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Transaction Banking

A community for discussing technology trends, views and perspective in global transaction banking

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Incompetence and Ignorance Over Pension

There is mucho incompetence over the pension issue that is in the Press at present. Our politicians are jumping on the bandwagon and either don't understand the issues, or are playing dumb for their own ends, and it's not very edifying to see this happen. The truth is that, in the RBS pension scheme, anyone who leaves is entitled to claim their pen...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Financial Crisis Bargains

This market is playing with our future like a dog with a ball. Consider that one year ago RBS paid $100bn for ABN Amro. That seemingly impossible amount would now buy: more

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

How to Pay the Bonuses

So, we have contractual issues that mean lots of people in banks need to be paid bonuses. So be it. Pay them then, but here's how it should be done. 1) The first £5,000 in bonuses should be paid in cash. That should mean that most lower-level people in the banks get the cash they deserve - i.e. those who work hard at the coal face, in branches ...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Green is the New Green

Bleeding heart that I am it definitely warms my soul to see the number of banks and financial institutions that are turning green. Some, like Citigroup and now Deutsche Bank are leading the charge. But since no one has ever said that business is compassionate or even particularly altruistic, the little realist sitting on my shoulder recognizes t...

/wholesale

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Bank Bosses Let Off...Why?

Admittedly, I only saw the news reports last night, but I can’t help having the feeling that the Treasury Select Committee missed a great opportunity yesterday. What the news reports showed was our legislators behaving like little more than adolescents, asking the four big nobs pretty juvenile questions, instead of getting to the heart of the iss...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

When is 0.1 percent 'Healthy'? - Bank Insults Again

You couldn’t make it up… Not content with insulting me over their loan offers recently (see previous blogs), my bank has now compounded the insult by mailshotting me with an offer to take out an instant access savings account, at the ‘healthy rate’ of 0.2% (which apparently includes a ‘bonus’ of 0.1%). This raises some interesting points: 1) ...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Thank You, America

This is probably never going to gain traction, but I wonder whether we should really be thanking the US for triggering the financial crisis... My reason for saying this is that, at least by doing so, they called a halt to the process of adding to the ever-growing pile of debt, both good and bad, before it became even more unsustainable. If the who...

/regulation

Retired Member

Retired Member 

When Bonuses Work...

...even for Northern Rock employees. There was an interesting debate on Question Time last night about the bonuses that are to be paid to Northern Rock staff. The views spanned the spectrum, from one delegate who said bonus schemes shouldn’t exist at all – anywhere - to a part-justification of the process. I say ‘part-justification’ because the...

/regulation /retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Bank Loan Insurance Must End

If you go back less than a working generation, a bank would lend money and then manage that loan through to complete repayment. If it had done its assessment properly, and if the customer was fortunate enough to not suffer any financial misfortune, at the end of the loan period it would have been satisfactorily repaid and both parties would have ...

/regulation

Retired Member

Retired Member 

ATM Blunder Brings Back Memories...

It's amazing how many times this happens https://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19530. Presumably, the wrong notes have been loaded in the wrong hoppers...? If so, this is easily rectified...at least it was when I worked in a branch. Back in the old days (someone bring me my bathchair and a nice comfy blanket...), we used to have an ATM card l...

/retail

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