The Finanser’s Week: 13th May – 19th May 2013

Our biggest
stories of the past week are ...

Faster Payments is five years old

The UK's Faster Payments Service (FPS) celebrated its fifth
birthday on 8th May.  Since 2008 the system has grown rapidly, as
evidenced in the transaction volumes:

• an overall transaction percentage increase of
  181%
• 735.6 million annual transactions in 2012
• 900-950 million transactions anticipated in 2013
• processing around £740 billion a year

Banks designed for
humans, not money

I was in an interesting debate yesterday about the future of
banking, as usual, and the future of branches, yet again. It was all interesting
stuff. Then one of the presenters – a design agency that created and designed
the... 

Banks designed for
humans by geeks

I was going to move away from further debate about branch
and omnichannel today, as there’s far more interesting stuff about Google
giving payments away for free with Gmail and PayPal doing the same with mobile,
but that will have...

Changing a bank's
culture needs actions not words

We had a fascinating discussion about how to fix the banks
at the Financial Services Club last night (Part Two next week) and the gist of
what most panellists came back to, as well as the audience, is that we...

Bank security is like
a King with a Princess

Once upon a time, there was a King. The King had been
married to his Queen for three years, when the Queen gave birth to a Princess.
Sixteen years later, the King was worried about his daughter. The Princess
was...

From Bloomberg to
Snoopberg

The shock news of the day, or not, is that Bloomberg’s
reporters have been spying on their customers. Or that’s the suspicion anyway,
and was kicked off by Goldman Sachs complaint that a reporter from Bloomberg
had telephoned to find ...

  
The major general
news stories of the past week include ...  

HSBC
eyes 14,000 job cuts as it looks for $3bn cost saving - The Telegraph
HSBC could cut as many as 14,000 jobs in the next three years in an effort to
reduce its annual costs by between $2bn (£1.3bn) and $3bn.      
 

Bankwatch:
Bill Oddie evicted from HSBC headquarters after protest over bank's links to
logging companies blamed for destruction of the rainforest in Malaysia
- The Independent
Bill Oddie, the naturalist and BBC television presenter, has made a provocative
protest film intended to embarrass the global bank HSBC over its links to
logging companies blamed for the destruction of the rainforest in Malaysia.
       

Lloyds
may appoint woman as next chairman as Bischoff seeks exit - The
Independent
The starting pistol was fired on the race to find the next chairman of Lloyds
Banking Group yesterday as the current chairman, Sir Win Bischoff, 72, said he
wanted to retire no later than next year's annual meeting.      
 

Bloomberg
scrambles to reassure users - Financial Times
Clients now asking if group’s greatest asset – its ability to generate stories
from terminals on almost every trading desk – has become a liability

Co-op
pioneers would not be amused by bank crisis - The Telegraph
The Rochdale Pioneers would not have been amused. The group of 30 weavers and
their friends who struggled to open what was arguably Britain's first
co-operative store back in 1844 would have regarded the plight of the Co-op
Bank as a symptom of a society that did little for them.

Fed
orders Citigroup to improve money laundering checks - Reuters
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has ordered Citigroup Inc to better police for
the risk of money laundering, part of a broad U.S. regulatory crackdown on the
potential for illicit money flows.

After
ATM heist, India's IT sector again in unwelcome spotlight - Reuters
MUMBAI/BANGALORE (Reuters) - A breach of security at two payment card processing
companies in India that led to heists at cash machines around the world has
reopened questions on the risks of outsourcing sensitive financial services to
the Asian nation.

For
banks in cyber heist, how to get their money back? - Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Because the sums were large and such attacks are
relatively new, the two Middle East banks hit in a $45 million ATM heist face
an uncertain path in trying to recover their losses, financial, insurance and
legal experts say.

France
threatens to take euro crisis to 'higher plane' , says billionaire hedge fund
boss Michael Hintze - The Telegraph
A stagnant economy, a weak President and a jump in car burnings are all signs
of a looming crisis in France that threatens to drive the eurozone's problems
to a "higher plane", says hedge fund boss Michael Hintze.  
     

The
great credit card takeaway - BBC
How people are persuaded to give away their plastic  

 

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