€100 million investment potential for new retail Irish lifestyle bank
Strategic partners only; hedge funds, private equity and institutions need not apply
If plans for Flip succeed it will become the first new retail player in Ireland since Postbank’s short-lived venture in 2007 and the first to offer cutting edge technology like an app that allows customers to scan and upload cheques instead of physically depositing them.
Wanted - investors willing to pump €100 million into a new European bank that picked Ireland as its first market. Strategic partners only, hedge funds, private equity and institutions need not apply.
American marketing expert Travis Ledwith and German banker Thomas Buemsen have been quietly making that unlikely-sounding pitch to telecoms and technology firms and other hand-picked investors for the last few months.
Now the duo are kicking off formal fundraising that they hope will allow them to cash in on Ireland’s newly-concentrated banking market, the turnaround from economic crisis and the Dublin technology hub that will help them break new ground.
Public perception of the country’s current lenders, including the surviving domestic banks who were among those bailed out to the tune of close to €70 billion, doesn’t hurt either.
“Most of the clients had a negative experience with their existing bank,” said Buemsen (46) who met 33-year-old Ledwith on an international MBA course in 2012.
“Danske Bank is leaving, ACC is leaving, they have huge losses. All the other banks that were state owned are still State owned…It (personal banking) is an area of banking which was neglected in the last couple of years.”
If their plans for Flip succeed they’ll become the first new retail player in Ireland since Postbank’s shortlived venture in 2007 and the first to offer cutting edge technology like an app that allows customers to scan and upload cheques instead of physically depositing them.
They want it to be a “lifestyle bank”, tailored to making your life easier, a concept similar to the one used by a Thai bank called K Bank.
They hope the Irish operation will be open by 2015 and are already thinking further afield, with plans to replicate the model in Italy and Spain, where they see similar post-crisis opportunities, and in Germany, where they want to take advantage of a large banking market they say is lacking in innovation.
Brand new banks have been few and far between across the developed world. Jason Quarry, head of Oliver Wyman UK, cites several barriers to entry – the lack of an existing brand, customer inertia over switching bank accounts, not having an existing balance sheet and cash flow, and the need to develop the complex operating platform needed to run a bank.
“However, you can turn each of those on their head and turn them into an advantage,” he said.
“Historic brand dynamics are shifting given the challenges from the financial crisis; customers are gradually becoming more willing to consider alternative providers; the lack of a balance sheet means less exposure to credit losses from legacy lending; the lack of existing IT complexity offers the chance of developing a clean operating model.”
I’m feeling great after cancer operation says Majella O’Donnell
Majella & Daniel O’Donnell pictured with Irish Canser Society supporters Angus Oliver, Ruby Mason and Jack Temple.
And yesterday brave Majella released the first picture of her recovery – just five days after her surgery.
Majella (53) is battling cancer but says that after the major operation to remove both her breasts, she just needs rest and is feeling “great”.
SICKNESS
Majella told fans of her husband on his website that it has been a difficult time, with her sickness and the sudden passing of her father.
Writing from her hospital bed, Majella said that she knows she has a long way to go but that she is taking it step-by-step.
“Well, it’s been a very difficult seven months between being diagnosed with cancer and my wonderful dad passing away very suddenly. As Daniel has already told you, I had a lumpectomy in July and started chemotherapy in September.
“I am now in hospital on day five after surgery for a double mastectomy with reconstruction. I feel great, thank God!
“It’s so good to be this far down the road and to know that all I have to do now is rest and heal,” she added.
And brave Majella said she would not have been able to get through her ordeal without the support of the Irish public.
She revealed she has received thousands of messages and cards on her road to recovery.
“What I want to tell you all at this stage is how very grateful I am to every one of you for everything you have done for me over the last few months,” she said.
“Please do not think that, because you haven’t heard from me, your kindness has gone unnoticed.
“All your prayers, good wishes, donations, gifts, mass cards, and sacred relics have been of great comfort to me.
“I consider myself very lucky to have so many people batting for me.
“I can honestly say that I’m out the ‘other side’ and in good health again.
“There have been thousands of communications and every one was so sincerely appreciated and welcomed. I will never forget your kindness,” she added.
Majella captured the imagination of the public when she appeared on the Late Late Show to shave off her hair.
In the process she managed to raise €600,000 for the Irish Cancer Society.
Male nurse admits taping patient’s mouth to keep him quiet in a moment of stupidity?
The incident occurred at St John’s Hospital in Sligo in 2013
A nurse today admitted taping a patient’s mouth to keep him quiet in a long-term care hospital.
Bimbo Paden, a 39-year-old father of three, pleaded guilty at Sligo District Court to taping a 49-year-old man’s mouth when he was caring for several patients in a facility in the hospital.
The incident occurred at St John’s Hospital, Ballytivnan, Sligo, on June 26th last year. The court was told the patient was in the hospital, incapacitated and needing 24-hour care following a brain haemorrhage 13 years ago.
Inspector Colm Nevin said the Filipino-born male nurse – in Ireland for 12 years, most of it nursing at St John’s Hospital – placed a surgical tape over the patient’s mouth.
“I was alone and caring for five bays of patients with no one to assist me,” said the nurse. “In a moment of complete stupidity I put a small piece of surgical tape on Kevin’s mouth.”
He said he moved it away when another nurse came in to help him. He added that he had nursed the patient for six years.
Judge Kevin Kilrane was told there were a number of investigations, including by Hiqa and an internal hospital inquiry. Mr Paden had voluntarily agreed to be suspended from the registry of nurses and had been suspended from work since the incident last June.
The court heard the patient’s brother had engaged with the HSE and obtained certain documents in which names were redacted. Judge Kilrane noted from Hiqa and other documents before him that investigators were unable to comment on the psychological impact on the patient, but he was clinically well on the day of the incident and on following days.
The judge said Mr Paden, with an excellent work record, “made one bad mistake in his career”.
He adjourned the hearing until March 13th.
Defence solicitor Mark Mullaney said the future employment of Mr Paden, who fought back tears during the hearing, was dependant on the decision of the court.
Ella the 31″ Sligo cow to enter Guiness record books as world’s smallest Cow
A tiny Irish cow in Sligo is set to enter the record books as the smallest in the world. Ella, a Dexter cow from Sligo, stands at 31 inches some two inches shorter than the previous record holder, Swallow, from England.
Sligo farmer Henry Judge shows ‘Ear to the Ground’ presenter Ella McSweeney her tiny bovine namesake.
The diminutive bovine, which features on RTÉ’s Ear to the Ground tonight, is even dwarfed by one of the pigs at her home in Oxhill Stud, Dromore West, Co Sligo.
Her proud owner, Henry Judge, said he is confident that 3-year-old Ella will secure her slot in the next Guinness Book of Records as the shortest cow on the planet.
“I think she is the smallest cow in the world. She was measured at 31 inches. She would walk under the kitchen table,” he said.
“I have a pig that is bigger than her and she was no bigger than a terrier when she was born.
“At the moment there is one there measured by the Guinness Book of Records. It’s a little black Dexter called Swallow in England but this one is nearly two inches shorter.”
Judge said Ella had to be a fully grown adult of three years to be officially measured for the record. “Ella can be measured by the Guinness Book of Records now as she is nearly four years old in April. She is seen as a fully grown adult. I had her professionally measured at 31 inches and having been showing her as the world’s smallest cow.”
The Sligo farmer told how he named the cow after RTÉ presenter Ella McSweeney as she was on his Oxhill Stud the day Ella’s mother calved.
He said: “Her name is Oxmount Ella and Ella for short. She is called after Ella as she was here talking to me for a radio show that day and I showed her a pregnant cow and the cow calved that evening.
“I told Ella if the cow calved and it was female I would name her after her and I kept my promise.”
The pint-sized bovine gave birth to a regular-sized Dexter calf last year but, within weeks, her calf needed to crouch downon his knees to suckle under his tiny mother.
Judge said: “The first calf she had was known as a long-legged calf and after about three weeks he had to go down on his knees to suckle her.”
Ella, who was born in April 2010, will be kept at his farm for the rest of her life. Judge said: “She will be here on the farm until she dies. We hope to get a calf for her every year for the next 10 or 15 years. They have a very long life, those little cows.”
Judge said he breeds Connemara ponies, the Dexter cows, and Blackface Mountain sheep. The Dexter cows were in danger of extinction in the 1970s but Judge revealed that they are enjoying a resurgence in farms across Ireland.
Artificial sunlight on sensitive leaf could be used to produce a cheap energy & oxygen
- Scientists have taken inspiration from nature to create an artificial leaf
- The leaf uses sunlight to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen
- Hydrogen can be used to propel spacecraft, and is a potential fuel source for combustion engines and other vehicles
Taking inspiration from the natural process of photosynthesis, scientists are one step closer to a functional design for an artificial leaf
Society is always on the lookout for cheap, clean, and efficient sources of energy.
One of the most obvious and promising of these sources is hydrogen.
An environmentally-friendly fuel, hydrogen can be produced by breaking water down into its separate elements of hydrogen and oxygen – but doing this in an cheap way is tricky.
Now, scientists are taking inspiration from nature, and are one step closer to producing an artificial leaf that may be able to do the job.
Leaves harness the power of sunlight for photosynthesis, turning water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen can be used to propel spacecraft, and is a potential fuel source for combustion engines and other vehicles, including commercial aircraft.
Scientists at Arizona State University and the Argonne National Laboratory have designed an artificial leaf that uses the same process.
‘Initially, our artificial leaf did not work very well,’ said ASU chemistry professor Thomas Moore.
After analysing the design, Moore and colleagues noticed that one step in the chemical chain was slowing the whole process down, where a fast reaction had to interact with a slow one – creating a kind of ‘bottleneck’ in the leaf’s productivity.
‘The fast reaction is the step where light energy is converted to chemical energy,’ added Professor Moore, ‘and the slow one is the step where the chemical energy is used to convert water into its elements.’
After looking more closely at this step, the scientists realised that they could mimic nature even further, as the natural process uses ‘an intermediate step,’ said Professor Moore.
This intermediate step staggered the reactions, meaning that while the ‘fast’ part of the relay was able to move onwards, the ‘slow’ part had enough time to progress in an efficient way without delaying the overall reaction.
On the left, the artificial leaf system is shown – the part in yellow is newly inspired by the natural process of photosynthesis, and acts as an ‘electron relay’, delaying some part of the reaction and advancing others to improve the system’s overall efficiency. The diagram on the right shows a natural photosynthesising system
THE USE OF HYDROGEN FUEL
Although hydrogen is abundant in our atmosphere, it is so light that it rises and is rarely found in its pure form.
Producing the fuel currently is not viable – more fuel is needed to produce the substance than can be retrieved from using it.
It is used to propel spacecraft, and is a potential fuel source for combustion engines and other vehicles, including commercial aircraft.
The team looked at the reactions on an atomic level, using a mix of X-ray crystallography and spectroscopy to explore the environment around the electrons and protons involved in the reactions.
They found that the natural process escapes a bottleneck effect due to a unique structural feature – an unusually short bond between a hydrogen atom and a neighbouring nitrogen atom.
After creating an artificial step similar to this natural one, the performance of the artificial leaf was greatly improved.
Although it is not yet a viable option for mass energy production, the development pushes the leaf design one step closer to the production of renewable and carbon-neutral fuels.
The finding also improves our understanding of how the natural photosynthesis process works within plants.
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