Community

As a Liverpudlian, I feel it's my duty to point out that anybody wanting to sample a bit of Viennese culture in advance of Sibos should really head up to...Liverpool. It's too late for the Viennese Balls at the magnificent St George's Hall (all tickets snapped up within two-and-half hours of going on sale), but you can marvel at the most comprehensive exhibition of Gustav Klimt’s work ever staged in the UK, courtesy of a three-month exhibition at Tate Liverpool.

Why bother with an old-school bank when you have a new generation of clued-up Web 2.0 start-ups like Wesabe and Mint to cherry pick.

The news has put a further dent in the LSE's share price, with the stock tumbling to a new year low of 932.5 at one point this morning. The stock has since recovered to stand at 950 pence, still less than half its year high of over £20 per share. Market sentiment wasn't helped by a negative rating from Morgan Stanley analysts, cutting the company's share price estimate to 945 pence. LSE chief exec Clara Furse has so far played a cool hand in fending off unwelcome suitors. Arresting the latest decline - by developing a coherent and credible strategic plan for the LSE in the face of a phalanx of new competitors - could be her greatest challenge yet.

You can probably think of similar examples where someone has basically borrowed an idea - say a community/networking site - and set their own up for a much smaller audience at great expense.

Not naming any names, but I can think of at least one such homage to Finextra Communities in the banking payments space.

The securities industry isn't alone in struggling with a mismatch of standards and the switch to ISO20002. In the payments space, the introduction of Sepa and the PSD is causing some big problems for multinational corporations. Speaking at the annual EBAday conference in Rome last year, Gianfranco Tabasso, chairman of the European Association of Corporate Treasurers warned that if the banking industry failed to deliver on the promise of an end-to-end system for payments processing across Europe, then corporates would respond with their own alternatives based around their preferred standard of ISO20022.

A call centre agent who actually sorted out your problems? Now that would be revolutionary!

What kind of industry body are we talking about here? Industry-led efforts to sort out post-trade processes in the past have had mixed results. Look at Isitc and the ill-fated GSTPA. The G30 is yesterday's news. Even Swift, the standard-bearer in the payments space, has struggled to make its mark in securities. This is a deeply divided cross-border market dominated by powerful vested interests. Legislation, in the form of an EC-mandated Directive may be the only solution.

Sepa? Next time I'll use PayPal.

The Internet changes everything. It’s an old mantra, but its as true today as when it was first coined. Who would have thought a protest on Facebook would force one of the world’s biggest banks to backtrack on its interest rate policy for student loans? For banks, it’s a cultural problem as much as anything else. The Web is evolving and so are its uses and users. It’s not just about knocking a decent site together.  Banks will have to adjust their go-to-market strategies, their ethos and their corporate culture if they are to make sense of it. That's the big challenge.

Well, JPMorgan has committed to spending $30 million on a global programme to replace its legacy systems with technology from Temenos. In addition to this $30 million commitment, the firm will make additional significant technology investments to support international expansion.

"The global marketplace is where we expect to see significant growth in our business going forward, and we recognize that having the most robust technology capabilities possible will be a key driver in achieving our goals," stated Sue Webb, executive vice president, global core cash management, JPMorgan Treasury Services.

Mind you, JPMorgan may just be a bit behind the curve in this respect. In November, Citi completed a seven year project to implement the Flexcube core banking platform from Indian vendor i-flex across its markets and banking units in 67 countries.