Our biggest stories of the past week are ...
Why banks MUST wake up to the mobile social revolution
I was asked to
join a panel discussion on social media during a recent conference. A social
media masterclass, as it was called. Interesting. Sure, I’ve been blogging and
tweeting and facebooking for as long as I can remember, but...
The Opening of the
Financial Services Club, Poland
We had our inaugural meeting of the Financial Services
Club Poland last night at the British Embassy in Warsaw. It was an amazing
evening with a packed audience comprising many of the Presidents of Polish
Banks, as well as banks based in Warsaw from overseas like Deutsche Bank, Saxo
Bank and ICBC (the Chinese banks are very active in Europe). The event was hosted by the Embassy and
generously supported by FIS and the Bankier, with keynote Grzegorz Kolodko.
The future of Europe and the euro
What is the economic outlook for Europe? A speech by
Professor Grzegorz Kolodko, former Deputy Premier of Poland given at the
opening of the Financial Services Club, Poland ...
2013 European Payments Research – Free Report
The Financial Services Club has produced research around
SEPA, the PSD and the European Payments Landscape to coincide with EBA Day over
the past four years, in partnership with Logica (now part of CGI) and EBA
CLEARING. This year’s research is underway and we would ask you to answer a few
short questions by clicking
here.
The real cause of the Bitcoin bubble and burst
All the media has finally woken up to the Bitcoin
phenomena when the value of Bitcoins rose from a steady $20 per coin to $266
last week … only to crash to $100 by the end of the week. What...
Some fintech firms' marketing stinks
There’s an old saying that cropped up the other day in
respect of Margaret Thatcher’s son, Mark. It was a joking reference by Margaret
that her son was so clever he could sell “snow to eskimos or sand to Arabs”...
To regain trust we need to jail some bankers
I went to a Policy Review Summit yesterday, focused upon
rebuilding trust in the banking system. We’ve had a few of these meetings at
the Financial Services Club, and have two more in May, and the discussion
usually comes around...
The major general news stories of the past week include ...
Chart of
the Week: PayPal's Payment Volume (2001-2013) - Payments News
Here's this week's chart of the week - PayPal's payment volume ($ Billions) by
quarter from 2001 through its first quarter 2013 results reported earlier this
week. The last two columns show a bit of seasonality - but, otherwise, a pretty
impressive ramp "up and to the right"! Share your
Visa
Europe Enhances Personal Payments Service - Payments News
Visa Europe has announced two additions to its Visa Personal Payments mobile
service that will enable consumers to make instant transactions from their
mobile phone to any Visa cardholder in Europe, in any European currency. The
Multi-Currency feature, to be available by the end of 2013, allows payments to
be
Barclays
'went behind client's back' to mount rival bid - The Telegraph
Barclays executives warned each other on taped phone calls to "be
careful" before they allegedly went behind a client's back to make a rival
£100m bid for a carbon-trading firm, the High Court heard on Monday.
Lloyds
online banking hits problems - BBC
Customers of Lloyds Banking Group have been facing problems logging on to online
banking, but the bank says the issue is now resolved.
FCA flags
up Barclays as the most complained about bank - The Independent
Barclays has once again topped the official complaints table of shame published
by the City regulator.
Andrew
Bailey: it's 'odd' UK bank bosses have avoided formal charges - The
Telegraph
Britain's chief financial regulator, Andrew Bailey, has said it is "more
than odd" that the chairmen and chief executives who were at the helm of
the failed banks have avoided formal charges.
Financial
crisis caused by too many bankers taking cocaine, says former drugs tsar
- The Telegraph
David Nutt, the former Government drugs tsar sacked after claiming that horse
riding was as safe as taking ecstasy, has said that the banking crisis was
caused by too many workers taking cocaine.
U.S. bank
regulators gain ground against too-big-to-fail bailouts - Reuters
For the past year, a special team of U.S. bank regulators has been on a quiet
mission to end the belief on Wall Street that large banks are "too big to fail."
‘E-money’
challenge for high street banks - Financial Times
‘Non-banks’ provide pre-paid debit cards, while others focus on mobile phone
apps that can be used to pay for products at participating retailers.
Time to
try a new bank? - The Telegraph
The Post Office is the latest to challenge the big four. What do the
alternative banks offer?
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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...
