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Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

HSBC humbled by Facebook protest

Banking giant HSBC has been forced into an embarrassing u-turn over interest charges on graduate overdafts following a successful protest campaign on the Facebook social network organised by the National Union of Students. The rapidly proliferating campaign, called 'Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off!', (see Finblog earlier this week), attracte...

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Bandwidth as an Internet currency

Computer scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in collaboration with colleagues from the Netherlands, are using a novel peer-to-peer video sharing application to explore a model for electronic commerce that uses Internet bandwidth as a global currency. The researchers envision an e-commerce model that connects users ...

/payments /retail Futuristic Banking

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Stop the great HSBC graduate rip-off!

University graduates are furious at a decision by HSBC to charge interest on previously free overdrafts. UK broadsheet The Guardian reports on how thousands are now turning to Facebook in a 'viral campaign' against the bank The rapidly proliferating campaign, called 'Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off!' has already brought in thousands of rec...

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Shoulder surfers get the brush off with EyePassword

UK payments body Apacs published a PIN security advice guide for consumers late last week reminding cardholders of the continued threat from counterfeiters and shoulder surfers. Despite the introduction of Chip and PIN technology in the UK, card skimming and the subsequent use of cloned cards in overseas networks remains a lucrative business for t...

/security /retail Futuristic Banking

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

PayPal shows banks how to blog

Billed as the official place for all things PayPal, the online payments pioneer has opened a corporate blog with the following mission statement: "We created The PayPal Blog as a forum for PayPal employees to engage with you -- to connect you with the leaders of our company and capture their insights and opinions. Most importantly, we want to...

/payments /retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Dude, did you scoach all my money?

Choosing a new name for a business venture is fraught with pratfalls. How will it translate in multiple languages? Will it offend anybody? What about the domain name rights? All the same, you have to wonder about the advice meted out to SWX Swiss Exchange and Deutsche Börse when they settled on the name 'Scoach' for their new joint venture structu...

/wholesale Whatever...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

The virtual world of voodoo economics

From the Sydney Morning Herald: 'The biggest bank in the virtual world of Second Life has closed its doors after a run on its deposits, putting at risk hundred of thousands of real dollars of savings and investments.' The 'bank' in question, Ginko Financial, yesterday stopped accepting deposits, froze all withdrawals and converted account holders'...

/retail /wholesale Futuristic Banking

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Royal Bank builds its own glasshouse

UK insurance group Admiral has ended talks with private equity investors about the sale of a stake in its price comparison Website confused.com. Admiral says the potential suitors put a valuation on the business of up to £650 million. This compares to the roughly £1 billion valuation of rival site moneysupermarket.com ahead of its forthcoming IPO....

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

The seven billion dollar man

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has tapped Michael Capellas to take over as CEO of First Data when its $7 billion buy out goes through later this year. Capellas made his name as a corporate turnaround artist, first at Compaq and then at MCI. On both occassions he served a short stint in the top seat, savaged costs and sold on the companies for a hefty fee...

/payments /retail Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Payments online? Just print out and fax back the form

As the main UK payments body, Apacs forecasts payment trends, conducts market research and collates industry statistics. Publications such as ‘The way we pay: UK plastic cards 2007’, come with a £250 price tag and bring together information on how many cards we have and what we spend our money on, both in the high street and online. If you want...

/payments /retail EBAday

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