A year ago, I wrote: “Boy,
how the markets have changed in a year. We now see investment bankers
facing hard times and selling second homes or pawning their Aston
Martins and Rolex watches, as their wives divorce them before poverty
strikes. We see hedge fund managers faking suicide leaps of terror in
order to evade jail.” A
year later, we have a follow-on with wives who are stuck with their
less than now successful husbands.
Here are our key stories of the week:
- The Top 10 Investment Banks of 2009
- The Top Ten of Everything
- SUN, IBM, SWIFT and more create a cloud crowd
- How accountable are the rating agencies for this mess?
- How to break trust with social media
- SmartyPig makes a Big Oink!
- Amazing survey result
- Desperate hedge wives
- Michael Jackson blows Google, Twitter and Facebook apart
- Impossible is nothing
The Top 10 Investment Banks of 2009
And yet another Top 10 list is released today. This time it's the Financial Times analysis of the leading investment banks of the world ...
One of the most popular pages on the Finanser is the Top 10 Banks of 2009 list, so I thought I would add to it with the Top Ten of Everything! This is a wee website that has things like the "Top Ten Finance Apps for your iPhone" to the "Top Ten Ways Tim Geithner Will Fire Bank CEO's" ...
SUN, IBM, SWIFT and more create a cloud crowd
I
was
asked twice yesterday about cloud computing. Firstly by a friend
who wanted to know how it related to payments; and then by another mate
in the investment world. The latter was inspired by a new report from
IBM and SIFMA that states that cloud computing is ready for prime time: "the number of
respondents predicting that cloud computing would force significant
business change more than doubled (from 21% in 2008 to 46% in 2009),
making it the top disruptive technology, ahead of even operational risk
modeling and mobile technologies."
How accountable are the rating agencies for this mess?
We
all
talk about how the rating agencies were, in part, responsible for
creating the mess of credit and credit instruments that caused this
crisis. After all, they are meant to be rating credit aren't they? But
I didn't realise exactly how bad a job these guys had done until I saw
this quote ...
How to break trust with social media
I'm going to post a bunch of stuff about our recent meeting
discussing how banks could use social networks and social media soon,
but then saw that Karl Flinders, a guest of the Club, beat me to it.
Writing for Computer Weekly, Karl posted a nice little note entitled:
"The truth about banks, Facebook and Twitter".
SmartyPig is a
social saving service designed for social networks. Now, they're
going from strength-to-strength with core deposits for West Bank,
SmartyPig's banking partner, rising from about $10 million in February
to more than $100 million now. Deposits should top $500 million by the
end of the year.
I just completed a brief online survey about the financial crisis. The
question was: "What do you believe to be the most challenging factor
facing (the financial) industry over the next five years?" Here's the current result:
- 30% ... winning back the public trust, after losing billions in people's savings
- 27% ... staying ahead in the technology curve to innovate and improve efficiency and customer experience ...
Michael Jackson blows Google, Twitter and Facebook apart
The
shock
death of Michael Jackson last night created a raft of news
stories about how it has impacted the world of global connections via
the internet. From the crash of Google, to the explosion of Facebook
and Tweets about him, to the proof that we can't even spell his name,
to amazing tributes (and jokes) ... Michael Jackson is the biggest news
to crash the web so far.
Back
in September 2007, Ben Saunders opened our season of Financial Services
Club meetings with a presentation entitled: "Achieving the Impossible". To inspire us once more, Ben is coming back to show us how impossible is nothing. Find out all about his latest exploits and plans on 7th July.
And the biggest news stories of the week include:
Rift between Darling and King widens (Guardian)
Bernanke gets rough ride over BoA 'threats' (Independent)
Bank of England's Financial Stability Report
ECB lends record €442bn in first loan offer to boost credit flows (Telegraph)
Critics round on Citi pay rises (Financial Times)
OECD: World economy will grow next year - but not Britain (Guardian)
RBS topped the losses list while Chinese banks raked in profits (Guardian)
For stories by date, click on the dates below:
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
