Archive for February, 2010

Alchemy signs Tameer Bank as a risk advisory customer

The good news that we have been waiting for… Earlier in February 2010, Alchemy signed up Tameer Bank as a customer. After the InvestBank risk advisory engagement and the Consultnomics FZE LLC account in UAE, the Tameer Bank account is the third major account we have closed in the first two months of the New [...]

February 27, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  One Comment

Learning Corporate Finance – course guide

  Here is the structure of the full course. This should help with Navigation   The first course in Corporate Finance – Session Zero Session I – B: Corporate Finance: Financial Statements – Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss and Cash flows Session II-A: Corporate Finance: The Balance Sheet, Assets, Depreciation Session II-B: Corporate Finance: Balance [...]

February 27, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  One Comment

Learning Corporate Finance or memory lane meets online education meets content…

It was instruction at a level that I had never been exposed to. I had come across some truly great teachers in my prior life but this whole relationship driven, hands on learning approach was the new new thing. The professor was not a professor, the course was not a course. It felt like being [...]

February 26, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  2 Comments

Understanding Commodities Risk – in print March 2010

Understanding Commodities Risk – out in print early March 2010 The principles are simple. Document the supply and demand of a resource, the psychology of its market and participant behaviour and you should have a handle on how prices move. Identify any leading indicators and your price prediction model is complete. Interesting enough while commodities [...]

February 23, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  3 Comments

Shaukat Tarin Quits

Shaukat Tarin, the Banker behind Union Bank and its successful sale to Standard Chartered Bank for about 500 million dollars in 2006, quit this morning as Pakistan’s Finance Minister. Post Union Bank, Shaukat along with a consortium of multination investors acquired Saudi Pak Commercial Bank from SAPICO for a second Union run. The acquired bank [...]

February 23, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Challenges of Life Insurance Marketing

I learnt how to type first on a Remingten typewriter typing away life insurance policy proposals and articles Aba wrote for the Insurance Journal. From issue dealing with trust to issues dealing with Fiqah and Islamic thought on life insurance, my early education on this subject was primarily on account of the work I did [...]

February 23, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Insurance in Islamic thought: Takaful, Family Takaful, Re-Takatful – Part ii

By Rizwan Ahmed Farid (An extract from a series of articles on Insurance in Islamic thought by Rizwan Ahmed Farid, from his upcoming book on Challenges of Life Insurance Marketing)   El-Gamal, Mahmoud A., of Rice University writes:   “Interestingly, while the Islamic insurance industry has adopted a name suggestive of a mutual cooperative system, [...]

February 21, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The Treasury Risk workshop

Here what we covered on Saturday at the Treasury Risk crash course at the Karachi Marriot (thank you Agnes for the notes). The one day Treasury Risk workshop in Dubai is now locked in on the 18th of March 2010 at the Dusit Thani in Dubai. You can download the nomination form here for the [...]

February 21, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The dead zone

Somewhere along the 19th hour of being awake, after keeping a 20 hour schedule for the last three days you find yourself in the dead zone. Your body and mind have given up on sleep and are no longer craving it, you know you are all set to crash but you are still too wired [...]

February 19, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it  No Comments

Treasury one – redux

I had no idea that my treasury one post would generate so much traffic and commentary. On a blog where it is rare to see more than a single comment (given all my anti spam, anti bot, anti social word press defenses) in less than 24 hours 8 comments (ok I confess 4 of them [...]

February 17, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, First degree, I can't hack it, Pakistan  2 Comments

I feel like a rock star – part ii

I don’t like narcissist posts on principal. After all what is the use of having a fan club/site/page if you have to blow your own horn all the time. But this morning when the SP Jain student feedback quietly sneaked into my mailbox and I saw the most generous comments I have ever received as [...]

February 16, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Failure, Startup Insiders, Training, new ventures, small business  No Comments

Treasury One goes live at KASB Bank

Our second Treasury implementation that integrates completely with the Misys Equation backend, the Alchemy Risk Manager Middle Office application and SBP M3 reporting requirements. Additional options include the ability to link up directly with the Reuters dealing system top feed and SBP FX-CRS reporting engine. Took a year and an enormous amount of support from [...]

February 15, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it  20 Comments

Pakistan Risk Review, one year later…

In the beginning it was just risk. Two years ago when we first started working on the concept paper that later became Pakistan Risk Review, we felt that covering prices, volatilities and limits in secondary markets would be a full time job and would certainly be sufficient for a number of customers. After all what [...]

February 15, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  One Comment

Teaching with Promethean boards

I have’nt done a narcisstic post on this blog for a while now. I think one post every few months is good for my circulation, ego, profile and image. So while the post is supposedly about my recent love affair with Promethean Boards, there is as much of moa in each of the pictures as [...]

February 14, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Broad walk Dubai – Lunch, view and seagulls

So on the day in the middle while we were off from our training commitment in Abu Dhabi Nasr took us out for lunch to Broadwalk in Dubai. Three decks of pierside lunch and dinner tables on the creek with a panaromic view of Dubai, and a fusion menu shared with aggressive and territorial sea [...]

February 14, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments