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1205 Results from 2008

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Stat of the year: That ABN Amro valuation revisited

A variation on this stat has been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, so forgive me if you've seen it before. I picked this up from the aptly-named Doomsday Report blog. In October last year, RBS paid $100 billion for ABN Amro (80% cash), and faced a fair amount of shareholder opposition to the valuation. If they were to use that money today, ac...

/retail /wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Retired Member

Retired Member 

The lessons of life

So you’ve worked hard and got your degree – but is that enough? Some think not. The CBI is urging more universities to prepare students for the world of world by teaching them soft skills like communication and time management. The organisation’s research showed that companies found employability more important than degree subject when recruiting ...

Women in Technology

Olivier Berthier

Olivier Berthier CEO at Moneythor

Trade Finance sneaking back into the limelight

... as a saviour or a culprit? For years, trade finance has quietly gone about its own business providing the essential oil that keeps the cogs of commerce turning. It was never a dinner party topic and few people outside the industry had even considered it, until excessive lending and the ensuing credit crunch has thrust trade finance into the li...

/payments /wholesale Financial Supply Chain

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Vendor risk: The tables have turned

I was speaking to a software vendor last night who recently had a big project go live at one of the UK's largest banks. When the project was first signed, the vendor was quite a small company (though it has since been acquired). Because of its size, they had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get the deal done, with the bank quite sensibly wanti...

/payments Finextra50 fintech index

Retired Member

Retired Member 

A Good Wedge Off The National Debt...?

Maybe Ally Dally and GB are cleverer than some people thought. I know it's early days, but it's possible that the recovery of bank share prices could ultimately save the country descending into bankruptcy. Would the public then pat the bankers on the back...? I thought not... Take RBS as an example. Buying £12 billion of shares at 65.5. and se...

/retail Transaction Banking

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Online financial sites are popular. Do they threaten banks?

It depends on the goal of the site. Financial product comparison services like moneyaisle.com or filife.com are more an opportunity than a threat to the banks. If a bank has good products or conditions, the customers will choose it by browsing on an independent site. This means a minimal investment of listing from the bank and, of course, the pre...

Finance 2.0

Peter Kinahan

Peter Kinahan Senior Consultant at Intuition

Banks failing in personal finance online proposition

Although Quicken has been around for decades, it's new tool is just another example of how innovation in the online personal financial services sphere is being driven, not by banks, but by more imaginative outfits (often newcomers such as Mint and where Wesabe). The result: banks are steadily surrendering their franchise in personal finance as th

/retail Finance 2.0

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

John Thain: The dumbest act on Wall Street

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain has a reputation as the smartest guy on Wall Street. But his request to the bank's board for a $5-$10 million bonus for rescuing Merrill Lynch from a fate worse than Lehman was not only crass and insensitive, it was also just plain dumb. Does Thain - a multi-millionaire from his days at Goldman Sachs - really need the...

/wholesale

Bo Harald

Bo Harald Chairman/Founding member, board member at Trust Infra for Real Time Economy Prgrm & MyData,

Cash is expensive - also for the environment

EU published some figures on cost of handling cash - 50bn per year - and the consumer pays every cent of it - without knowing how much we would all save by keeping money in digital form all the way with the help of plastic cards (which of course will disappear when their functionality moves to mobile phones in due course). It would be interesting ...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Democratic Identity Is The ID and Vote They Can't Steal

I've been busy lately pursuing Democratic Identity. DI. Forget your regular ID, that's been stolen. It's been stolen by criminals and mismanaged by governments. The criminals are busy robbing computer users of an estimated $100 billion a year, and governments have failed to deliver any reliable identity to citizens. It isn't the money that is the ...

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