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Trends in Financial Services

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

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Futures Are the New Stocks

Futures trading has entered the investing mainstream thanks to a long list of innovative, low-cost online brokers. What has for some time been the province of large institutions is now accessible to the little guy: hard asset exposure. Commodities and indeed foreign exchange are now viewed as legitimate and appropriate asset classes for retail inv...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Customers force-fed card security standards

Two of the UK’s biggest banks, Barclays and NatWest, have moved to make subscription to MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa mandatory for debit card payments made online to approved merchants. I know this because I recently tried to pay off my credit card bill and was forced to sign up for the card scheme security standards. This entailed a...

/security

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Investment bank bonus structures are an operational risk

This is one of the interesting topics that came up for debate at a risk event I attended yesterday organised by the CASS Business School in London and the Capco Institute. The recent sub-prime and liquidity crisis has prompted many commentators to look at the role of investment banking remuneration and management structures in building what Fortune...

/wholesale

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Financial Innovation and Global Security

It is no secret that there is a highly symbiotic relationship between economic affairs and national security. One is hugely influential on the other. In today’s hyper-dependent global economy this is perhaps truer than ever, and it would seem that opportunities for (and threats to) financial services can be readily identified by monitoring this re...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Buy Side OTC operational improvements : A Project for 2008?

Research just out from Tabb estimating that banks will spend $70 million on automating OTC derivatives processing this year is welcome, yet it’s still a fraction of what really needs to be spent. Even if many of the big sell-side firms have invested heavily, there remain so many counterparties who have yet to even recognise that it is relevant to...

/sibos

Retired Member

Retired Member 

All in a days work

Last week’s letter from the Operations Management Group to Timothy Geithner, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was both thought provoking and inspiring – so how did it manage to slip under the radar of almost all of the mainstream financial services media? Not only was it pleasing to see that the resounding goal of the Group was t...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Lawsuit Risk Management

The story around Societe Generals ‘lost’ billions seemingly took another twist today with the news that Jerome Kerviel plans to launch court proceedings against his former employer to contest his sacking for gross misconduct. According to his lawyers, the environment in which Mr Kerviel worked failed to enforce a limit on traders and encouraged the...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Relax, just do it

The US has enjoyed a somewhat obsessive relationship with regulation since corporate scandals such as Enron, and more recently Amaranth, have created an over-protectionist environment for investors. The proposed relaxation of regulation in the US has been a topic for some discussion over the past year but the opening up of the US securities framewo...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

PCI compliance fails to prevent Hannaford hacking

The Hannaford card security breach is a worrying development for the payment card industry. The exploit - which would appear to be an inside job - exposes weaknesses in the PCI compliance standards explicitly and expensively promoted by the card companies as a solution to restoring consumer confidence in payment card security. Unlike TJX, Hannafor...

/security /payments

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

First contact for contactless payments

Sandwich chain EAT has become the first UK retailer to go live with an integrated contactless point of sale terminal. The upgraded Chip and PIN terminal has been installed at EAT’s Moorgate branch and enables the retailer to select the method of payment that customers want to use – either cash, Chip and PIN or contactless. Over the coming weeks, ...

/retail

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