The Finanser’s Week: 30th May – 5th June 2016

Our main stories of this week includes …

Regulations, Innovations, Sandboxes and #RegTech

So I just attended a really interesting two day meeting that covered all things blockchain, regulations, innovation and more. I’ll blog about the bits I can in the next few days, and thought I’d start with an overview of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Regulatory …

Banks know it is better to be the second mouse

During one part of my recent conference activity, I asked the banks in the audience how they organised their innovation strategies.  All of them have one, is the good news.  All of them have different nuances of how they structure for innovation however.  The most …

Retail banks must simplify or die

I’m being lazy this week and just posting other people’s reports, but only because they’re really interesting.  This is Boston Consulting Group’s latest analysis of what’s happening in retail banking.  The Financial Brand did a good summary of their report, and BCG summarize their findings as …

Deloitte say Marketplace Lenders are NO threat to banks

I caught sight of a report by Deloitte over the weekend that says the marketplace lenders like Zopa and Lending Club are no serious threat to banks.  This follows the report by Goldman Sachs a year ago, that said 20% of bank lending will move …

 

This week’s major headlines include …

Swift threat to suspend weak members - Financial Times
Bank payments system looks to enforce higher standards of cyber security among its member banks

Early days, but Apple Pay struggles outside U.S. - Reuters
(Reuters) - More than 18 months after Apple Pay took the United States by storm, the smartphone giant has made only a small dent in the global payments market, snagged by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks.

Banks use software to ease regulatory stress - Financial Times
Panama Papers highlight need for accurate data

Bankers must learn to behave or fintech will tear them apart, warns Barclays’ ex-boss - The Telegraph

Former Zurich Insurance CEO killed himself, says company - Guardian
Switzerland’s biggest insurer says it was stunned and deeply shaken by Martin Senn’s death last Friday The former chief executive of Zurich Insurance has committed suicide, the company said on Monday, less than three years after the company’s chief financial officer also took his own life. The death of Martin

'Sticky' plastic bank notes could leave shoppers paying twice - The Telegraph
Britain's new plastic banknotes are prone to sticking together meaning shoppers are at risk of handing over two at once, the Bank of England has admitted.

The bank boss who dreams of abolishing passwords for good - The Telegraph
Miguel-Ángel Rodríguez-Sola, Digital Director of Lloyds Banking Group, has worked hard to cultivate the tech industry environment and intends to keep it that way.

What Is a Bank? - Wall Street Journal
Of course you know the answer. A bank pools savings and then allocates that capital. Simple, right? But that’s just the start. In 2016 a big bank also doubles as an enterprise software company and a mobile-apps developer.

FOURTH bank hit by SWIFT hackers - The Register
Has Sony Pics' Lazarus crew come back from the dead?

OakNorth becomes first UK bank to move core system to the cloud with AWS - ComputerWorld
The specialist lender is the first UK bank to move all of its IT to AWS cloud infrastructure