The Finanser’s Week: 10th August 2009 – 16th August 2009

The biggest news stories of the week include:

The Future of Banking? Deposit Checks via iPhone 
(Mashable)
Bank Will Allow Customers to Deposit Checks by iPhone (New York Times)
Wallet of the future? Your mobile phone (CNN)
Loans by text show we're not getting the message on debt (Telegraph)

Fixing Finance, Breaking Views (a thirty minute video on avoiding another financial crisis with the Chairman of RBS and Head of Global Banking for Deutsche Bank)
Eurozone data raise hopes for recovery (Financial Times)

U.S. magnetic stripe credit cards on brink of extinction? (CreditCards.com)
E-invoicing: crown or catalyst of an efficient billing process? 
(Deutsche Bank Research)

INTERVIEW: New LSE Chief Wants Less Cost, Faster Speed, Size (Wall Street Journal)
Paulson to tell his side of Merrill deal (CNN)

And our key stories include:

Cloud computing in banks

Our
PSD and SEPA survey has now finished but another one has started. This
one is all about cloud computing.  Cloud computing is a hot topic and
often on the agenda at conferences, so why isn't it being used around
the banking centres of the world more?  To find out, the Financial
Services Club is running another brief survey about Cloud Computing:
the reality.  Click here to take the survey.

c

Raboplus NZ: not a boring bank

It's rare to find a bank that makes us laugh, but New Zealand tends to be the place to look if you want to find one.

Tesco, Virgin, O2 and all ... we don't want your banks

Marketing week ran a fascinating survey of British citizens last month and their views about banking.  The results find that most people don’t trust trusted brands with their money, and would rather stick with the banks.

MiFID's progress: slow, but sure

It's
been a while since I wrote about MiFID and so, when I was asked to
provide an update recently, here's what my take on the world of
European trading is like two years on.

FSA "passing the buck" on bank bonuses

For those on holiday or not in the UK, there was a fascinating interview on yesterday's Andrew Marr Show - BBC's Sunday morning political and business review - with Hector Sants, the head of the FSA.  Here's the transcript. 

PayPal not so pally

I've written a fair bit of positive stuff about PayPal over the last
few years, and was intriguted by two headlines today.  One, "PayPal
reported me to the FBI".  Two, "PayPal up charges to customers ... and
don't tell them".

PayPal does have competition

PayPal may not be as pally as they used to be, but there’s always competition.  In fact, a year ago, one big new competitor launched in the form of Amazon.  How are they doing?

Why banks have no competition

Although I regularly blog about social networks
and disruptive innovation in banking, the fact is that traditional
banks are surviving and thriving whilst new businesses struggle to gain
market share.  In fact, most new businesses in banking hardly make any impact at all.  Why is this?

Numbers, Part 15: 10 facts about money

Time Magazine regularly produce lists of interesting trivia, and recently had two about money.  Combining
and editing these into
the most interesting bits, gives you the following list ...

Flash Goldman

has recently come to the fore.I had a chat with a couple of people last week about the hot topics in capital markets, and a new one.  The
use of broker–dealer capabilities to leverage latency and electronic
liquidity to gain a buck at the expense of the buy–side, better known
as ‘flash trading’.

c

For news by date, click on the dates below:

• 15th August 2009
• 14th August 2009
• 13th August 2009
• 12th August 2009
• 11th August 2009
• 10th August 2009