Trends in Financial Services

A community to discuss the future of financial services and any other interesting trends, strategies, ideas, views.

Retired Member 

What do Boris Johnson and Wikipedia have in common?

Well not the most obvious question I know. Boris Johnson – London’s headline grabbing mayor – and Wikipedia – an on-line encyclopaedia with definitions generated and maintained by its users – don’t seem to have obvious overlaps. However, they do both generate strong polarised opinions. Take Boris’s famous, or should that be infamous, “ping pong” s...

03 October 2008 /retail /wholesale

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Crisis-hit banking sector picked over by retailers

Tesco's decision to expand its banking business looks like a smart move, as consumers seek a safe haven for their cash away from the carnage in the traditional banking sector. UK supermarket chain Tesco - which serves 20 million customers a week - says it has seen the number of applications for savings accounts double in recent days. The group rece...

01 October 2008 /retail

Retired Member 

APACS and card fraud

"One of APACS' key responsibilities is co-ordinating a whole range of activities to tackle payment-related fraud" Does this mean that there's work for APACS as long as there is payment fraud? I ask this because its truly confusing to alert APACS of a solution to payment fraud and there simply is no reaction on their part. What do they mea...

01 October 2008 /security /payments

Retired Member 

100 percent capital reserves.

People are beginning to wonder what the alternatives are to having savings in the bank. The average person now understands that banks use our savings for a multiple of financial endevours and only keep a capital to loans ratio of about 10% at best. One journalist in the weekend papers said that she did not want to deposit any funds in her bank acco...

29 September 2008

Retired Member 

Ready or not, customer-controlled accounts are coming

That title is actually one of Javelin Strategy & Research's News Item : http://www.javelinstrategy.com/2007/11/02/every-new-idea-looks-crazy-at-first-attention-e-bankingpayments-product-or-security-managers-ready-or-not-customer-controlled-accounts-are-coming/ In another Javelin's news item, James Van Dyke stated : "....on this subject is ...

27 September 2008 /security /payments

Retired Member 

US Fed playing Monopoly with taxpayers money

A few years ago I was invited to a fancy dress party where invitees were asked to come as their “favourite childhood memory”. It may sound strange, but I went as a giant Monopoly board. I have many happy memories of playing Monopoly with my younger brother. Sometimes I would win, sometimes I would lose, but it usually ended in one of us realising ...

25 September 2008 /regulation

Retired Member 

Real markets for real people

I've often read that the percentage of end-user activity in the Interbank foreign exchange markets on a daily basis is somewhere between 1% and 3%, and I suspect I could probably find a similar percentage of activity in other areas of the wholesale markets such as interest rate derivatives Speculative activity and risk transfer is crucial in the

22 September 2008 /retail

Retired Member 

MANDATORY Verified by VISA and UCAF SPA

Well, I'm glad APACS pointed out that the rise in 'take-up' is because of making it mandatory for cardholders. Not all merchants use these solutions, so the security coverage for cardholders is quite spotty. It's also understandable that consumers complain because both these solutions make it quite easy for fraudsters to phish cardholders out of th...

22 September 2008 /security /payments

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Wall Street is history

Wall Street is history. Official. The news from New York that Wall Street's last two investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are to convert into tightly regulated bank holding companies marks the end of an era for the capitalist economic system. The investment banking model that for decades has powered a global boom in leveraged finance,...

22 September 2008 /retail /wholesale

Retired Member 

UAE banks hit by surge in ATM fraud

The news article just mentions changing the pincodes. Changing the pincodes is not enough. The card numbers can be used for card not present transactions. Will there be another lawsuit much like what happened with TJX? Will this breach be used once again to 'promote' EMV and blame countries who have not fully migrated to EMV? If issuing banks allo...

11 September 2008 /security