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<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Proptech is in the big leagues now, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-latest-wework-news-2019-6?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest">a front-page meltdown involving one of the biggest proptech-adjacent companies</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-invested-record-246-billion-in-proptech-q3-of-2019-2019-10">record-level investments in proptech companies</a>, and increasing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cretech-2019-more-suits-more-money-more-attendees-than-ever-2019-10"> attention from institutional investors and landlords</a>.</li><li>Some define the word conservatively: proptech is the application of digital and software tools to real estate, in the same way fintech is to finance. To others, the term encompasses a new mode of thinking about real estate that's a reaction to the demands of tech-enabled consumers.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/proptech-vc-metaprop-unveils-their-newest-accelerator-cohort-2019-9">MetaProp</a> co-founders Aaron Block and Zach Aarons's 2019 book PropTech 101 devoted an 18-page chapter to defining proptech and discussing how to categorize startups in the field.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Visit BI Prime for more stories.</a></li></ul>Proptech is in the big leagues now: with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-latest-wework-news-2019-6?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest">a front-page scandal involving one of the biggest proptech-adjacent companies</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-invested-record-246-billion-in-proptech-q3-of-2019-2019-10">record investments in proptech startups,</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cretech-2019-more-suits-more-money-more-attendees-than-ever-2019-10">growing attention from institutional investors and landlords</a>. But what exactly does the term "proptech" mean? Some define it conservatively: proptech is the application of digital and software tools to the problems of real estate, in the same way fintech is to finance.To others, the term encompasses a new mode of thinking about real estate that's a reaction to the demands of tech-enabled consumers. In other words, it's what's happened as operators, owners, and tenants adapt to the effects that tech has had on the rest of the economy.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/proptech-vc-metaprop-unveils-their-newest-accelerator-cohort-2019-9">MetaProp</a> co-founders Aaron Block and Zach Aarons's 2019 book PropTech 101 devotes an 18-page chapter to defining proptech and discussing how to categorize startups in the field. They've created a framework to classify and understand the space, but they're also not sticklers for hard definitions. <h2>Competing Definitions</h2>While proptech is probably the buzziest word for the industry, other terms like real estate tech, RE tech, CRE tech, and built world tech are also in use.Block and Aarons began to use the term in 2016, a gesture they made to proptech's international community after they heard the term used in Europe. While proptech is probably the leading term to describe this change, Business Insider and many others use it interchangeably with its synonyms. They offer their "short" definition of the term: This definition is clear and grounded, but they then complicate it by comparing to the definition of James Dearsley, cofounder of proptech research firm Unissu:This definition acknowledges the shift within real estate as part of a "wider digital transformation," what Block and Aarons call the fourth industrial revolution. It emphasizes that this process is as much about a change in mentality as it is about a change in the way real estate is done. In this framing, Block and Aarons say that proptech is a catalyst towards increased wealth in real estate, the largest asset class in the world. <h2>The challenge of classification</h2>Block and Aarons emphasize the importance of classification at the outset of the chapter, especially in a space where categories can overlap and change can come rapidly. Given these conditions, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-invested-record-246-billion-in-proptech-q3-of-2019-2019-10">investment growing exponentially</a> and no real centralized bodies to dictate the terms, classifications vary wildly. "There are now nearly as many taxonomies for real estate technology as there are analysts tracking the space," they wrote. They delve into one taxonomy by Andrew Baum, a professor who studies real estate technology. Baums sees proptech and fintech as the two circles in a venn diagram, with real-estate focused fintech as the overlap (<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/commercial-real-estate-platform-for-non-accredited-investors-raises-seed-funding-2019-10">think marketplaces for real estate securities</a> or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/divvy-a-rent-to-own-startup-raised-43-million-from-lennar-gic-2019-9">new residential homeowning models</a>).Within proptech, there are two other subcategories. One, smart real estate, centers around the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-nest-launches-first-pilot-greystar-multifamily-rental-apartment-denver-2019-10">internet-of-things and other smart sensor technologies</a>. The other, shared economy, has a small overlap with fintech, and contains everything from <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/wework-employees-startup-rise-fall-new-yorker-2019-11-1028672772">WeWork</a> to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-coliving-company-the-collective-expands-to-the-us-2019-10">coliving</a>.And MetaProp's own taxonomy relies on four variables: technology, asset type, geography, and its place on the real estate value chain. Technology is a simple variable, but as most companies utilize some, or all categories of tech, it is less useful than some of the others. They separate technology into software, basically any sort of software as a service; hardware, any physical components or the Internet of Things; and tech-enabled services, or new business models enabled by tech.WeWork has utilized all three of these categories with their own internal tenant applications, usage of sensors to design and run their space, and their business model of lease arbitrage. The next variable, asset type, also contains some overlap. The asset types: multifamily, office, residential, industrial, retail, and hospitality are self-explanatory. However, tech that is helpful in one may be helpful in some, or all, of the other asset classes. This variable defines the "depth and state of the market" for a potential product. Another variable is geography, especially important in the hyper-local world of real estate. Some products will only work in specific areas, whether as a result of local industry, socioeconomic makeup, or legal regulation. This variable is extremely important, but also self-explanatory.Block and Aarons describe the final variable, the real estate value chain, as "the most important, useful, and unique way in which we categorize PropTech."The idea is to break real estate into its constituent parts, "from dirt to disposition." This steps, from financing to actual building, can be broken down into an infinite number of buckets, though MetaPop has chosen eight: analysis and financing, space ID and listing, site selection and negotiation, diligence, development and construction, process automation, space usage and management, and payment and services. This variable is especially important because it emphasizes a startup's function and usefulness to the real estate industry. It also makes it much simpler to see how startups intersect, and could complement each other. They see these categories as both extremely fluid and easy for building owners and operators to adapt as it fits the way they typically view their own business. One area of interest, construction tech or "contech," shows how this could evolve. What Block and Aarons now consider a part of proptech, under the development and construction bucket, has the opportunity to become a huge industry, potentially even splitting off from proptech. This is all to emphasize that its is important to categorize and define proptech, but that its borders will always change. "PropTech is too dynamic to be framed in steel," they write. "Attempting to lock down categories as the space evolves, we think, would be a mistake. Much better to let the market decide the boundaries and to alter them when innovation or the forces of supply and demand warrant."

Proptech is getting a ton of attention, but its exact definition is hard to pin down. Co-founders of a big VC in the space spent 18 pages of their book trying to explain it.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/brics-jim-oneill/">CNNMoney</a><keyword id="767535" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Jim-ONeill">Jim O'Neill</keyword>.</div></div>Former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill is the one who popularized the term "BRICs" in reference to the group of emerging-market economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
This year, however, the fortunes of those economies have taken a turn for the worse for various reasons, and many investors are abandoning the idea that they will be able to continue the rapid growth that has characterized the past several years.
Much investor attention has therefore shifted from <keyword id="6359891" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="emerging-markets">emerging markets</keyword> to "frontier markets," a classification made up of economies smaller than those of the BRICs.
In a new <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-12/who-you-calling-a-bric-.html">column for Bloomberg View</a>, O'Neill coins a new term: the "MINT" economies (emphasis added):
I spent last week in Indonesia, working on a series for BBC Radio about four of the world's most populous non-BRIC emerging economies. The BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- are already closely watched. The group I'm studying for this project -- let's call them the MINT economies -- deserve no less attention. Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey all have very favorable demographics for at least the next 20 years, and their economic prospects are interesting.
Policy makers and thinkers in the MINT countries have often asked me why I left them out of that first classification. Indonesians made the point with particular force. Over the years I've become accustomed to being told that the BRIC countries should have been the BRIICs all along, or maybe even the BIICs. Wasn't Indonesia's economic potential more compelling than Russia's? Despite the size of its relatively young population (a tremendous asset), I thought it unlikely that Indonesia would do enough on the economic-policy front to quickly realize that potential.
"Now, meeting a diverse group of Indonesians - from the leading candidates for the 2014 presidential elections to shoppers in Jakarta's busy malls - I found a healthy preoccupation with the country's economic prospects," writes O'Neill. "Could Indonesia do what's needed to lift the country's growth rate to 7 percent or more, they were asking, or would it have to settle for 'just' 5 percent?"
<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-12/who-you-calling-a-bric-.html">Read the whole column at Bloomberg View</a>, and expect to hear a lot more about the "MINTs" going forward.

The Economist Who Invent The BRICs Just Invented A Whole new Group Of Countries: The MINTs

New Delhi, Feb 4 () Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Tuesday reported a standalone net loss of Rs 492.28 crore for December quarter 2019-20 as provisioning for bad loans was raised substantially.
The state-owned lender had posted a net profit of Rs 246.51 crore for the same period a year ago. In September quarter 2019-20, the bank logged a profit of Rs 507.05 crore.
Total income during the quarter under review was at Rs 15,967.49 crore as against Rs 14,854.24 crore in the year-ago same period, PNB said in a regulatory filing.
The bank hiked the provisioning for bad loans to Rs 4,445.36 crore for the quarter under review against Rs 2,565.77 crore parked aside for the year-ago period.
On consolidated basis, the lender reported a net loss of Rs 501.93 crore for the quarter under review. However, there was a net profit of Rs 249.75 crore in the same period of 2018-19, the bank said.
Income was at Rs 16,211.24 crore, up from Rs 15,104.94 crore earlier. Provisioning for bad loans was up at Rs 4,471 crore for December quarter from Rs 2,636.09 crore in year-ago same period.
Consolidated results of PNB include earnings from its five subsidiaries, seven associate companies and one joint venture. 
About one of the subsidiaries -- PNB Insurance Broking -- the lender said steps are being taken for winding up the company as the licence has already been surrendered in February 2011.
On the asset quality front, the bank continued to face challenges with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) at 16.30 per cent of gross advances as at December-end 2019, slightly down from 16.33 per cent by the year-ago same period. 
 Net NPAs or bad loans were at 7.18 per cent, down from 8.22 per cent by December 2018.
In absolute terms, gross NPAs of the bank stood at Rs 76,809.20 crore by the end of December quarter of this fiscal, lower than Rs 77,733.33 crore by the same period of 2018-19.
Net NPAs were Rs 30,518.92 crore as against Rs 35,675.12 crore.
The New Delhi-headquartered lender also reported widening of net loss for 2018-19 to Rs 11,335.90 crore from that reported earlier (at Rs 9,975.49 crore) because of divergence in NPA provisioning as assessed by the RBI and what the bank had reported.
For 2018-19, PNB had reported gross NPAs or bad loans of Rs 78,472.70 crore while the RBI reported it to be at Rs 81,089.70 crore, thus leading to a gap of Rs 2,617 crore.
Likewise, net NPA reported by bank stood at Rs 30,037.66 crore in 2018-19, while the RBI assessed it at Rs 32,654.66 crore.
Divergence in provisioning for 2019-20 was also adjusted to Rs 2,091 crore. 
As per RBI directive, banks are required to disclose divergence from prudential norms on income recognition, assets classification and provisioning in case the additional divergence in assets classification and provisioning for NPAs assessed by the RBI exceeds 10 per cent of the reported profit before provisions and contingencies. 
Or if the additional gross NPAs identified by the RBI exceeds 15 per cent of the reported incremental gross NPAs, banks have to report the divergence figures.
"The board of directors in its meeting held on September 5, 2019 has considered and accorded its in-principle approval for amalgamation of the Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India into Punjab National Bank as advised by the alternative mechanism of government and to commence process of amalgamation subject to all applicable approvals," PNB said in the filing.
The provision coverage ratio as on December 31, 2019 stood at 75.27 per cent.
On the latest tax provisions for corporates, it said the bank is in the process of evaluating the option to opt for lower tax rate. The government through an ordinance in September 2019 had provided for an option to migrate to a lower tax regime for the corporate sector given the condition they forego existing tax exemptions.
PNB stock closed at Rs 56.75 on the BSE, down 1.05 per cent. KPM DP KPM ANU
ANU

PNB Q3 loss at Rs 492 cr as NPA provisioning spikes

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>The typical American household has a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/difference-between-wealth-net-worth-income-2019-1">net worth</a> of about $97,300.</li><li>The richest 20% of the US population has a median household net worth of nearly $500,000.</li><li>When broken down by age, it can be helpful to see how your own net worth compares to others'. For example, the richest 20% of 41 to 45-year-olds have a median net worth of $379,000.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>The journey to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-building-wealth-faster-than-you-think-2019-8">building wealth</a> is a highly personal one, but it may be helpful to know how you compare to others along the way.To find out the median net worth of Americans at every age, <a href="https://www.harnesswealth.com/">Harness Wealth</a>, a financial adviser-client matching firm, used household wealth data from the Federal Reserve's <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm">2016 Survey of Consumer Finances</a> and developed its own proprietary classification of ages and ranges of net worth.The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-the-typical-american-be-a-millionaire-2019-8">typical American family</a> had a net worth of $97,290 in 2016, which is the most recent data available. In other words, 50% of the population has a net worth below that threshold, and 50% has a net worth above it. People in the richest 20% have a median net worth of nearly $500,000, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-compass-cfo-says-startup-harness-makes-referrals-using-technology-2019-8">Harness Wealth</a>'s data. You can compare your own net worth using the <a href="https://www.harnesswealth.com/net-worth-calculator">net worth calculator</a>.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-need-to-retire-early-on-investment-income-2019-8">How much money you need to retire at every age and comfortably live on investment income</a>It's important to understand the difference between income and net worth. Net worth is what you're left with after subtracting your liabilities (what you owe) from your assets (what you own), whereas income is what you earn each year and what's reported on an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/taxes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">income tax return</a>. A high income doesn't necessarily translate to a high net worth, which is why the latter is often a better benchmark for measuring wealth.Keep reading to find out the median net worth of the top 20% of US households, according to Harness Wealth's calculations, as well as what it takes to be in top 50% and the top 10%.

The net worth it takes at every age to be richer than most people you know

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0FCI99JE8B6&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1398&amp;RH=718#/SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0FCI99JE8B6&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1398&amp;RH=718&amp;POPUPPN=1&amp;POPUPIID=2C0FQE3KAKTWM">REUTERS/Phil Noble</a>Bank of England Deputy Governor Sam Woods speaks at the 'Future Forum 2017' event in St George's Hall, Liverpool, Britain November 16, 2017.</div></div></div><ul><li>Bank of England Deputy Governor Sam Woods has written to bank, insurance, and investment firm CEOs in a letter titled "Existing or planned exposure to crypto-assets."</li><li>Woods says these new assets are risky, but sets out a framework for companies to use when assessing the risks if they do want to invest.</li><li>"We... recognise that the underlying distributed ledger or cryptographic technologies, on which many crypto-assets rely, have significant potential to benefit the efficiency and resilience of the financial system over time," Woods writes.</li></ul>The Bank of England has cautiously endorsed cryptocurrency technology and outlined a framework for banks that want to invest in crypto-assets.Sam Woods, a deputy governor at the Bank of England and head of the Prudential Regulation Authority, one of Britain's key financial watchdogs, wrote a letter on Thursday to CEOs of banks, insurance companies, and investment firms titled "Existing or planned exposure to crypto-assets."Woods did not ban nor caution against firms investing in crypto assets and in fact wrote: "We... recognise that the underlying distributed ledger or cryptographic technologies, on which many crypto-assets rely, have significant potential to benefit the efficiency and resilience of the financial system over time."Distributed ledger technology was first popularised by bitcoin and allows multiple parties to view and edit a decentralized database. Fans of the technology believe it could help drive efficiency by cutting out middlemen in everything from trading to supply chains.The Bank of England's position contrasts markedly with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), often called the central bank of central banks, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-responds-to-the-bank-of-international-settlements-bitcoin-report-2018-6">dismissed the technology in a scathing report on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies</a> earlier this month."Cryptocurrency technology comes with poor efficiency and vast energy use," the BIS wrote. "Cryptocurrencies cannot scale with transaction demand, are prone to congestion and greatly fluctuate in value."Woods did flag issues around price fluctuation, illiquidity, fraud, price manipulation, terrorist financing, and money laundering related to cryptocurrencies and assets. But the deputy governor presents a framework for how to manage these risks rather than forbidding regulated firms from handling them.Any firms dabbling in crypto should get "the board and highest levels of executive management" to consider the associated risks, the Bank of England said.Remuneration policies should not be tied to risk-taking in the space and firms should seek out crypto experts to help them "conduct extensive due diligence before taking on any crypto-exposure." Companies should also consider their cybersecurity measures and potential reputational risk, the central bank writes.Regulators around the world have been trying to get to grips with how to regulate cryptocurrencies and the lack of clarity has left many companies concerned about what could happen if they do invest in cryptocurrencies and assets.The US Securities and Exchange Commission has been particularly vocal about cryptocurrencies. The regulator said initially that most crypto assets it has seen resemble unregistered securities, but the SEC <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-spikes-after-sec-declares-not-a-security-2018-6">clarified earlier this month that it does not think </a>ether<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-spikes-after-sec-declares-not-a-security-2018-6">, the second-biggest crypto asset by market value, is a security.</a>"Discussions are ongoing, including amongst authorities internationally, on the prudential treatment of crypto-assets," Woods writes in his letter. "We will communicate any supervisory or policy updates on the prudential treatment of crypto-assets... in due course."2017 saw an explosion of new crypto assets being created through initial coin offerings, where startups issue their own digital tokens. There are over 1,500 in circulation, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">according to industry data platform CoinMarketCap.com.</a> Tokens broadly fall into three categories: cryptocurrencies or crypto commodities, like bitcoin or litecoin that are used to transact and store value; utility tokens, which are used to fulfil some function within a new crypto ecosystem such as paying for decentralized file storage; and crypto securities."Although classification will depend on the precise features of the asset, crypto-assets should not be considered as currency for prudential purposes," Woods wrote in the letter.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/future-of-zelle-venmo-and-p2p-payments?IR=T&amp;utm_source=businessinsider&amp;utm_medium=ctgr&amp;utm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_content=payments_ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_campaign=payments_ctgr_leadgen_future-of-zelle"></a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/1-billion-impact-investor-explains-how-she-makes-money-while-improving-the-world-2018-6">From affordable housing to money transfers for immigrants - a $1 billion impact investor explains how she makes money while making the world a better place</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

BANK OF ENGLAND: 'Cryptographic technologies have significant potential to benefit the financial system'

New Delhi, Mar 6 () Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the government has asked the Reserve Bank to look into what went wrong at Yes Bank and fix individual responsibilities.Addressing a press conference after the RBI superseded the board of Yes Bank and placed withdrawal restrictions, she said the bank was being monitored since 2017 and developments relating to it were being monitored on a day-to-day basis.Since 2017, the central bank noticed governance issues and weak regulatory compliance at Yes Bank, besides wrong asset classification and risky credit decisions, she said.On finding risky credit decisions, the RBI advised change in management, she said.These decisions were taken in the interest of the bank's health, and a new CEO was appointed in September 2018 and cleaning up of bank started, she said adding that investigative agencies too had found irregularities.She said the RBI has been asked to assess the causes of problems and identify the role played by individuals.The government, she said, wants the RBI to ensure that due process of law is followed with a sense of urgency.The restructuring scheme will be fully effective within 30 days, she said adding that State Bank of India has expressed willingness to invest in Yes Bank.The Finance Minister also said that employment and salary of Yes Bank employees has been assured for one year.She said Anil Ambani Group, Essel, ILFS, DHFL and Vodafone were among the stressed corporates Yes Bank had exposure to.Finance Minister retorted back at senior Congress leader and former finance P Chidambaram saying United Western Bank collapsed in 2006 under the "self-appointed competent doctors." "We are ensuring customers interest are protected," she said. "We can assure all depositors that their money is safe." "I am closely monitoring every institution which requires that kind of monitoring along with RBI," she added. JD ANZ NKDMKJ

FM says RBI to look into what went wrong at Yes Bank

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Global impact funds now have over $322 billion in assets under management, PitchBook data shows.</li><li>Many of them face a similar issue: How do they measure how impactful their investments have been?</li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/what-is-impact-investing">Impact investing</a> has become big business.Funds dedicated to everything from improving working conditions to tackling carbon emissions now have over $322 billion in assets under management, <a href="https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/Q4_2022_PitchBook_Analyst_Note_Impact_Investing_Update.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to PitchBook.</a> But despite their explosion in popularity over the past decade, many of them are tussling with the same issue: How do we measure how impactful our investments have been?The impact of climate-tech investments is often equated with the potential metric tons of carbon dioxide removed or redacted from the atmosphere. European funds World Fund and Counteract, for example, use this method to justify investments. But measuring social impact is more complex and could open the sector up to greenwashing, according to a panel at 4 Years From Now, a startup conference hosted this week alongside Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona. Social impact is wide-ranging and includes efforts to improve equality and justice. But there is no overall definition accepted globally of what impact is, according to Matteo Cera, cofounder at Hogaru, a Colombia-focused cleaning startup. Hogaru helped formalize illegal cleaning work and gave its workers job security. The EU taxonomy, a classification system for sustainable investments, offered some clarity to fund managers. It put legal restrictions in place for what counts as an impact fund based on investments and reporting requirements, but there is no clear framework on how to calculate portfolio impact. Cera added that he struggled to call Hogaru an impact company at first because he was "just being legal." Social impact measurement is all about the baseline, said Maria Oliva Farriol, impact and ESG manager at Oryx Impact. Oryx Impact is a Barcelona-based fund of funds focused on economic development, climate change, and equality in Africa. <div type="image" title="Matteo Cera, cofounder at Hogaru, Maria Oliva Farriol of Oryx Impact, and Marta del Castillo, CEO of Social Next" height="4000" width="5333" msid="98394999" hostid="261" sizebytes="468102"></div>"Understanding impact is about understanding the difference you're making," Farriol said.But this can be inherently challenging to standardize given that every business or fund is different. There is also a "danger" in setting up an inflexible standard, she added. "If we have a VC, early stage, investing in fintech, we're not going to be there on day one asking for emissions … that's not useful. It's not meaningful, it's not going to help that VC scale their impact in their portfolio." Businesses must collect data to understand their baseline and subsequent impact, Farriol said. This needs to be causal, not a correlation, and KPIs should always be relevant to the fund or company and its stage, she added.Data collection is not without its challenges. As a fund of funds, which has 400 companies underneath its portfolio of fund managers, Oryx Impact's request for data from its own portfolio has been a "pain" rather than being catalytic, Farriol added. If funds are being asked for data from all of their investors, it can become a burden.To avoid this, Oryx Impact is taking advantage of technology to digitize its impact measurement and management strategy. It hopes to give its portfolio the tools and methodologies they need to gather their own data.

The $322 billion impact investment market is grappling with a fundamental question: How does it measure how much good it has achieved?

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>The US Central Intelligence Agency created an Instagram account on Thursday and picked an image that depicts the agency's clandestine nature for its first post.</li><li>In the picture, various items are scattered across what appears to be an office cubicle.</li><li>But as the picture's cryptic caption suggests, many of them have a hidden meaning.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>The US Central Intelligence Agency created an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cia/">Instagram account</a> on Thursday and picked an image that depicts the agency's clandestine nature for its first post.In the picture, various items are scattered across what appears to be an office cubicle.A desk clock, an employee badge, and maps of Russia and China - a few items, save the 1970s-style wallpaper, look as if they belong in the typical workspace of a CIA analyst.But as the picture's cryptic caption suggests, many of them have a hidden meaning: "I spy with my little eye...," the caption reads.Many of the items belong to current CIA employees, according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-joins-instagram-and-posts-a-symbol-laden-first-picture/">CBS News</a>.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Some of the items pictured include:<ul><li>A photo of CIA director Gina Haspel from 1985 on a badge - in another <a href="https://twitter.com/JennaMC_Laugh/status/1121450710112055304">image</a>, the number 0911947 appears on the badge. The CIA first came into <a href="https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/history-of-the-cia">operation</a> on September 18, 1947.</li><li>A golden owl statue that represents Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.</li><li>A desk clock's time shows 8:46 the <a href="https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/disasters/wtc-2001.html">time</a> when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.</li><li>A box containing cuff links that were used by a case officer and an asset. The two CIA employees reportedly never met each other and used the cuff links to identify each another.</li><li>A plant to depict an intelligence "plant."</li><li>The infamous classification stamp.</li><li>Something that resembles a gray wig.</li><li>A <a href="https://fam.state.gov/fam/06fam/06fam1780.html">burn bag</a> under the desk</li><li>An image of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/obituaries/tony-mendez-dead.html">Tony Mendez</a>, a CIA officer who oversaw the brazen 1979 rescue of six US hostages in Iran.</li></ul>"Joining Instagram is another way we're sharing CIA's stories and recruiting talented Americans to serve here," a CIA spokesperson said to CBS News. "Through the account, we'll give a peek into Agency life, but we can't promise any selfies from secret locations."The CIA's public affairs team recently made another savvy move on social media by referencing a scene from HBO's "Game of Thrones."Former CIA deputy director David Cohen appeared as an extra on the most recent episode of "Game of Thrones."<div></div>

The CIA's first post on Instagram is a cryptic mashup of hidden messages

Imagine you've spent billions of dollars building the world's fastest race car. Then you decide to put a young kid behind the wheel, only to see them crash the car into the walls of the track.Not just once, but over and over again.It's a dangerous proposition for the kid. You're giving them a powerful tool without teaching them how to use it.Plus, it's really, really expensive.Nevertheless, that looks to be the US intelligence community's approach to handling classified information.The tangled views of Jack Teixeira, who was indicted Friday in connection with leaking hundreds of classified documents to a private Discord server, are still coming into focus. But one thing is already clear. At 21 years old, Teixeira is old enough to vote, drink, and serve in the armed forces. But his alleged behavior indicates that despite his training, he was little more than a child, three years into his first enlistment. An airman at a National Guard unit in Massachusetts, he seems to have spent much of his free time hanging out online, arguing with strangers, and venting stupid and reportedly racist opinions. A lot of them had to do with a war in Ukraine that he himself, by all appearances, knew next to nothing about. Nevertheless, the United States government allegedly saw fit to make this young man a Cyber Transport Systems Journeyman, and grant him access to some of its most closely guarded secrets, the fruits of an intelligence apparatus that costs taxpayers some $90 billion a year. Why?Part of the problem here has to do with basic math. Classification is a World War Two-era legacy system that was designed to regulate the flow of secret paper — physical documents carried around in pouches and bound with brass tacks or staples. Today, classification governs how an ever-expanding pool of employees and contractors at combatant commands, joint task forces, and three-letter agencies can access a shadowy global network of digital assets. There are classified phone systems, email systems, fiber optic cables, and a Wikipedia clone. There are special rooms called SCIFs for accessing and discussing this information. More than 2 million people hold security clearances that allow them to access the terabytes of data flowing through this global network. Each one of them represents a potential point of failure. Plus, they all have smartphones. A couple of generations ago, Daniel Ellsberg had to borrow a friend's photocopier to make copies of a secret Pentagon report for the media. When I visited Ellsberg's home in California, he showed me how he'd used a typewriter to reconstruct internal government documents one keystroke at a time. Today, a leak that would have taken Ellsberg months can be pulled off in seconds with a click-and-drag to a USB, or a few snaps of an iPhone camera.The math has been stacked against the secret-keepers for a generation. But what's different about the Teixeira case is the apparent pointlessness. Earlier leaks were targeted public statements made by self-styled whistleblowers with discernible political motives. Whatever you might think of their views, they were actually trying to reveal perceived wrongdoing. Ellsberg's leak was intended to expose the Pentagon's privately pessimistic view of the Vietnam War. Edward Snowden showed how the NSA and phone companies were playing fast and loose with the Fourth Amendment. Reality Winner wanted to prove that Russian interference in the 2016 election was not, as certain Substack edgelords continue to claim, a complete fiction. Daniel Hale and Chelsea Manning wanted to give US voters an up-close view of the carnage inflicted by their democratically elected overseas killing machine.<div type="image" title="Jack Teixeira as a young man, in uniform." height="946" width="1262" msid="99515657" hostid="261"></div>Teixeira, meanwhile, allegedly did it not for country, but for clout. He was arrested Thursday and did not enter a plea at a federal court appearance the next day. According to reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post, his intended audience was a small circle of pseudonymous online friends. The scattershot trove of documents that he transcribed and later photographed were never supposed to circulate beyond this closed circle of two dozen Discord users. And Teixeira's alleged motives — a mix of braggadocio and a desire to "educate" his cronies about a war that he himself was observing from a keyboard, an ocean away — simply do not make sense beyond the confines of the shitposting chatroom environment that fostered them. Among other things, the Teixeira case is an instance of what social media experts had dubbed "context collapse," the accidental leakage of audience-specific content from insiders who understand it to a larger group of outsiders who do not.So the last generation of leakers, right or wrong, could reasonably claim to be thinking grown-ups with articulable reasons for breaking laws that come with severe penalties. Teixeira hasn't yet made a public statement, but the early reporting suggests this was all done to simply feel more important than he was. In the absence of a legible political argument from Teixeira, what's left is a case study in total systemic dysfunction. The nakedness of that meltdown offers an opportunity for some desperately needed reform. With Snowden and others, the country could argue about whether they were traitors for violating their oaths or heroes for obeying a higher set of Constitutional obligations. Their disclosures opened up an important and ongoing debate about how much information should be classified in the first place, and how concealing the underlying facts about critical questions in the name of "national security" tends to erode our democracy. The Teixeira case exposes something entirely different, how the US classification system fails to deliver not only in a high-minded democratic sense, but also on its own terms, namely the ability to make a select group of people trustable in the keeping of secrets. Before, the debate was whether the size of the classified world tended to undermine democracy. (For the record, I believe it does.) Now, it's worth asking whether it's in the process of collapsing under its own weight – a possibility underscored by the apparent leak's emergence at an obscure Cape Cod outpost, far from the US military's core decision-making hubs. Aside from the question of how many people have access to secrets, it's also worth considering how many of those supposed secrets belong on classified systems at all. Some of what Teixeira allegedly posted contains specific data about troop numbers and casualties; other items relay publicly reported information and read like front-of-the-book briefings from the Economist. The redundancy made me think of a story I had heard, about a 9/11 commissioner who was brought into a classified chamber and given a secret file. The commissioner opened the file, and out fell a packet of newspaper clippings. "This is all already out there," the investigator said. "Yes," said his agency escort. "But now you know that it's true."That story came to me secondhand, but it illustrates an important point about the risks of establishing a segregated realm of premium information. In addition to cutting the people off from the truth, it can put blinders on the national-security elite, cutting them off from the more obvious insights of our open-source reality.The path to reforming the classification system begins with some simple questions: Who screened and trained Teixeira? How many others are out there — young men and women with few years and too much time on their hands? Did a low-ranking airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard actually need to view Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented intelligence in order to do his job maintaining secret computer networks? Who was his supervisor? Who was tracking the whereabouts of the volume of secret files he appears to have sent to the printer? Who were his colleagues? Why didn't anyone have an inkling of what he was up to for months, not until the documents he allegedly transcribed and photographed started showing up on 4chan? Who is minding the store here?If taxpayers are going to continue to shell out $90 billion a year for a bureaucracy that they're legally barred from knowing much about, they shouldn't feel like they're setting that money on fire. Voters can debate the intelligence community's values, its transparency, and its objectives. But at a bare minimum, the apparatus should actually work.Update: Chelsea Manning's name has been corrected.

Jack Teixeira's alleged Discord leaks show why the US should stop showering Top Secret clearances on 21-year-old keyboard warriors

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Getty Images/Spencer Platt</div></div>This weekend the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html?pagewanted=1&amp;=_r=6&amp;_r=1">New York Times wrote</a> a story about Metro International Trade Services, a Detroit-based <keyword id="126663" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="aluminum">aluminum</keyword> storage company owned by <keyword id="6361649" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Goldman-Sachs">Goldman Sachs</keyword>.
The way the NYT tells it, Goldman is shuffling the commodity around its own warehouses in order to increase demand for the commodity, thus impacting the price of the commodity.
Goldman shot back, arguing that customers control flows in and out of the warehouses since they own the actual commodity. Additionally, Goldman said the commodity is suffering from weak demand, which has been reflected in the beating its spot price has taken since February when it was at $2,100 a ton to now, <a href="http://www.lme.com/en-gb/metals/non-ferrous/aluminium/#tab2">when it sits below $1,775 a ton.</a>
Because of an obscure (to us laymen) <keyword id="6368158" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="trading">trading</keyword> phenomena, they could both be right. It could be that Goldman is impacting the price of the commodity, but not because of something as simple as a warehouse shuffle.
The trading phenomena is called contango. It's what happens when the curve showing the spot price of a commodity (the price at which you can buy a commodity at a give time) is less than the futures market's price for the commodity.
The spot price merely considers the value of the commodity, the futures price factors in the spot price, the theoretical minimal return on investment an investor can expect, and time to maturity of the contract (that includes storage/convenience costs).
Izabella Kaminska got super technical with it <a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/07/22/1575852/commodities-and-banks-a-recap/">in a post of FT Alphaville</a>. She pointed out that during a contango, anyone housing the asset can make a profit by forward selling it on the futures market, then they can essentially let the owners of the asset pay rent until it has to be delivered.
Regulation demands that Goldman move the aluminum around after a certain amount of time, and that's why there's all the trucking rigmarole. That isn't, however, what impacts price. The game changer is the fact that the market paying futures prices for the commodity, eventually impacts the spot price of the commodity.
"They [Goldman] can influence the price heavily because they affect a price where the entire market pegs," said Jeffrey Carter, a former board member of the Chicago Mercantile exchange and writer of the blog, <a href="http://pointsandfigures.com/">Points and Figures</a>. "The key is where is the market pegged. Using the same logic, think about LIBOR, the financial crisis and the Eurodollar contract. The banks fixed the rate and under reported where it was. That allowed them to have cheaper borrowing costs when they should have seen skyrocketing borrowing costs."
Goldman would argue that they don't own enough aluminum to make a difference, since Metro is just one company in a big London Mercantile Exchange system. Additionally, 95% of the world's aluminum doesn't go through the warehouse system at all.
It's hard to tell, though, because this market is so murky. Trading houses can change the classification of <keyword id="35149" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="commodities">commodities</keyword> from public inventory to private "dark inventory" and vice versa when they're being pre-sold (as they are in this case), <a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2011/10/21/708441/the-power-of-the-dark-inventory/">according to the FT.</a>
"The best remedy is a transparent public market, accessible by anyone (speculators included)," said Carter. "That means trading isn't secret, there isn't any way to game the system (which is what Goldman was doing). The market needs to be marked to market, cleared and settled each day by an independent, objective third party. That will bring some discipline, because of approved delivery facilities and transparent rules."
We'll know more about that in September, as the Federal Reserve reconsiders the 2003 ruling that allowed banks like Goldman to step into this business (and own physical commodities) in the first place. You can bet that the banks won't take it lying down though.

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