The Finanser’s Week: 31st May – 6th June 2010

The biggest news stories of the week include ...

• Economic confidence sags across indebted eurozone -
  The Independent
• Bank of England made £8bn profit from quantitative
  easing fund - The Telegraph
• France’s AAA rating ‘could be a stretch’ - The Times
• JP Morgan Cazenove: UK must sell bailed-out banks to
  save AAA rating - The Telegraph
• JP Morgan hit with largest fine in FSA's history - The Telegraph
• Visa in clash over China payments - Financial Times
• Warren Buffett says rating agencies should take 'meat
  axe' to their business model - The Telegraph
• Hedge funds 'pose serious risk to investors and
  financial system' - The Telegraph

And our biggest stories of the week are ...

After the downgrade of Greece led to the Greek crisis and the Germans
worried about bailing them out, the crisis continues with the downgrade
of Spain at the end of last week by Fitch.  Although all is not
rosey in the garden of Europe, what has proven to be really intriguing
is who owes what to whom.  I was not clear on this picture until a
data visualisation firm, Quantum4d, sent me a chart which clearly shows
who has exposure to Greece and Spain.

The
post-Facebook webolution: checking in

As usual, some good stuff in Wired Magazine this month. One article stood out for me in particular, which
is about the rivalry between Foursquare and Gowalla. I’d heard of
Foursquare but not much about Gowallla, and now see the next rise of web
usage in more clarity.

There are so many discussions around identity with several here on the
blog, other blogs dedicated to the subject and even a film about it. But
could you completely lose or change your identity? Apparently yes, and
it's not as difficult as some would think ....

I spent the day yesterday discussing BPO, Business Process Outsourcing,
an area I haven’t touched on for a while. BPO is a logical
extension of Business Process Re-engineering, Business Process
Improvement and Business Transformation and, because of the
specialisation in process, BPO is a really fragmented market.  What
are the market dynamics and rationale for such contracts in banks?

Marketing Magazine has published its annual list of the 100 most
powerful marketers in Britain. The list is filled with eminent names
from fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) such as Phil Thomas at Reckitt
Benckiser – the firm that sells Colgate, Cillit Bang and Dettol
– to Jill McDonald of McDonalds (is that just coincidence?). 
Nine of the top 100 are in financial services, with an interesting
choice of who's who.

Monthly MiFID MTF Monitor: May 2010

We are pleased to provide our fifth month of monitoring the MTF
performances in
European Equities trading, in partnership with Thomson Reuters Equity Market Share Reporter (EMSR).

The Financial
Services Club is sponsored by:

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