The Finanser’s Week: 11th May – 17th May 2009

Here are our key stories of the week:

• Bank dinosaurs are bank's worst enemy
• Using video as evidence of compliance
• Who needs traders ... get a rat
• The danger that SEPA may not happen
• Quantifying people's views on SEPA
• The Dark Economy
• Using mobiles as a financial channel
• Shoot the banker ...

Bank dinosaurs are bank's worst enemy

I continue to be amazed by the speed, breadth and depth of how technology is changing our world.  However, many decision makers at the bank's boardroom tables are so stuck in the past that they lock the bank into 1980s technologies. 
What's the problem?

Using video as evidence of compliance

The audit, compliance and regulatory requirements in financial services are far more onerous than in many other industries.
In light of the recent financial crisis, something has gone fundamentally wrong with this process however.
As a result, now is a good time to consider using a high volume but low cost technology coming into prime time – such as digital video recording – to store customer contact and interaction to prove compliance.

Who needs traders ... get a rat

There's a new business service that's growing fast. It is a business that uses rats as stock pickers, and the rats are outperforming many star fund managers in their performance.

The danger that SEPA may not happen

I was invited to a conference this week and given the title of the talk as: “Why there’s a very real danger that SEPA may not happen”.
As a good European who believes in the PSD and SEPA, I declined to discuss this and invited Sir Jonathan Brit to speak on my behalf.
Sir Jonathan “Johnny” Brit is a bigoted, anti-European person who thinks that that SEPA is a plot by the French and Germans to take over Europe's financial infrastructures.

Quantifying people's views on SEPA

The conference that Johnny Brit addressed was attended by around 300 people, mostly bankers and payments solutions providers from across Europe.  Throughout the conference, interactive electronic voting was used to gauge people's views of the markets, the economic crisis and the implementation of SEPA.

The Dark Economy

The British Computer Society estimates that there are 17,000 unique signatures of new online malware threats per day.

Using mobiles as a financial channel

On May 28th, the Financial Services Club is holding the second joint meeting with Intellect on Technology Trends, sponsored by Speechly Bircham. This meeting will focus upon mobile as a financial channel in a discussion between József Nyíri, Chief Technology Officer, IND Group; Richard Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer, Monitise; Samee Zafar, Director, Edgar Dunn & Co; and Steve Townend, Chief Executive Officer, MoBank.

Shoot the banker ...

After Professor Chris Knight accidentally encouraged folks to hang bankers from the nearest lamp-posts, is it any surprise that YouTubers have come up with an interactive game called "Shoot the Banker".

The biggest news stories of the week include:

MPs round on Lord Myners in attack on City pay culture 
(Telegraph)
London's financial services sector creates a trading surplus of £43bn (Independent)

Top Irish banker pelted with eggs (BBC)
Belgian cabinet discusses bail-out of KBC  
(Financial Times)
US problems take shine off strong HSBC performance (Telegraph)
Morgan Stanley fined £1.4m for failure to supervise trader Matthew Piper (Telegraph)
SEC officials investigated over insider-trading claims (Independent)
US to call for OTC derivatives regulation (Financial Times)
Exchanges sense bonanza in OTC overhaul (Financial Times)
China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency 
(Telegraph)

For stories by date, click on the dates below:

• 16th May 2009
• 15th May 2009
• 14th May 2009
• 13th May 2009
• 12th May 2009
• 11th May 2009