For
those who missed it and are interested, here's the webinar I delivered
with Accuity last week on mobile payments, AML and KYC. Click here to access the webinar.
The biggest news stories of the week include:
Lloyds asks taxpayers for another £5bn (Guardian)
Bonuses Put Goldman in Public Relations Bind (New York Times)
Banker wages: When $650 million doesn't show up (Charlotte Observer)
US banks' profits beat forecasts (BBC)
Bill Shields Most Banks From Review (New York Times)
Have Banks No Shame? (New York Times)
Lessons from the financial crisis, Keynote address by Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank
Speech by Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, at the
SEPA Direct Debit Launch Event in Brussels, 13
October 2009
Dark pools 'may need more light' -US SEC chief (Reuters)
Split-second deals pose risk for market, players say
(Times)
Al-Qaeda 'faces funding crisis' (BBC)
Bruce Wasserstein dies (Telegraph)
And our key stories of the week include:
American Banks: Two Good, Two Bad
This week, it's Q3 results time for US banks and the story appears to be one of two good banks and two bad banks. The good are JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, who have both delivered
stonking results. The bad are, you guessed it, Bank of America and Citi
who are both struggling with domestic credit market losses.
Daylight robbery the Swedish way
Talking with a Swedish colleague, he asked me if I'd heard about their massive and audacious robbery. It
wasn't his robbery or his banks as it turned out, but it is a Swedish
heist that has already become one of the top ten robberies of all time.
There
are conflicting needs in banking today, which results in many banks suffering from a form of
schizophrenia where they want to be two organisations in one. The first
organisation is nice and cuddly, customer loving and smiley. The second
is a bad tempered, suspicious, customer hating grump. And no-one makes money out of being nice, so does it
matter whether a bank is dominated by the grump or the smiley?
Is 'poor' acceptable as the industry average?
I wrote yesterday's blog
about Mr. Grump versus Mr. Smiley bank because someone recently said to
me: "Chris, you seem so angry ..." It wasn't a reference to my blog
content but to the way my face was purple with steam coming out of my
ears because I'm not angry ... I'm livid with (some) banks.
First Direct leading the social finance mainstream
For
over four years, since Facebook first appeared on my radar, I've been
waiting for a UK bank to really get into social media. Finally, for the first time, one gets it. First Direct.
I blogged in positive terms recently about Royal Bank of Scotland and the 'Powered by NatWest' partnership it had created as a mobile payments processor for O2. Just as this landmark partnership was created, RBS decided to close down their internal mobile payments team.
The simplest definition
is hosted services using the internet, but it covers a lot more than
that including delivery of software, hardware and infrastructure as a
pay-as-you-go service.You just pay for what you use, and yesterday I thought of three very clear applications
for payments in the cloud.
Cloud Computing needs better definition to succeed
We
released results of our Cloud Computing survey today which finds that
there is a clear need for Cloud Computing in financial institutions,
especially capital markets which are highly technology driven. More than half of respondents from capital markets say IT is driving
Cloud Computing compared to just a quarter of retail respondents but,
overall, the business user just does not see the need for it.
It’s Monday, start of the week, smile on my face and sun in the sky. I should be looking up, pushing forward, feeling fine and seeing the future as bright but there’s a little cloud on the horizon called doubt. There is doubt due to a feeling we have prescribed the drugs to treat the illness but have not cured the disease.
Webinar on Mobile, AML and KYC
Collective noun for economists? A confusion!
Just stumbled across Yoram Bauman, the Stand Up Economist, who is obviously a chap who believes in the power of economic thinking as he has a Ph.d. in Economics. His ten principles of economic theory are quite fascinating in fact.
Probably the best hedge fund in the world ...
Beer makers Stella Artois and Carling are running ethical advertising campaigns at the moment and the Stella one caught my attention ...
Some of you may have spotted that the Financial Services Club's logo is represented by a Bull and a Bear. Now I've discovered the living and breathing representation of the Club's badge: Hoofy the Bull and Boo the Bear.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
