Colin James is one of those people that has spent his life exploring cultures, religions, philosophies and human psychology, which makes him uniquely qualified to speak on the subject of motivation and drivers.

In this essay Colin looks at the drivers of the "banking culture" in the wake of the royal commission, and considers how culture in the workplace is one of the driving forces of performance.

The housing market has hit the wall.

After years of unrelenting strength, house prices are dropping. Not by much, at this stage, but the heat in the Sydney market in particular, has suddenly turned cold.

The fascinating and scary thing is that the price falls are increasingly widespread.

It's a bumpy ride ahead, says noted Australian economist Saul Eslake, but perhaps not as bad as it could be.

Calls of housing crashes, banking busts and general gloom will be wrong again.

The housing market has peaked with prices no longer growing. At the same time, auction clearance rates are lower and a solid pipeline of new supply – particularly apartments – will soon flood the market in a number of cities and regions.

The big question for business and individuals - how severe will the downturn be and what does it mean for the economy?

Britain's leaving the European Union is one of the biggest shocks of the past decade, both to the political establishment (in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and beyond) and to the financial markets (again, in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and beyond).

At a time when consumer dissatisfaction with banking is at an all-time-high, the financial services industry has come to realise the need to innovate or die. With social services encroaching on traditional banking services and internet banking changing the role of the bank teller in society, there is one voice which has come to dominate the conversation about banking's future.

I’ve been thinking about the issues that I’m likely to find myself talking about at conferences and events across the coming year. Here are ten things that I think are set to shape and shape the global and Australian economies during 2016.

Watch multi award-winning speaker and bestselling author Michael McQueen explain how the Law of Amplification is the #1 KPI you're most likely ignoring..

While disruption has been the business buzzword of choice recent years, the past 12 months have been an unprecedented and significant time for fundamental change in organisations.

As 2014 draws to a close, it is time to think about your business, your personal financial plans and how trends in the economy might impact you in 2015.

Without understanding the intricacies of the economy, including what sectors will be strong, where interest rates might be going, what will happen to the Australian dollar or housing or consumer spending, there is a risk that an opportunity will be missed.

Budget, Budget, Budget. That is the word occupying the minds of economist, CEOs, parents, working mums and students alike. But as the results from the commission audit are released, Stephen Koukoulas gives us an insight into just how the government will come up with these figures and his take on what this means for the average Australian.

In light of the humbug of the 'budget never returning to surplus unless we cut the tripe out of spending', I though it interesting to revisit the sensitivity of budget forecasting to small changes to the economic parameters.

Are banks becoming irrelevant? Are payments going to be invisible? Where is our money going to be held? Brett King examines all of these questions and so much more in his latest book.

House prices are moving into very dangerous territory.

They are rising so fast and are moving to a point where there is a very real risk of a situation that spills over to poor borrowing decisions, relaxed lending standards and financial market malaise that would threaten to end Australia’s multi-decade economic expansion.

There is a very long held assumption that economics is a bunch of very serious people talking about very serious, and dare I say boring, things. But I’m here to prove that just isn’t true!

I was in India a few weeks ago speaking to the Reserve Bank and most of the primary Retail Banks about the impact of mobile and social media on the industry there. .

Enshrined in the banking culture and in bank regulations is the perceived 1:1 relationship between branches and Financial Inclusion. This is not unheard of in developed economies either, but in India it is so much a part of the culture that no one has rethought this paradigm in a very long time. The assumption simply is that if India wants inclusion, it needs more branches.

India has just 110 branches per million persons, compared with the USA which has more than 300 branches per million persons, and Spain which has an incredible 900 branches per million persons, with the next nearest in the EU being Italy with 650/mm.

In most developed economies the CAGR of aggregate number of bank branches is -2% to -4% annually these days, and is trending towards a steeper decline. Some economies like Australia have been slow to start this decline, but a normalized range of branch density for most developed economies probably is around 100-150 branches per million.

I know this in itself will generate much debate, but bear with me here.

Neural Latency Intellisense

Investment banking as a sector looks to have a much more positive outlook this year than in previous years. The year will see the implementation of a lot of the regulatory changes formulated since the crisis hit, and a marketplace that is starting to settle into the new normal, whatever that is.

Australia’s finance sector is on track for several more years of solid growth...

Stephen Koukoulas is one of Australia’s most respected economists. His background covers the spectrum of economic insight - from his role as Chief Economist of Citibank to Senior Economic Advisor to the Australian Prime Minister.

In his latest article Stephen argues against the widely held belief that first homebuyers are being priced out of the market, showing us (and Bridie at The Guardian) that with a little frugality and some more realistic expectations, your first home isn’t just a dream.

Bitcoin has been in the news a lot lately.

Involved in everything from space travel with Virgin Galactic, NFC with Nio Card and even Snoop Dogg‘s next record.

As is normal at this time if the year, economists are pretty much compelled to outline their main themes for the economy and markets in the year ahead.

I am not different so here we go.

Scott is a visionary and banking innovator who, as Movenbank's Chief Mobile Officer is poised to disrupt the banking services industry with a mobile-centric offering unlike any other. In this fascinating piece Scott explores what our physical money actually means and how we can expect this to change in the not so distant future.

Some say that it makes the world go round, others call it the root of all evil. But what exactly is money? Why do we need it? And where did it come from?

Ron Shevlin (@rshevlin) and Jim Bruene (@netbanker) and I, have been back and forth regarding Ron's article on so-called NeoChecking Account and the news of the GoBank launch here in the US earlier this year. 

Yesterday, President Barack Obama gave what Al Gore called the "best presidential address on climate change ever." It's true: the actions President Obama outlined will likely reduce our contribution to climate change, possibly by quite a lot. And while the plan will have large impacts on business, it's not a big enough vision to meet the scale of our climate challenge.

'The Wevolution Revolution' is a recount of Yossi's amazing adventure of building 'Chalalan' an eco-tourism resort in the heart of the Amazon that inspired the world. Through this fascinating story on a timely idea and the power of vision, Yossi touches big picture issues and identifies new trends and values in the emerging new world. Yossi talks like no one else on understanding nature's module of the eco-system with its internal design and principles. He talks about the economic philosophy before and after the GFC. His insights are striking in their originality, thought provoking and enlightening for organization who are interested to quickly adapt and go ahead of the curve.

In 1961, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia bought its first computer – the Ferranti.

It had 1K of memory, cost $360,000 (£220,000) and was the size of a whole room. A typical mid-range laptop computer today has 250,000 times the memory, is 4-8 million times faster and costs 1/500th of what the Ferranti cost as a computing platform. This process, the acceleration of technological capability, is known as Moore’s law – and it has meant that since the late 1800s, the rates of technology adoption and diffusion into society have kept getting faster.

2013:

in 2013, retail, housing and finance should do well, sparked by lower interest rates and still low unemployment. Construction should start to turn higher, but manufacturing and tourism may well remain soft. The strong Australian dollar will not help. Mining will remain hostage to the world economy and that is looking problematic with China slowing, Europe in recession and the US still fragile. Don't bank on the boom in mining continuing.

Brett King knows a thing or two about banking - most of which he’d like to change!

For the last few months Brett’s disruptive banking startup, Movenbank has been full steam ahead closing $2.4Million in seed capital with VCs and seeing increasing coverage in local and international press.

Movenbank will be launching internationally in 2013 with the support of a local U.S. bank.

The new financial year kicks off on 1 July 2012 and having watched the economy and financial markets for more than two decades, these calendar benchmarks are a good time to take stock, look ahead and think about the issues that are likely to impact on businesses and personal finances.

Before doing that, there is no doubt that in the last month or two, there has been some great economic news in Australia.