Latest opinions that Stanley Epstein has shared on Finextra

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Stanley Epstein

Associate

Citadel Advantage Group

Member since

09 Oct 2006

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Stanley's opinions

The Cheque is More than a Payments Instrument

So the venerable old cheque has been singled out and "tapped" for termination - in the UK at least. Of course, in the new world of electronic payments and instantaneous communications, the demise of the cheque was inevitable. A payment instrument devised in a simpler time, the cheque representing a negotiable claim on the bank account of...

24 November 2009 /payments

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Where has the financial services industry gotten itself to in these past two decades or so? I have just been reading the Financial Services Authority's proposals regarding the reform of the mortgage market in the UK. What on earth has happened to basic lending principles? The FSA speaks of a changed approach to a more "intrusive and intervent...

21 October 2009 /regulation

Is this just a Bad Dream?

So Goldman Sachs is in the news again. According to a recent article in the New York Times the firm and its employees are enjoying one of the richest periods in the bank's 140-year history. Imagine that? Just a few months after paying back billions of taxpayer dollars given to them as a part of a rescue package, Goldman Sachs has announced that th...

19 October 2009 Innovation in Financial Services

Is SWIFT Succumbing to the Dinosaur Syndrome?

The news item "Staff cuts ‘inevitable' as Swift contends with declining volumes" (FINEXTRA News, 14 September 2009) triggered some wider thoughts that I would like to share. SWIFT's need to restructure and to contain operating costs is not in my view simply a result of the financial crisis and the downturn in message volumes. There is als...

15 September 2009

Risk Management? You Must Be Joking!

It was fascinating, listening to Tony Lomas and Steven Pearson from accountants PWC, give an account on the BBC of events a year ago inside Lehman Brothers Europe, at the moment that the rug was pulled so-to-speak. Messrs Lomas and Pearson now control the winding up process of what some say was the world's largest ever insolvency Two observations ...

12 September 2009 /regulation

Are We Heading Into Chaos - Again?

This is the time of year when the financial services industry, or at least the "techie" element heads off to some exotic venue for the annual SWIFT jamboree. SWIFT as we all know is the global financial messaging operator. And as part and parcel of what they do, they have also created the messaging standards on which the financial world ...

12 September 2009 /payments /sibos

Risk management - why all this soul searching?

All of a sudden, now that the economies of many countries, not to mention the banking industry, is in tatters, we have dozens of articles and blogs all bemoaning the state of risk management and what we need to do to get everything right again. All of them are pounding away on the same drum; all are documenting how badly everyone has done in managi...

15 August 2009 /regulation Innovation in Financial Services

This bank could be dangerous to your financial health

I have been reading of late in the financial press and various blogs how bank Boards are, all of a sudden embracing a culture of risk management. Suddenly they are into governance issues too. What rot! Where have the banks and their Boards of Directors been these past ten years or so? And at the same time too, where have the regulators been? Basle...

31 July 2009 /regulation

Do banks really understand innovation?

A current question doing the rounds about banks and innovation really got me thinking. Are banks really interested in innovation or are these "innovators" just few and far between? When we speak about innovation it is not only technology. Innovations can come about without any technological advance. There is a distinction between "pr...

29 July 2009 /regulation Innovation in Financial Services

Has the financial industry learned nothing?

I have been following recent press reports with a growing sense of unease. What I am reading is that some of the big banks, including some that were only bailed out by their respective governments in both the US and the UK less than a year ago, are back at the casino tables. They are now shopping around for "talent" and they are willing ...

17 July 2009 Innovation in Financial Services

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