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Retired Member

Retired Member 

Can You See the Future: Predicting Top 2009 Headlines

If you want to see experts scramble, ask for a prediction, wait 12 months and then go back for comments on why and how they got it wrong. Let’s face it expertise is no guarantee when it comes to predicting the future. The world is unpredictable because people are unpredictable and despite what all of us egocentric human types believe—the world is ...

/wholesale Financial Supply Chain

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

World Bank bans Satyam for 8 years over lax ethics, security

Fox News has been dogged in its pursuit of scandals going on at the World Bank, including the hacking cases we wrote about in October. To add to Satyam's recent woes, they have now confirmed that Satyam has been banned from working for the World Bank for eight years, starting from September. Apparently the punishment has been meted out for paying ...

/security /wholesale Information Security

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Bernie Madoff's take on over-regulation on Wall Street

Some choice quotes from squeaky-clean Bernie Madoff on the trials of doing business in the modern financial system. "Whenever I go down to Washington and meet with the SEC and complain to them that the industry is either over-regulated or that the burdens are too great they all start to roll their eyes just like our children do when we talk ab...

/regulation /wholesale Video extravaganza

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Linking investment bank remuneration to risk assumption.

Earlier this week The Guardian had an interesting piece on the bonus culture at investment banks. The Financial Services Authority has written to the chief executives of major firms to urge them to review pay policies to ensure they take account of the risks being run by traders. And UBS is already moving in this direction by devising a system th...

/regulation /wholesale Innovation in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Stat of the year: That ABN Amro valuation revisited

A variation on this stat has been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, so forgive me if you've seen it before. I picked this up from the aptly-named Doomsday Report blog. In October last year, RBS paid $100 billion for ABN Amro (80% cash), and faced a fair amount of shareholder opposition to the valuation. If they were to use that money today, ac...

/retail /wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Olivier Berthier

Olivier Berthier CEO at Moneythor

Trade Finance sneaking back into the limelight

... as a saviour or a culprit? For years, trade finance has quietly gone about its own business providing the essential oil that keeps the cogs of commerce turning. It was never a dinner party topic and few people outside the industry had even considered it, until excessive lending and the ensuing credit crunch has thrust trade finance into the li...

/payments /wholesale Financial Supply Chain

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

John Thain: The dumbest act on Wall Street

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain has a reputation as the smartest guy on Wall Street. But his request to the bank's board for a $5-$10 million bonus for rescuing Merrill Lynch from a fate worse than Lehman was not only crass and insensitive, it was also just plain dumb. Does Thain - a multi-millionaire from his days at Goldman Sachs - really need the...

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Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Beat the crunch this Christmas: Eat peanuts, drink beer

The Finextra news desk is groaning under the weight of Christmas-themed press releases, as companies desperately try to generate some extra seasonal income during the economic crisis. One of the more bizarre examples to hit the newswires this week was an urgent dispatch from the American Peanut Council, which advises cash-strapped consumers to beat...

/retail /wholesale Whatever...

John Cant

John Cant Managing Director at MPI Europe Ltd

The multi-faceted impact of Lehman

The demise and subsequent break up of Lehman Brothers will provide strong case study material for many MBA courses, for many years. There are several lessons to be learnt beyond the crucial role of customer confidence in business success. For example, there are the difficulties involved in splitting or decoupling the heavily centralised Lehman IT ...

/regulation /wholesale MiFID

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

MiFID created no extra demand for IT or services

At least that's the view of Knowledge Technology Solutions (KTS) CEO Andrew Miller. KTS is soon to adopt the brand of its Sep. '07 acquisition, Arcontech, after closing its original market terminal subscription business. In the company's interim earnings statement today, he says: "The implementation date for the much discussed Markets in F...

/wholesale MiFID

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