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Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Nyse's rebuttal to Nasdaq OMX

As expected, the New York Stock Exchange has hit back at recent market share stats distributed by Nasdaq OMX, accusing its competitor of "blurring the lines between fantasy and reality". Here's the text of the Nyse rebuttal letter currently doing the rounds: The most recent boasts by one of our competitors, NasdaqOMX, takes a turn from Wi...

/wholesale

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

HP boxes clever...not

HP has dedicated a fair amount of corporate Web space to promoting it's environmentally-friendly 'Green Giant' credentials. So I'm assuming this report from the Register is some kind of elaborate joke: "HP shatters excessive packaging world record". The accompanying picture story details how one amazed Reg reader took receipt of a very ...

/retail /wholesale Going green

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Attack of the clones: NXP gets short shrift from Dutch court

NXP's attempts to block publication of a research paper detailing alleged security weaknesses in the Mifare chips used in Transport for London's Oyster smart cards has backfired somewhat. The manufacturer of the contactless transit cards applied for an injunction to suppress the research after Prof Bart Jacobs and colleagues from Radboud University...

/security

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Heaven knows I'm miserable now

New figures from Peter Gabriel’s entertainment recommendation website TheFilter.com show a dramatic rise in liking for ‘depressing music’, as the credit crunch bites. The Ten Most Popular Depressing Songs, as rated by The Filter users in order : 1. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own 2. The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby 3. The Smiths - Heaven knows...

Whatever...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Bank puts user PCs into quarantine

Australian credit union BCU has taken a novel approach to online banking security by scanning customer PCs at the point of log-in for security weaknesses. Given Pete's rather scary post yesterday on the amount of time it takes for an unpatched Windows PC to be compromised simply by being connected to the Internet, BCU's actions make perfect sense....

/security

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

The madness of crowds

A man sits in the pouring rain outside a city centre shop wearing an all-in-one body suit fashioned from slepping bag material. He is joined overnight by a 200-strong line of people, but steps aside at 6.30am in the morning to make way for another man who has just bought his first-place spot in the queue for £45 off the auction site eBay. Yes, it...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Egg looks fragile as Citi begins sell-off

Citi's decision to offload its profitable retail business in Germany could mark the start of a major re-alignment for the US bank's vast overseas network. Citi has announced plans to shed $400 billion of non-core assets over the next three years in an effort to rebuild profitability and shrug off recent losses. The German retail operation was the ...

/retail Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Bloomberg, PayPal and Bank of America tune in to iPhone

Hats off to Bloomberg (financial fundamentals), PayPal (P2P payments) and Bank of America (mobile banking) for being ready on day one of the launch of Apple's AppStore on iTunes for iPhone widgets. But a big thumbs down to the rest of the financial services industry for such a tardy response. For an overview of some of the more interesting (non-...

/retail /wholesale Finance 2.0

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

CommSec iPhone trading app shows the way

The share dealing arm of Australia's Commonwealth Bank is ready to cash in on iPhone mania ahead of the initial 3G release in the country Friday. CommSec has developed a native iPhone app that effectively converts the device to a wireless laptop, from which users can check out news and market movements, view their holdings and outstanding orders ...

/retail /wholesale Futuristic Banking

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Tellers and sellers don't mix

From the Rip van Winkle school of analysis: "Retail banks must add skills in sales and service to tellers' current transaction processing responsibilities" - TowerGroup. Where have they been the past twenty years? Makes you wonder if anyone from TowerGroup has actually stepped foot inside a bank branch lately, since I get hit upon every...

/retail

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