The biggest news stories of the week include ...
'Significant chance' of second financial crisis, warns World Economic Forum - The Telegraph
Barack Obama imposes tax on big banks - The Telegraph
Questioning reveals Barnier’s reforming zeal - Financial Times
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's emails supoenaed in AIG inquiry - The Telegraph
Record profit for US central bank - BBC
Study: Big bonuses killed Bear, Lehman - MSN
'My parents think I earn too much': (Well, he is the £10m boss of RBS) - The Independent
Virgin gets clearance for launch into banking - The Independent
Santander races to stamp its name all over Britain's high streets - The Independent
And our biggest stories of the week are ...
We had a packed meeting at the Financial Services Club with David Doyle, EU Policy Advisor, discussing the challenges
of the new Barosso European Parliament and their legislative drive in
financial services. In a broad and wide ranging speech, he presented key views around
MiFID, the PSD, Solvency II, UCITS IV, Basel III and more, as well as
commentary on Jacques de Larosière’s committee and the
appointment of Michel Barnier to succeed Charlie McCreevy.
One of today's headlines states: the time's right for the bold to enter banking. I agree, but based upon what I see happening right now, there's very
few people being bold. They are just following the same old way of
doing banking business.
Over half of UK's internet users bank online
As
if to support my contention that a NEW bank should focus upon offering
the world's best remote channel banking, the Payments Council announced today that: "22 million adults
used internet banking on their main current account".
It’s been a difficult time for City bankers, what with all the
flak over bonuses and easy money after almost bankrupting the
world. Put “bank
bonuses” into Google for example, and over TEN MILLION results are
returned. But tough, bank bonuses won't be reduced or go away
until governments globally come up with a plan.
So yesterday’s big news
is the new Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, the FCR fee or f****r
fee as the bankers are calling it. This is Obama’s big idea to get back
lost TARP funds, by introducing a tax of $1.5 million per billion
dollars of liabilities on a bank’s balance sheet. The aim is to raise $117 billion to make up for the losses during the financial crisis.
Trouble is, it won't work.
This year's big thing: Augmented Reality
I've been noticing more and more apps for providing information about our environment. Known as augmented reality - rather than artificial reality where
you go into a completely fictitious world - the use of such services is
increasing rapidly, including for banking.
The 2009 Darwin Award goes to ...
The Darwin Awards are presented to the person(s) who provide the most inventive or
silliest way of removing themselves from the human gene pool. And this year's winner is ... a bank robber.
And, in other news:
Social media and financial services
Further to previous surveys conducted by the Financial Services Club,
we are pleased to announce our first research for 2010 focused upon
Social Media in Finance. Click here to take the survey.
The Financial Services Club's First Quarter Agenda
The
first quarter season of the London-based Financial Services Club has
just been announced and includes discussions on SEPA, EU regulations,
Innovation and the Media, and includes leading luminaries from the BBC,
Payments Council, EBA, Wonga and more.
There is a free lunch after all
On
1st February 2010, Gresham College is hosting the second Long Finance
event at The Willis Building, 51 Lime Street, London EC3M 7DQ, UK. The event supported by the Financial Services Club and it is free, including a free lunch, from 11:45 to 14:30.
Financial Ruin to Financial Reform
Members
of the Financial Services Club are invited to join an upcoming forum
organised by the Industry and Parliament Trust on Thursday 25th
February at the House of Commons.
The Financial Services Club is sponsored by:
For details of sponsorship email us.
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...
