The biggest news stories of the week include:
Two Giants Emerge From Wall Street Ruins (New York Times)
Crackdown on City pay ignites fears of exodus by star bankers (Times)
Goldman Sachs' bonus machine risk a poltical backlash (Telegraph)
Why the bonus culture needs to be defended (Financial Times)
ECB paves way for easier securities trades (Financial Times)
O2 to enter financial services with NatWest (Times)
Lloyds and RBS: Planning for Europe's biggest privatisations (Independent)
Saving RBS and Lloyds could cost taxpayer £11bn, government admits (Guardian)
And our key stories include:
- Banks bashing the banks
- Why is clearing so complex?
- Where will innovation come from?
- Report shows that IT guys steal
- Twitter is not for teens, Morgan Stanley
- Insightful charts of the crisis
- Hank Paulson has no shame
- Shamish about the Amish
- MINT does it again
- Numbers: Big Banks
- Bank of Italy force Zopa to suspend operations
- LSE to dump TradElect due to Microsoft?
- Telco O2 launch financial services
- The paperless bank is not coming
- Who would you most like to have to dinner?
Guess what? Some banks don't like other banks. Now that's news isn't it? Not really ... until some banks start advertising how other banks are rubbish.
There are lots
of discussions about the issues of clearing in Europe. You would think
if it was clearing, it should be clear ... but it's a real mess of
complexity and confusion if we're honest.
Where will innovation come from?
McKinsey publish regular articles and research that stimulates the
little grey cells. This week for example, they have a debate asking
whether Asia will "become the center for innovation in the 21st
century?"
Cisco released a report this week that grabbed a ton of headlines. The main conclusion of their report you see is that: IT guys steal.
Twitter is not for teens, Morgan Stanley
It surprises me to read that a teen intern's paper on social media has created a massive flurry of interest in Morgan Stanley. The reason it surprises me that this is news is that it is pretty obvious stuff for those who study or know about this space.
Insightful charts of the crisis
There
has been lots of conversation about the disaster of financial markets
over the last year, but not many places to go to find the whole thing
mapped out clearly and now there is one place you can go to get a true view of the whole thing: the Federal Reserve.
We go around trying to find someone to blame for the financial crisis. Some choose Alan Greenspan, others George W., some Bill Clinton and one or two even blame David Bowie, but my leading contender has to be Henry 'Hank' Paulson.
We
talk about community and a return to traditional values brought on by
the credit crisis and the community that springs to mind as being one
of the most traditional is the Amish community. Even these guys have been hit hard by the credit crisis though.
I really like the MINT Blog. They've
done it again this week with a great blog entry that shows how the
world's currencies have been affected by the crisis ...
India has 88 commercial banks with 53,000 branches and
17,000 ATMs.The State Bank of India
(SBI) is shaking these things up by distributing over 11,000 new ATMs
this year, bringing their total number to 25,000. But that's just a minutiae compared to their other stats.
Bank of Italy force Zopa to suspend operations
Interesting announcement from Zopa Italy:“On
10 July 2009 Zopa Italy was notified of the cancellation of its license
to operate as a financial intermediary (106) by the Ministry of
Economics and Finance, by indication of the Bank of Italy. As a
consequence Zopa Italy has stopped issuing new loans and accepting
registration of new lenders.”
LSE to dump TradElect due to Microsoft?
According to several media reports two weeks ago, the new head of the
London Stock Exchange intends to dump TradElect because, according to some,
it is based upon Microsoft technologies.
Telco O2 launch financial services
In
a pretty important announcement today, O2 has opened a card-based
financial service for their UK mobile subscribers. These are mobile
Visa debit cards, powered by NatWest banking.
The paperless bank is not coming
After NatWest offered to pay my mortgage for a year if I switched to paperless banking, it came as a surprise to get my Barclaycard statement this morning with this page ...
Who would you most like to have to dinner?
Just spotted this from the Edinburgh Evening News: "MICHAEL
JACKSON has been chosen as the person students would most like to
invite to an event ... the survey highlighted Sir Fred Goodwin, former
chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, as the least desirable
guest." The article is sponsored by ... guess who?
For news 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...
