For those of you who don’t know it, China has its own rating agency. It is called Dagong Global Credit Rating Group. This week the Dagong Global Credit Rating Group reduced its credit rating for the U.S. to A+ from AA, citing a deteriorating intent and ability to repay debt obligations after the Federal Reserve [...]

It’s been a while since my May 2009 post, whose title was: The consequences of printing money. What has changed since end of May 2009? Let’s try to review the two main ingredients that are influencing our economy: Government debts are increasing. Based in Switzerland – in the heart of Europe (geographically I mean since [...]

We are currently looking at the life insurance market in Europe and more specifically saving and retirement solutions involving wealth management by insurance companies. In the frame of our initial work, we have tried to identify the differences between the main European markets comparing each of them in terms of density and penetration: Life insurers [...]

A bit more than one year ago in the middle of the financial crisis, some banks and one big insurer have been saved by governments since their bankruptcy would have put the whole international financial system in great danger. “Too big to fail” is the expression that has been widely used to caracterize this policy. [...]

The financial crisis and the economic downturn having pushed governments to massively inject money into the economy – firstly to partly or fully nationalize financial institutions and secondly to stimulate the economy – have contributed to question the validity of the principles of the free market theory among populations and the general opinions in Europe [...]

Some observers think that we are at the beginning of the end of this financial crisis and its consequences while others believe this is just the end of the beginning. Celent has given its thoughts on the impact of the financial crisis on insurers in a report published in September last year: Bad News on [...]

Since we published Bad News on the Street, Insurance IT Strategy and the Financial Crisis in early October, the economic roller coaster continues to twist and gyrate. One assumption in that report, that there will be a “mild to moderate” recession, is being severely challenged. The mortgage meltdown morphed into a credit confidence crisis which [...]