Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra
How did the basket-cases of the US banking industry manage to post such, relatively, healthy results? It's all done by sleight of hand, as Dealbook helpfully explains. I particularly liked Goldman Sachs' stunt of simply eliminating a bad month from its quarterly report. That's financial genius at work. Are US banking executives so schooled in the ...
22 April 2009 /wholesale Finextra50 fintech index
Conventional wisdom has it that bank branches should take their cue from modern retail practices. They should be bright and welcoming, preferably open plan with comfy seating and staffed by approachable, friendly sales people. So why is JPMorgan taking a bulldozer to the WaMu Occasio branch concept, a $1 billion branch remodelling exercise that fre...
17 April 2009 /retail Trends in Financial Services
The number of fake pound coins in circulation may be twice Royal Mint estimates, says the BBC. Official figures suggest around 2.5% - or one in 40 - are copies, but coin testing companies say it is one in 20. This would put the number of bogus coins in circulation at 73 million. The Royal Mint is playing down the data, as it doesn't want to underm...
08 April 2009 /payments /retail
UK retailer Tesco is not alone in enjoying the benefits of 'safe haven' status as consumers turn away from distressed banks and move their assets to more trustworthy institutions. The UK's Co-operative Bank - which last month posted a 70% rise in underlying profit for 2008 - is reporting a 123% annual increase in customers switching their current a...
08 April 2009 /retail Trends in Financial Services
The man who wrote the software that became the industry-standard method for securitising mortgages tells all, in this mesmerising account of a 15-year career on Wall Street that runs from the go-go 80s through to the high-living excesses of the noughties.
01 April 2009 /regulation /wholesale
Twitter seems to be coming into its own as a medium for reporting fast-moving events. Up-to-the-minute citizen reportage on the G20 protest rally can be found here. This just in: Protestors urinating in the Royal Bank of Scotland. 'Well, we do own it', says one tweet. More coverage from the FT's team at http://twitter.com/g20ft. 'Make love, not l...
01 April 2009 /retail /wholesale Finance 2.0
So, everyone's a'flutter over Twitter? I wouldn't count on it. Here at Finextra we set up our own Twitter feed last year, just as an experiment. To set the ball rolling, we identified all Community members with a Twitter account and started following them. Over the past couple of months there's been a noticeable drop-off in tweets from individuals...
27 March 2009 /retail /wholesale Finance 2.0
Public anger at banking excess seems to be boiling over into direct action and mob rule. Following the public hanging of a banking effigy at a rally in Marble Arch and the bus tours of AIG executive mansions organised by US activist groups, the latest person in the firing line is former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin. Police in Scotland are calling fo...
25 March 2009 /retail /wholesale Whatever...
Sibos will never be the same again. In killing off its Thursday night party, Swift has moved with the prevailing mood music. Lavish, big budget entertainment is off the agenda as the financial services industry adapts to a more austere economic climate. But for many long-time Sibos devotees, the party was as big a draw as the conference agenda. It ...
20 March 2009 /payments /wholesale Finextra@Sibos
This whole PCI DSS compliance thing is beginning to make my head hurt. Here, Visa chief enterprise risk officer Ellen Richey says: "PCI DSS remains an effective security tool when implemented properly - and remains the best defense against the loss of sensitive data. No compromised entity to date has been found to be in compliance with PCI DS...
19 March 2009 /security /payments
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