The main blog headlines are …
Elvis seen opening a bank account in Hawaii
As it’s Friday, a slightly more whimsical post. I was amused to see a story floating around the internet yesterday that read like this: ‘Missing’ woman mystery solved A group of tourists spent hours Saturday night looking for a missing woman near Iceland’s Eldgja canyon, …
We’re just a technology company that happens to have a banking licence
I hear this a lot, and don’t like it. Many banks say it these days, and they say it to be cool. To be like a start-up. To be like a Silicon Valley angel investment firm. To be like a young, FinTech unicorn. However, there …
All we are saying, is give us a chance
One of the key attributes of many of the firms I’ve talked to about doing digital transformation is that there are lay-offs but, whenever possible, these banks support people to change careers. Sure, there may be significant lay-offs if it is a heavily branch oriented …
Where the AI rubber hits the banking road
I was talking with a senior banker, who told me that he was in charge of the Artificial Intelligence program in the bank. I was impressed as he is part of the executive leadership team of the bank and not the CIO. We have invested …
Money without government? Emperors without Clothes?
I finally hit the nail on the head about why you can’t have money without government. It’s because you can create as open a system, complex a platform, distributed an idea, decentralised a currency as you want but, unlike most industries, without some form of …
And the top news headlines this week are …
Female banker whose boss repeatedly told her 'not now, Stacey' wins £4m sex discrimination claim - The Telegraph
Female banker wins gender bias case after witch's hat left on desk - The Guardian
Stacey Macken claimed she was paid significantly less than male colleague at BNP Paribas A City banker has won a gender discrimination case after alleging she was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds less than a male colleague and was the victim of a drunken prank that included leaving a
Big banking profits should invite questions - The Banker
Regulators are obviously concerned about banks when they become loss making. But the smartest regulator of all would be one that studies how banks are making their profits and starts asking questions about any line of business that looks too lucrative. The same is true of a bank’s board.
Sunsetting Python 2 is a bit of an issue for banks like JPMorgan - eFinancial Careers
Yesterday, the Python Software Foundation (a group of volunteers who look after the Python programming language) announced publicly that they will "sunset Python 2" as of 1 January 2020.
Why are people shopping online late at night? - BBC
Retailers are seeing a spike in British consumers shopping online for products from 22:00 to 02:00.
What’s Driving The Digital Banking Boom In Latin America - Crunchbase
With more than 8.5 million customers, Nubank is now the largest digital bank outside of Asia.
Eurofi: inside the ‘think-tank’ at the heart of the EU - Financial Times
It brings together officials and the financial services industry but some are growing uneasy about what has been dubbed a ‘lobbying circus’
KPMG predicts no-deal Brexit recession in 2020 - Guardian
Accountancy giant forecasts GDP to shrink by 1.5% with business confidence badly dented Britain will plunge into its first recession in a decade should the government quit the European Union without a deal, according to the latest in a string of gloomy forecasts about the UK’s fortunes outside the EU’s
Not so grand: the FCA must protect investors in high-risk mini-bonds - Guardian
Schemes from Kevin McCloud and others are likely to make hefty losses – the watchdog should act Should investors who buy high-risk bonds be compensated when things go wrong? The obvious answer is no, with the clue in the word “risk”. But what if a bond is marketed to small
German lenders stick up for savers as ECB rate cut looms - Guardian
Bank told any cheaper money announced this week will not boost the economy and will only further hurt savers Even before the European Central Bank (ECB) announces whether it will cut interest rates later this week, alarm bells are being sounded. It is widely expected that the bank will cut
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...
