At the Euro Finance conference in Frankfurt this week was a stream all about transaction banking which yours truly attended. The great and the good of our transaction world were also in attendance, as demonstrated by this short list of speakers: Albert Lechner, Vorstand Zahlungsverkehr, Betriebs-Center für Banken AG, München Andreas Kaiser, Leiter Cashmanagement, Bayer…
So to the really interesting question: if the industry is a polluting, festering, rotten and foul mess, should we try to shut it down? The reason I ask this is that this is the question that came up as I was writing yesterday's blog, debating the similarities between the banking and oil industries. If BP and…
I recently chaired a conference focused upon FXMM, or foreign exchange money markets for those unfamiliar. It’s a strange territory full of hedging and algo’s, but the bit of the day that really caught my attention was when Heather Pilley from the OTC Derivatives and Post-Trade Policy Division of the FSA, presented the plans for…
Another great evening at the FSClub last week with the Samee and Dave show. OK, it’s not a double-act although I’m trying hard to make them into one, with Samee the straight guy and Dave the fungi obviously. Samee Zafar and David Birch are both great speakers about payments and, in particular, mobile payments. As…
One of the big topics in capital markets is intra-day liquidity and post-trade transparency. Such discussions are far more noticeable now because the whole reason for this crisis, according to some, was the loss of trust between counterparties. That loss of trust was based upon counterparties not having enough liquidity to cover their positions. After…
In a report prepared by the National Irish Bank (NIB) and released today, Andrew Healy, CEO of the NIB, presents ideas for modernising payments in Ireland, with two key objectives for 2013: Reduce cheque-use by 95% by 2013 Reduce cash usage to below the EU average by 2013 For a long time now, we’ve known…
Last year, we performed a major survey in anticipation of the implementation of the PSD and SEPA Direct Debits, to see how the world viewed these areas. The research received over 350 responses from financial professionals worldwide, and found a general cynicism about the effectiveness of the PSD in particular, due to inconsistencies in interpretation…
Following on from yesterday's number – UK Bank Stats: a fascinating portrait of life -I was sent another report today from TheCityUK, the trade body that promotes the interests of the City of London.There’s loads of numbers in this document that are useful, which I will post in a few separate blog entries starting with…
