The Finanser’s Week: 16th September – 22nd September 2013 (#SIBOS)

Our biggest stories of the past week are ...

A
SWIFT week in Dubai (#Sibos 1)

Chris Skinner here. I can’t tell you much about what I’m up
to, except that I’m here in the beautiful city of Dubai, jewel of the United
Arab Emirates and international hub between the world and the Middle East.

How
will the waiter bring the bill tomorrow? (#Sibos 2)

So I gave the waiter the international sign for the check
please in the bar last night, by writing the wavy signature in the air.  I
then realised this sign is as outdated as taping something or setting up the
video recorder.

Is
banking being fundamentally disrupted by technology change? (#Sibos
3)

The first part of the day is in the innotribe talking about
the future of money, as session that went pretty well I thought, with a full
room and a good interaction. This year we talked a lot about the business model
of banking and whether it was being fundamentally disrupted or just challenged
by the changes of digitisation and technology.

At
40 years old, is SWIFT going through a mid-life crisis (#SIBOS 4)

It’s time to jump into the plenary session. The session
kicks off with Samir Assaf, Global Head of Banking and Markets for HSBC talking
about how this is the first SIBOS to take place in the Middle East, and that it
will be one of many to come he expects as the Middle East is becoming ‘the
crossroads of the world’.

The
dilemma of a tradeshow where cultures collide (#Sibos 5)

To drink or not to drink, that is the question.

The
future bank will be the one with biggest (inter)network (#Sibos 6)

It's not the size of the bank but the size of the bank's
network that counts these days.

Finding
nano-needles in giant data haystacks (#sibos 7 #innotribe)

What is data?  How do you analyse it?  And how do
you deal with it, when your customers are producing terrabytes of the stuff
every day?

Mobile
and cybersecurity: what's the latest (#SIBOS 8)

Attending the two sessions on the latest trends in
cybersecurity for banks and mobile innovations gave a fascinating view of the
latest state of play, especially when the audience votes showed that there are
real issues in both areas.

JPMorgan's
$1 billion compliance costs, and more (#Sibos 9)

A discussion of Jamie Dimon's four-page internal staff
email, outlining how the company is tackling compliance with over  $1
billion spent this year, including a 27 percent increase in technology
deployment for compliance management.

There
will be another crisis, it's inevitable (#Sibos 10)

So I just left the main plenary session on regulation and
rebuilding trust, ably chaired by John Gapper, Chief Business Commentator and
Associate Editor of the Financial Times.  The panel consisted of four
people representing various regions and operations around the world:

• Werner
  Steinmuller, Head of Transaction Banking for Deutsche Bank (Europe)
• May Abulnaga, Head of Regulatory Affairs, Central Bank of
  Egypt (Middle East, Africa)
• Andrew Sheng, President, Fung Global Institute (Asia)
• Stefan Gavell, EVP Regulatory, Industry and Government
  Affairs, State Street (America)

The
future of money (#Sibos 11 #innotribe)

For those who like a laugh, here's our panel from the
innotribe discussing the future of money on SIBOS TV!

The
#innotribe start-up challenge - the first nine contestants (#Sibos
12)

So now to the big half day final of innotribe, where new and
innovative firms are recognised in the Start-up challenge.  There are two
categories: start-ups and innovators. Start-ups must be less than three years
old and innovators qualify as anything innovative.  This year there are
nine start-ups and six innovators selected from over 175 applicants in the
Grand Final here in Dubai.

And
the winners of the #Innotribe Start-up Challenge are ... (#Sibos
14)

Waking up on day four, the final day of SIBOS, I am greeted
by yet another hazy sunny morning and a complementary hazy head.  First,
congratulations to the winners of the Innotribe Start-up Challenge at #Sibos!
 The top Start-up is ...

T2S,
CCP, CSD, SSS, LSEG ... WTF? (#Sibos 15)

After a great cappuccino from Franco, it’s off to the first
session of the day which is a different one to my norm. It’s T2S time!  T2S
or TARGET2 for Securities is important as it’s a key backbone for European
trading, so what is T2S?

My
little Angry Banker app (#Sibos 16)

After the brain challenging discussions of T2S, I revert to
type and slip into a few sessions that seem to be of interest on the surface
but turn out to be no more than advertorials.  This is a new thing for me
at SIBOS, in that I don’t remember previous years having sponsored sessions
that were quite as overtly sponsored on the main agenda, or is that subvertly.

You
might want world peace, but get real (#Sibos 17 #innotribe)

So we just finished the day with the closing plenaries.
 Yes, plenaries plural.  First there was the innotribe closure and
then the SIBOS closure, and these were very different affairs.  The two
were very different as you can probably tell from the innotribe opening where
...

SWIFT must stick to its 'True North' (#Sibos 18) 

As we leave SIBOS 2013, there are many good memories from
the great conversations around innotribe, to the buzz of the exhibit hall – and
yes, there was a buzz this year – to the immersion in the mainstream
sessions...

Remembering #SIBOS 2013 in pictures (#Sibos 19)

Due to the poor WiFi conectivity last week – did I mention that? – I didn’t post many photos of SIBOS. Usually, I would post a whole load, so here are some of my favourite memories of last week.

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

How
the Fed's 'taper' hits UK homeowners - The Telegraph
Prudent want-to-be homeowners may have spotted an important change in the past
few weeks. Mortgage rates have started to rise, particularly for five year
fixed-rate loans.        

Barclays
to refund 300,000 borrowers - BBC
Barclays says it is going to return interest payments to at least 300,000
personal loan customers due to mistakes in their paperwork.

RBS
branch sale could come this week - The Telegraph
Royal Bank of Scotland could make a decision on the sale of its 315-branch
Project Rainbow business this week amid reports one of the three bidders for
the unit has had its offer rejected.        

Banks
hail 'new era of competition' - The Telegraph
With banks making £139 from each current account, the launch of "seven-day
switching" today may inject much-needed competition.      
 

Barclays'
£322m of hidden fees for Qatar - The Telegraph
Barclays faces a £50m fine from the UK financial regulator for acting
"recklessly" by failing to fully disclose details of a 2008
fundraising with investors in Qatar, the bank revealed in its rights issue
prospectus.        

Banks
in talks to set up joint checks - Financial Times
Bankers and consultants said there was a flurry of discussions with data
management and technology groups about joint checks of corporate and
institutional customers

Bank
switchers 'could save £600' - BBC
The UK's 46 million bank customers are being told they could save up to £600 by
switching their current accounts to another provider.

Five
years after Lehman, Americans still angry at Wall Street: Reuters/Ipsos poll
- Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A few years ago, Larry Summers, then the director of
President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, held a private meeting with
some of Wall Street's top bankers and executives.

All
aboard for Europe's shrinking bank branch network - Reuters
Banks have shut about 20,000 branches across Europe in the last four years,
including 5,500 last year and 7,200 in 2011, according to a Reuters analysis of
European Central Bank data.

£750m
sale of 632 Lloyds branches to Co-op collapses - The Independent
After more than a year of negotiations the £750 million deal for the Co-op to
buy more than 600 branches from taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group has
collapsed.            

For details of sponsorship email us.