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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.

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

ABN AMRO carve-up: the IT implications

The business pages over the weekend featured coverage of the merger talks between Barclays and ABN AMRO. Whether or not Barclays succeeds, the pressure from hedge fund investors and the number of other suitors interested in parts of the Dutch bank’s global business means that a break-up of the group is increasingly likely, though not certain. But...

/retail /wholesale

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Trouble in India, and its impact on outsourcing

Finextra received some interesting feedback from a reader today about this story, which covered NAB considering further Indian outsourcing. Our reader pointed out that with Maoist insurgents having slaughtered 40 Indian policemen this week, moving operations there now requires a hard second look. “Forget the weather issues, training, infrastruct...

/regulation

John Cant

John Cant Managing Director at MPI Europe Ltd

Digital Alcohol

I am just back from an entertaining and informative session at SunLive07, with particular items of note including two MiFID experts (Bob Fuller of Equiduct and Nick Gibson of ABN) actually agreeing on most things, not least and not surprisingly that rapid decisions by CESR are required on Best Execution and Transaction Reporting to aid implementat...

/wholesale

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Zopa introduce a new investment asset class

Zopa continue to send disruptive signals into the financial services space. They are progressing well on discussions to include Zopa loans within Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). This asset class, would be unsecured personal loans. Social lender Zopa is offering Sipp investors the chance to make between 6% and 14% on their cash in the run u...

/retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Making banking channels more accessible

The trained dog at the ATM story got me thinking about how well banks are catering to disabled communities with their banking channels -- whether branch, ATM or website. I recall that some banks have given thought to ATM accessibility in the past by having at least one machine in a row of several positioned much lower than the rest so short people,...

/retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

For mobile payments convenience is king

What's interesting about the DoCoMo mobile payment technology referenced in this recent story, and what differentiates it from many other m-payment initiatives operating elsewhere in the world, is that the Osaifu Keitai (literal translation = wallet cell phone) system acts like a contacless smart card, using Son'y FeLiCa technology. (Other Japane...

/payments /retail

John Cant

John Cant Managing Director at MPI Europe Ltd

Dont you just love the internet

Well the answer is obviously yes, I do. Particularly when it throws up in that Hitch Hicker’s Guide to the Galaxy, maximum improbability drive way a gem like “Managers Say the Majority of Information Obtained for Their Work Is Useless, Accenture Survey Finds”. There I was looking for some dull, but important nugget on MiFID, or was it payments or ...

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Bank statement as a tool for identity theft

Looks like National Australia Bank (NAB) is the latest bank to fall victim to mail-out problems that compromise customer data. They're not the first, and are unlikely to be the last. The usual bank spokesperson agenda in these situations is to claim that there is nothing in the lapse that exposes customers to to risk of fraud. But thinking about ...

/security /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

MyBankSpace

Belgian financial services firm Fortis has made a bold move into the social networking space with the launch of a new Website. The join2grow network is being touted by the bank as a MySpace for entrepreneurs. Research house Gartner has suggested that banks should monitor emerging Internet social networks for their potential for partnerships, to ...

/retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Microsoft micropayments

Further to my recent musings on Microsoft Points (The Virtual Bank of Microsoft), Dow Jones reports on CNN that Microsoft boss Bill Gates has been looking into the possibility of developing an online payment system that will be cheaper than credit card transactions, making it possible for companies to charge small fees for Web-based content and se...

/payments /retail

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