It is tempting to dismiss the Renault scandal, which has humiliated Carlos Ghosn, the company’s chief executive, after he admitted this week that it had falsely accused three former executives of espionage, as a corporate Dreyfus affair. Read more
Measuring economic growth by ATMs
There is nothing like a real-world indicator for an economic phenomenon so I was gratified this week to discover a new proxy for economic growth and development – the number of automated teller machines (ATMs).
Bill Nuti, the chief executive of NCR, the US company that makes ATMs for banks and and point-of-sale checkout technology for retailers, told me that China has just overtaken Japan to become the world’s largest ATM market after the US.
He estimates that the US has 1m ATM machines while both China and Japan have about 400,000 each. Brazil, one of the most rapidly expanding markets for financial services, is currently in fourth place with about 175,000 ATM machines. Read more
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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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