Podcasts

This is Emerging Opportunities, the only show on radio dedicated to global emerging markets. Your hosts are Share Radio's Juliette Foster and Gavin Serkin, the Managing Editor of the Frontier Funds Consultancy and author of 'Frontier: Exploring the Top Ten Emerging Markets of Tomorrow'. So - just in case you're tuning in from Mars, we're now less than a week away from the US election. With global markets swinging on an increasingly tight race, and with Europe convulsing on Brexit, many investors are wondering whether the risks might in fact be lower in emerging markets. Well, to find out, Juliette and Gavin were joined all the way from New York by Dan Keeler, Editor for Frontier Markets at the Wall Street Journal.

Sub-Saharan Africa is on course for weak economic growth by the end of the year - according to recent IMF figures. Regional GDP in 2015 was 3.5%, the lowest in fifteen years although it could shrink to 3% by the end of the year. The sharp fall in commodity prices hasn't helped especially for countries like Nigeria and Angola, which make their wealth from exporting oil. In contrast, oil-importing countries like Ivory Coast, Kenya and Senegal have seen their GDP rise by 5% or more thanks to infrastructure investment and strong private consumption. So what are Sub-Saharan Africa's prospects? Does the overall weakness prove the area's recent growth momentum has stalled? Alemayehu Geda is Professor of Economics at the University of Addis Ababa and he joined Share Radio's Juliette Foster in the studio along with Professor John Weeks, Share Radio's regular economics commentator.

This week financial journalists Lindsay Cook and Vix Leyton enter the ring to fight for your rights in the financial world. We take a look at whether you should planning for the holiday season yet. Also on the agenda, how half of parents admit to being “piggy bank raiders” and who will get their sucker punch award this week?

Virtual reality has become a major new technology capable of transporting people to fantastical landscapes in a game or film set. Increasingly though it is also being used as a tool by journalists, teachers, healthcare workers and retailers to help understand the world around us. Ben Smith is CEO of Laduma, a virtual reality company, and he spoke to Georgie Frost to explain more.

Time is money, and so diners are calling for restaurants to speed up not only in service but also when it comes to payments. New technology holds the key to keeping up with customers' needs for speed, as diners call for bill-splitting apps and ways to make paying quicker and easier. Our reporter Tom Hill spoke to Sharon Manikon from Barclaycard to find out more.

Are you intimidated by a garage, so much so that that you have been put off by taking your car in one? If the answer is yes, don't panic, you're not alone. Top of the list is the fear of not being able to explain what's wrong with the car in the first place. Other reasons include wanting to avoid a potential dispute with the garage. To find out more, Georgie spoke to model and TV presenter Jodie Kidd.

Every week the UK Money Blogger community have a twitter chat to allow all the bloggers - about 100 in total - to share their experiences, tips and questions. This week it's family budgets and blogger Miss Thrifty spoke to Georgie Frost to tell us more.

Georgie Frost is joined in the studio by Russell Qiurk, CEO of eMoov estate agents. Today they discuss the big story of the day, Bank of England governor Mark Carney is to extend his term by one year to help secure a profitable exit from Europe. Elsewhere, it's bad news for consumers as credit card debt grows at fastest rate since the financial crash. But the silver lining is that the number of mortgages approved for home buyers has surpassed economists' expectations and reached a three-month high. All these stories and more on The News Review.

2016 has been a strange year for IPOs. Political and economic uncertainty worldwide has caused some companies including Misys to cancel their initial public offerings, while others, like GoCompare and FreeAgent, are bucking the trend and listing on the stock exchange. So why is the climate good for some and not so for others? Matt Cox has been speaking with Jasper Lawler, Market Analyst at CMC Markets, to find out.

What is Open Data, why is it important and what will happen to this ideology in Post-Brexit Britain? These are the big issues being discussed at the Open Data Institute's Annual Summit. And Share Radio’s Matt Cox has been speaking to the institute's policy associate, Peter Wells.