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Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

HSBC report is heavy-going

HSBC’s annual report has grown so heavy that the UK postal service is reportedly limiting the numbers its postmen may carry to prevent back injuries. The 454-page tome from the proudly carbon-neutral HSBC weighs in at a whopping 1.47kg. It includes a 100-page EU-mandated ‘business review’ and 133 pages of notes explaining its financial statements ...

/retail /wholesale

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Trading floor bonanza cue for market downturn?

Estate agents and trading technology suppliers in New York and London are preparing for a business bonanza as bulge bracket investment banks scope for sites to build a new generation of trading floors. Bloomberg reports from Manhattan on efforts by JPMorgan, Lehman, Merrill and Goldman Sachs to acquire sites capable of meeting the hi-tech, hi-vis...

/wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Wells Fargo: Adventures in the blogosphere

Wells Fargo launched its first blog Guided by History a year ago today. Initially intended as a short-term experiment, the US bank has been so impressed by the experience that it has since launched three other blogs and created a social media unit to manage its activities in the space. In the studentloanddown, a blog created to plug Wells Fargo ...

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Winterflood's bare-naked brokers promise Full Monty

This urge for City types to bare all in public is getting out of hand. No doubt inspired by the shameless exploits of the Team Bearing Bank tube video strippers, four brash young things from Winterflood are now threatening to get their kit off in return for donations to medical research charity Remedi. The Wins Fab Four, otherwise known as Mark B...

/retail /wholesale Whatever...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Video killed the offshore call centre

The days of broadcast media training for bank call centre operatives may not be far off. The UK's first direct in November announced plans to offer video access to customer representatives over the mobile phone network in an experimental technology trial with wireless operator 3. And now AT&T has previewed a new mass-market service for tran...

/retail Futuristic Banking

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Skype dials up PayPal

The latest upgrade to the Skype internet telephony system is now available for download in beta format. Significant new features include the ability to incorporate a video snapshot and to send and receive money across the network using PayPal. If you’re adventurous and an experienced Skype user you can download the Skype 3.2 Beta for Windows versio...

/payments /retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Inside the Blackstone IPO

Private equity has grown fat on critiquing the operation of public companies. The Blackstone IPO offers a rare opportunity to turn the tables. As part of its filing with the SEC, Blackstone issued a 200 page document that reveals many of the firm's business details for the first time: earnings of $2.27 billion last year, more than $2 billion in g...

/wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Smart money freezes out Ice in favour of CME

Where's the smart money going on the likely outcome of the ongoing tug-of-war for the Chicago Board of Trade (Cbot)? Dublin-based person-to-person trading mart Intrade has listed 4 new markets on the Cbot merger tussle. 1. Cbot & Chicago Mercantile Exchange by end December 2007 ~ 65% likely 2. Cbot & Intercontinental Exchange by end Decem...

/wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Mobile gold rush

After unsuccessfully dabbling with the mobile channel at the turn of the decade, US banks now appear ready to make a serious play for real-estate space on the consumer cell phone. Bank of America, which announced its return to the mobile arena earlier this year, will soon be followed by BancorpSouth, SunTrust, Regions and Wachovia, who have signe...

/payments /retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Steam age security at Halifax

Here’s a story straight out of the steam age of information security. UK high street bank Halifax has been forced to apologise to 13,000 mortgage customers after losing a computer print out containing personal information. The documents were in a briefcase stolen from the locked car of an employee last week. Around 1,800 of the customer records inc...

/security /retail

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