Our biggest stories of the week are ...
Amartya Sen: thoughts on poverty and the global financial crisis
I attended an interesting lecture last night from an economic legend: Professor Amartya Sen of Harvard University. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s known as the Mother Teresa of economics in his native India, and has spent a lifetime...
How to create a banking strategy
Following on from my discussions of solutions versus product people and vertical alignment versus horizontal, the question came up as to how to think strategically. How can you really get inside the customer’s head? What keeps the CEO awake at...
How will the world look post-crisis?
I’ve been debating some future presentations with various folks today, and a little ray of light went off in my head. The light was triggered by a comment: “can you talk about what impact regulatory change may have on bank...
The euro will go on, and on, and on ...
Over the weekend, Standard & Poor’s downgraded nine Eurzone countries, calling into question the viability of the Eurozone for the long term. France was downgraded to a level not seen since 1975. Italy is now considered the same credit risk...
Consumers will pay for better online banking
PwC conducted research with almost 3,000 banking customers from a range of segments across markets to discover their expectations of banking in the digital age. They selected both emerging and developing markets including China, India, Mexico and the UAE, as...
One of the good friends of the Financial Services Club is David Shirreff, European Business Correspondent for the Economist. David and his compatriots Russell Sarre (music) and Ross Livingstone (direction) have come up with another timely piece of fun: Eurocrash! The Musical.
The major general news stories of the week include ...
MPs push for Sir Fred Goodwin to lose knighthood - The Telegraph
Sir Fred Goodwin, the controversial former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, is to come under further pressure over his knighthood.
MPs round on Mervyn King for 'disrespect' over Bank proposals - The Telegraph
Sir Mervyn King has been accused of being "disrespectful" by MPs, with members of the Treasury Select Committee complaining he gave them too little time to consider proposals for a new oversight body.
RBS attracts bidders for investment bank, raising hopes for jobs - The Telegraph
EXCLUSIVE: Royal Bank of Scotland has received initial offers for all the investment banking businesses it is attempting to sell, raising hopes that many of the staff facing redundancy may be taken on by the buyers.
Barclays chief won't heed pleas for restraint on pay - The Telegraph
Vince Cable has personally warned Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays, that banking executives must show restraint in next month's bonus round.
The world according to Goldman Sachs - The Telegraph
Ahead of the Davos summit, Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn talks to The Sunday Telegraph about the outlook for Europe, the US economy and whether 2012 holds any rays of hope.
A Look at PayPal's 4Q2011 Financial Results - Payments News
PayPal's parent eBay announced financial results for 4Q2011. PayPal ended the quarter with 106.3 million active registered accounts, a 13% increase year over year. On average, PayPal added a million new accounts every month in 2011. PayPal revenue for the quarter increased 28% year over year driven primarily by continued
Survey Says More than Half of Retailers Testing In-Store Tablets in 2012 - Payments News
In its latest custom research report, RIS News looks at retailers’ incredible interest in tablets and finds that "While only 6% of respondents report that tablets are fully deployed in their stores today, another 28% are currently testing tablets in stores and an additional 31% plan to begin testing in
UK bond trade put at risk by new US financial regulation - The Telegraph
New rules designed to stop banks playing fast and loose with their customers' money could have the knock-on effect of hobbling the market in UK government debt, investors and traders have warned.
Black Friday for euro crisis - The Independent
The eurozone lurched further into chaos as France was downgraded by a top credit rating agency and talks on a crucial deal to restructure Greece's unsustainable public debt burden broke down.
Central bank independence at risk from financial crisis, warns UBS - The Telegraph
The potential for losses from the banking system to wipe out all or much of the capital of central banks could see the end of independence for monetary authorities, according to UBS.
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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...
