The Finanser’s Week: 5th October – 11th October 2015

Our main stories this week include ...

What happens if your Digital Identity is compromised?

I’ve been asked the same question twice this week in two separate conferences (one in Vienna, the other in San Francisco): “how will we deal with the corruptive forces when we are all on the net?”  So here’s the plotline that I gave and the concern that the audience feel.

Is T2S a complete waste of time and money?

Another day and more news about blockchain, this time in the wholesale financial markets.  I’m presenting at a conference later this week, and the organisers asked me to think about collateral management.  This is a subject that has been perplexing our capital markets group in London, as EMIR (the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation) mandated that firms provide collateral against trading in real-time.  Tough call when most markets have operated at T+3, which means settling three days after the trade.

We need banking and yes, we also need banks

I realised recently that my course of opinion is rather different to several other commentators and felt it worth noting where we agree and disagree.  Where I agree with most FinTech people is that:

Another example of why banking is not the same as music

I attended a great meeting in Austria with Google yesterday.  There were a number of Google Vision presentations and discussions, along with nice vignettes from Accenture and Raiffeisen Bank.  One slide particularly caught my attention however, as I’ve just started to see a cycle in Fintech and this slide from Google’s Creative Evangelist (really?) Jeremy Abbett put this on screen:

Trust me, I'm a robo-advisor

We always want to complete things, and it makes everything interesting when it comes to the psychology of money.  Part of the reason I mention this is that we are moving to a world of electronic ledgers.  In so doing, we must remember the psychology of money, as money is a real thing.  Money dominates our lives and allows us to reward our desires or to have to postpone them.  How do we control our balance in a digital world?

This week’s major news headlines include …  

The Greeks can’t live without the euro and they can’t live with it - The Independent
Das Capital: The Greeks gave up their trump card even before the negotiations commenced

Royal Bank of Scotland Trialing In-House Cryptocurrency - Coindesk
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is experimenting with its own in-house cryptocurrency, says the bank's technology chief.

Deutsche Bank expects to lose €6bn in just three months - The Telegraph
German lender could suspend dividend this year after massive loss

Lloyds public share sale planned for spring – but should you buy? - The Independent
Lloyds shares amounting to £2 billion are to be make available to the public at a five per cent discount, according to Chancellor George Osborne

Challenger banks won't be hit if a big rival fails - The Telegraph
A new system of insurance removes the risk for small banks if their bigger rivals fail

The one chart that shows the world is on the brink of a new recession - The Independent
The IMF has cut its 2015 forecasts for world output to 3.1 per cent

Santander HQ evacuated after white powder sent to executives - The Telegraph
Twelve employees who handled the envelopes were being kept under medical observation, bank says

The two men taking on the banks - BBC
The two Estonians taking on the banks

Santander in court over 'the worst trade ever' - The Telegraph
A Portuguese rail company says it was misled by the Spanish bank into agreeing to a swap which has cost it €500m

Is this Government bank behind the alternative finance boom? - The Telegraph
The British Business Bank is funnelling cash into small firms through new lenders, but at what cost?

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