Opinion

Over a dinner this week, there was a fascinating discussion about the role of compliance. Compliance. A culture or a function? A view of complying and being subservient or of being proactively compliant. Compliance as a painful enforced change or an opportunity to re-engineer and improve. Compliance. Threat or opportunity? To be truthful, compliance can…

Over a dinner this week, there was a fascinating discussion about the role of compliance. Compliance. A culture or a function? A view of complying and being subservient or of being proactively compliant. Compliance as a painful enforced change or an opportunity to re-engineer and improve. Compliance. Threat or opportunity? To be truthful, compliance can…

When I began talking to banks many moons ago, everyone referred to payments as “Money Transmissions”. Money Transmissions were the core service of the bank. Money Transmissions were payments, and Money Transmissions locked customers into the bank because of their high frequency and regular contact with the customer. Money Transmissions were the ultimate banking service…

Webinars are growing in popularity as a substitute for conferences this year, particularly as folks can't leave their offices these days due to cost and travel restrictions, so this sort of meeting will no doubt be on the increase. I presented two this week for example, although it is weird presenting to an audience you…

For too long, I’ve worked in the tech industry. I realised this when talking with a friend about the ways in which most tech firms get it wrong.  He was lamenting the fact that the dialogue I have around things like Social Finance, SEPA and the PSD, MiFID and more is very business oriented, and…

We talk about how the financial market gloom is so bad, and our politicians have now all caught the swine flu too … but it's nothing new. Life has always overwhelmed us with its speed of change and the turbulence such change causes. Take this summary from one of my favourite books: “The pace was…

There are wide differences of opinion between different banks of the role of a branch these days. Is a branch a branch, a store, a transactional centre, a sales centre, a retail lobby, an automated machine or all of these things or none of them? On the one hand, I see HSBC saying that branches…