The Finanser’s Week: 16th March 2015 – 22nd March 2015

Our biggest stories of the past week are ...

Do you work for a monkey tree organisation?

I’m often asked about how to implement a digital bank?  What are the top tips?  My response is that every company is different, with no two banks the same.  Some are evolutionary and try to tinker with the current company structure; some are revolutionary, like mBank, and radically reorganise the current structure; whilst some are transformational, like BNP Paribas and Hello!, where the only way to create the new structure is through the launch of a new bank.

It's about behaviours, not technology

So I visit a tradeshow last week focused upon the future of payments, and everyone is presenting their latest mobile apps and designs.  "That's not the future of money", I fume silently at the back.  Then we had a mention of bitcoin and my ears pricked up.  Oh, it's a bitcoin mobile app.

The Finanser Interviews: Jon Matonis, Crypocurrency Economist

Bitcoin still stirs up a huge debate about where it will go in the future; will it become institutionalised; what is the blockchain going to do to banking; and more.  In order to clarify the debate, we interviewed Jon Matonis, a renowned expert on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, to find out what is the truth.

Will Facebook and Apple Pay kill Visa and MasterCard?

So Facebook announced clarification of plans to rollout Facebook Pay, an easy way to pay friends through Facebook using your debit card.

Why the mobile ecosystem just became easy

I had a good chat about the mobile financial ecosystem today.  Maybe a good example of that ecosystem is represented below:

What this portrays is that it’s complicated.  There’s a lot of players doing a lot of things and the bank has to herd cats to make it work.

  

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

George Osborne risks stand-off with City after unprecedented Budget tax raid on banks - The Telegraph
Increase to bank levy and other taxes on sector mean measures announced in the last six months will raise more than £9bn in next parliament

Bitcoin: Government to regulate cryptocurrency to avoid money laundering, says Treasury - The Independent
The Government is to regulate bitcoin exchanges to stop their use as money laundering hubs, the Treasury said today.

You can now use Facebook to send money to your friends - The Telegraph
Facebook to roll out feature that will let its users send money to each other via its Messenger mobile app

Lloyds pledge for investors after Spanish bank's £1.7bn bid for TSB - Daily Mail
Lloyds has promised to compensate thousands of investors who bought shares in TSB when it floated on the stockmarket, if the challenger bank is snapped up by Spanish suitor Banco Sabadell before June 25.

HSBC closing Britons' Jersey accounts - BBC
HSBC closes all accounts on Jersey belonging to customers living in the UK and is among UK lenders carrying out identity checks on thousands of their customers on the Channel Islands.

Rise of Turkish Islamic banks chimes with Erdogan's ideals - Reuters
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Selling fruit from a cart in a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul hasn't made Mehmet rich, but he's adamant his modest savings won't ever see the inside of a bank.

Aldermore: How the bank formed in the depths of the crisis found success - The Telegraph
Interview: In 2008, Phillip Monks was out of a job and decided to start his own bank. Today, it is worth over £650m

Deutsche Bank 'Horribly Undercapitalized': Regulator - Here is the City
A top U.S. banking regulator called Deutsche Bank's capital levels "horrible" and said it is the worst on a list of global banks based on one measurement of leverage ratios.

'After 50 years, Lloyds is selling me to another bank’ - The Telegraph
Lloyds is splitting off 600 branches into a separate bank called TSB. Customers are going too – and they’re not happy.

Co-op saved, but banks face shake-up in pivotal week - The Independent
The Co-operative Bank will this week announce a plan to fill a £1.5bn hole in its finances, just as the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards recommends new powers to break up struggling banks.