositors will withdraw at least a hundred billion dollars in deposits, something serious must have happened. The book covers, in everyday language, the lead-up to and the current status of this transformation. Best of all, the author draws on his extensive BRIC experience to differentiate an increasingly regional market despite much hyped “globalisation.” It is also a must read for the practitioner, as the author goes beyond descriptions to investment strategies.

– Charles Liu, founder and former chairman of Hao Capital, and financial technology pioneer in China

Throughout history, dictators have abused their control of finance to subjugate people and destroy economic vitality. Paul Schulte's exceptional understanding and international experience permit him to show simple metrics by which all can measure when and how finance is abused to the detriment of investors. He shows, moreover, that advancements in technology now offer both the means and a process by which the world can end this sad saga, for everyone's benefit.

– Frederick L. Feldkamp, attorney; co-author of Financial Stability: Fraud, Confidence, and the Wealth of Nations (Wiley, 2014)

Paul Schulte's book is brilliant, witty and has penetrating simplicity. He moves beyond connecting the dots for a sneak peek on how online-to-offline credit is the Jedi lightsaber which is behind the rise, fall, and renaissance of livelihood, lifestyle and power hubs globally. His book prisms the perfect storms and vast opportunities as Wall Street, Corporates, Government and Digital Continents align and disrupt. Spotlighting the urkraft of bank credit, Schulte presciently lays out how mobile, wireless and cloud data analytics are turbocharging the jump over the garden wall for vast pools of money – the lifeblood of business, nonprofit funding and government. The canvas Schulte unrolls reads like a thriller in fiction – entertaining and more jolting because it is nonfiction.

– Camille Tang, president and co-founder, ConvenientPower Group

After the global financial crisis of 2008, the Queen of England wondered why all the country's economists had failed to sound warnings. Financial instabilities are inherently unpredictable; all you can do is clean up afterwards, quoth Greenspan. But in this important book Paul Schulte explains how crises can indeed be foreseen. For our lifetimes, economic “growth” has been driven by the expansion of credit. Failure to account adequately for the overwhelming importance of credit has led governments and central banks to miss obvious warning signs. Warning signs of another type are being missed today by many of the world's major banks. The second half of this book analyses how their revenue streams are under attack, while their costs are driven ever higher by regulators and governments. This will inevitably lead to the ultimate irony: “too big to fail” will be rephrased as “so big, it must fail.” Customers may be winners; shareholders assuredly will not. At least Queen Elizabeth and Jamie Dimon should read this book. You should, too.

– Nick Sallnow-Smith, former UK Treasury civil servant; former company treasurer and ex-banker

This book ties together the unethical practices of banks with the growing financial and wealth-gap crisis destabilizing our world.

– Max Keiser, editor and host, The Kaiser Report

Credit allows us to spend money we don't have, to buy goods we don't want, to show off to people we don't like. More prosaically, excessive credit creation over the past half century has fuelled a series of rolling asset price booms and busts to which the solution has always been to create even more credit. Schulte, unlike most policymakers, understands the relationship between credit and real life. This timely work explains these inter-linkages and how the technology and big data revolution is spawning new models of financial intermediation that threaten the very existence of traditional banks.

– Simon Ogus, CEO, DSG Asia Limited

Paul is one of the most astute commentators in his understanding of the financial architecture globally. This book gives the reader a ringside seat into the fast evolving creative destruction that is engulfing the financial services industry in the aftermath of the global financial crisis which has altered the regulatory landscape permanently. This interplays with the lightning-speed evolution of Internet-led fulfilment of underserved areas in this space. A tectonic shift is in the making. This book is a must-read for anyone following financial markets.