"The entire lending industry was so inefficient, and the way to make it efficient was to cut out the bank"
However Renaud Laplanche’s crowdfunding platform Lending Club has just hired one of the US’s best-known bankers, John Mack, to its board (see The money network: Why crowdfunding threatens traditional bank lending)
"It’s been a bit of a puzzle that a hiccup in Athens still manages to create a tremor in Lagos. There has been a real dichotomy between the performance of the real economy and local financial markets"
John Hyman, co-head of investment banking at Renaissance Capital, suggests that a decoupling of Africa from developed markets is some way away (see Africa: Market conditions prompt a waiting game)
"If you look at the highways, the universities, the hospitals, the schools, the industrial zones, the number of factories, even the composition of domestic production and exports, it is all changing"
Mohammed Al Jasser, the minister for economy and planning in Saudi Arabia, insists that the country’s transformation is firmly on track (see Saudi Arabia ramps up expectations)