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The Finanser’s Week: 14th March – 20th March 2016

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Our main stories of this week includes …

The Origins of Moneykind, Part One: Shared Beliefs

As you all know now, this week sees the release of my new book ValueWeb.  Yes, you can buy it from today on Amazon or any of the other services you use.  It’s released in UK from March 15, and USA from April 7 (this is …

The Origins of Moneykind, Part Two: The Invention of Money

The Second Age of Man: The Invention of Money I’ve blogged about money being invented for sex many times before but hey, it’s a good story, so I’m going to again. So man became civilized and dominant by being able to work in groups of hundreds.  …

The Origins of Moneykind, Part Three: Banking

The Third Age: The Industrial Revolution The use of money as a means of value exchange, alongside barter, lasted for hundreds of years or, to be more exact, about 4,700 years.  During this time, beads, tokens, silver, gold and other commodities were used as money, …

The Origins of Moneykind, Part Four: The ValueWeb

The Fourth Age of Man: the Network Age Part of the reason for talking about the history of money in depth this week is as a backdrop to what is happening today.  Money originated as a control mechanism for governments of Ancient Sumer to control …

The Next Age of Moneykind: The Future

Having covered four ages of moneykind: Barter Coins Paper Chips What could possibly be the fifth? When we are just at the start of the Internet of Things (IoT), and are building an Internet of Value (ValueWeb), how can we imagine something beyond this next …

 

This week's major headlines include ...

Central banks beat Bitcoin at own game with rival supercurrency - The Telegraph
Computer scientists have devised a digital crypto-currency in league with the Bank of England that could pose a devastating threat to large tranches of the financial industry, and profoundly change the management of monetary policy.

Will London Bite for Metro Bank’s Dogs, Congas and Lollipops? - Wall Street Journal
Vernon W. Hill II set out nearly a decade ago to bring a slice of Americana to the U.K.’s staid banking market. Today, when new hires arrive at Metro Bank PLC’s London headquarters, they have to join a conga line around the office. The lender calls its 40 branches stores and customers are called fans

Atom Bank to offer artificial intelligence-based customer support - Computer Weekly
Atom Bank is offering customer support via machine learning software on its mobile app.

RBS to cut almost 450 investment banking jobs in UK - Guardian
Bank announces layoffs, adding that two-thirds of lost roles will move offshore to its operation in India Royal Bank of Scotland is cutting 448 investment banking jobs in the UK, moving two-thirds of them to India. The bank, 73% of which is owned by the taxpayer, said it would cut

Solvency II timeline - Financial Times
The pan-European regulation has faced several setbacks and delays over the years

Silicon Valley investor fires back at claims he kept 'sexual slave' for 13 years - Guardian
Michael Goguen of Sequoia Capital describes relationship as ‘kind and loving’, denying allegations he abused woman who was a victim of human trafficking Prominent Silicon Valley investor Michael Goguen fired back on Monday against allegations that he kept a “sexual slave” for 13 years, filing a cross-complaint alleging that the

Bangladesh bank boss quits over fraud - BBC
The head of Bangladesh's central bank resigns after cyber-thieves stole more than $100m from the country's foreign currency reserves.

Jailed Libor trader Tom Hayes seeks to keep Surrey home - Guardian
Couple embark on five-day court battle to keep £3.8m estate including home and jewellery from being seized by UK authorities Tom Hayes, a former financial trader serving an 11-year jail sentence for conspiracy to rig Libor interest rates, will this week return to a London court in a multimillion-pound battle

Systems creak under regulatory pressure - Financial Times
Banks and insurers often have a patchwork of old internal systems

RBS to cut 550 jobs as part of plan to automate investment advice - Guardian
Bank will limit face-to-face advice to people with more than £250,000 to invest in bid to cut costs after falling £2bn into red The Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing to shed 550 jobs as part of a plan to replace staff who offer investment tips with so-called “ robo-advisers

 

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Chris Skinner Author Avatar

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...

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