Join the Community

22,735
Expert opinions
43,887
Total members
365
New members (last 30 days)
186
New opinions (last 30 days)
28,929
Total comments

Latest expert opinions

clear
clear

1270 Results from 2013

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Prepaid cards: a maturing market?

It seems that there are over 100 million ‘selfies’ (people posting pictures of themselves) on instagram – a trend that is continuing to rise. The prepaid card is also growing with its own version of the selfie, with a half the US adult population having bought a prepaid card and an increasing number for their own use, showing the market has create...

/payments

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Why banks shouldn't fear tax

Governments' aggressive approach to taxation is alternately punishing and rewarding financial services firms. The Swiss government is planning to abolish tax secrecy laws – what does that mean for Swiss banking? On Wednesday 29 May 2013 the Swiss government proposed to allow Swiss banks to disclose information to the US government. The proposal, if...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

The Big Wind-up

Plans to wind down banks that are too big to fail have at last been agreed but will not take effect until 2018. Italy's recent revelation about derivatives losses proves that there are still plenty of skeletons hidden in European Union (EU) cupboards. The recently reported conduct of bankers in Ireland at the start of the crisis has challenged the...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Self-regulation leads to self-doubt

The European Commission (EC) is threatening to move setting of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) to Paris, after the exposure of the current process as “the rate at which banks do not lend to each other” in the words of Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England. An interbank benchmark system must be found that engenders trust, bu...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Party like it's 1929

Several US senators have introduced a bill bringing back elements of the Glass-Steagall Act “to reduce risks to the financial system by limiting banks’ ability to engage in certain risky activities and limiting conflicts of interest.” With some banks still struggling to swallow the Dodd-Frank Act, will the ‘21st Century Glass-Steagall Act’ serve t...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Criminals get physical

Financial Fraud Action (FFA) UK, the finance industry’s national anti-fraud group has observed an increase in successful criminal activity in the first half of 2013, with physical theft of cards using increasingly complex techniques on the rise. I thought Chip and PIN was going to stop fraud? Fraud is like an air bubble under a plastic sheet; if yo...

/security /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Boom or Bust?

When regulators define mathematics, the apparent certainty that the science brings is thrown to the wind. Big banks are currently selling off cash reserves, issuing stock and swapping the labels over on balance sheet items, apparently to please the regulators. Are we any safer? Why do some banks have to raise more money? In June 2011, the Basel Co...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Back where we started

It’s Sept 2013, and we’re upon the anniversary of Lehman Brothers. Much editorial this week has been devoted to the perceived risk that still exists in the banking system. Haven’t regulators reformed the markets? Regulators have imposed a lot of changes to the way that banks do business and have even more changes still to happen. These changes are ...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Dan Barnes

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

AQR - You can't handle the truth

We can soon expect the European Central Bank (ECB) to outline the details of the Asset Quality Review (AQR), an examination of some 130 European banks’ assets, to be conducted in 2014. The AQR may well lead to a polarisation of banks, cutting to the quick on their viability or otherwise. As such it may precede something of a cull… Banks get tested...

/regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Craig Ramsey

Craig Ramsey Head of Real-Time Payments at ACI Worldwide

Online banking, you don't look a day over 30

The fact online banking hits the 30 year landmark this week may come as a surprise to some, but as with any 30 year old, it has grown and changed significantly since its birth. The technology has come on leaps and bounds to a point where we’ve seen the move from home-banking terminals, to dial-up via a PC, to broadband, and now the modern cloud via...

/payments

Now Hiring