Payments

There were plenty of discussions at the European Parliament about SEPA, but most of the discussions narrowed down to the current top-of-mind issues related to card and interchange fees.  With the decision on MasterCard’s Interchange fees about to be handed down, here’s a flavour of the discussion as presented in two speeches. The first is…

After eighteen months, the European Parliament once again opened their doors to a dialogue about the state of European financial services.  With a series of presentations and top-notch speakers, we review: “The implications for EU integration of globalised financial services” “Can the EU legislative framework cope with cross-border developments, worldwide competition and market strains?” “Perspectives…

    Last night we entertained Steve Wilmott, Head of the Economic Crime Unit for the City of London Police, at the Financial Services Club.  He was presenting the implementation of the results of the UK’s Fraud Review, which combined the efforts of the Serious Fraud Office,  the Police and Government departments, after being kicked…

    Last night we entertained Steve Wilmott, Head of the Economic Crime Unit for the City of London Police, at the Financial Services Club.  He was presenting the implementation of the results of the UK’s Fraud Review, which combined the efforts of the Serious Fraud Office,  the Police and Government departments, after being kicked…

I had a good debate today with Citibank who, as we know, are heavily focusing upon taking a slice of workers’ remittances following their February announcement when they teamed up with Vodafone to offer mobile payments for migrant workers. Most economic migrants do not trust banks as banks do not cater for the low-wage worker…

I was fascinated  to see an update on how CLS, the Continuous Linked Settlement system for FX, has progressed.  CLS was founded in 1997 to eliminate settlement risk in the foreign exchange markets and now handles fifteen currencies: the US Dollar, the Euro, UK Sterling, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Swedish Krona,…

I was fascinated  to see an update on how CLS, the Continuous Linked Settlement system for FX, has progressed.  CLS was founded in 1997 to eliminate settlement risk in the foreign exchange markets and now handles fifteen currencies: the US Dollar, the Euro, UK Sterling, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Swedish Krona,…

There’s a true story circling the internet that I’ve seen twice in the past few months and so I thought it worth sharing. A lady died in January, and the bank billed her for their annual service charges on her credit card for February and March.  When these were unpaid, the bank added late fees…

In the last of a risk-focused week of blog entries, I thought it worth talking about virtual worlds.  Now, we talk a lot about virtual worlds these days, after the hype cycle of Second Life and not forgetting the other worlds of Entropia, There, World of Warcraft and more.  In fact, the growth of virtual…

I’ve blogged a few times about identity theft and its issues, but it only came home to me how easy such theft can be last week.  My challenge was related to my ageing in-laws who needed to close down a remortgage with their bank but, being rather old and hard-of-hearing, wanted me to call on…