I was going to write one final piece about Japan, on a more serious note, as the SIBOS week really brought home to me the fact that there is a two speed financial world being regulated under one regulatory agenda. There are the growth markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America, who want regulation to…
The eighth World Payments Report (WPR) has just come out and, last week, we provided a summary of the first section on non-cash trends. Here’s a summary of section two: regulatory trends. Ability to Innovate is Challenged Amid Sea of Key Regulatory and Industry Initiatives Regulators have continued to implement the Key Regulatory and Industry…
After the LIBOR debacle and the money laundering affairs of Standard Chartered and HSBC, the UK’s banks reputation are in the toilet. Now we have to rebuild, and this is where it gets interesting and challenging. After claiming that the Americans were holding our banks to ransom last week, we now see the potentially true…
Standard Chartered paid off the new Sheriff of New York City, Benjamin Lawsky, to the tune of $340 million to get rid of the pest. As Investec's commentator Ian Gordon said yesterday, they “acted with pragmatism and integrity in the face of extreme provocation”. What really gets me here is the whole USA versus the rest…
We had a great meeting at the Financial Services Club Clearing & Settlement Working Group (CAS-WG) plenary this month. The CAS-WG is rocking and rolling forward, with four subject groups meeting regularly between the plenary meetings. The four subject groups focus upon the challenges of clearing and settlement to deal with risk, regulations, standards and…
Rebuilding trust. A phrase that is used regularly throughout the banking industry since the crisis began. I particularly remember it being used as a theme at SIBOS two years ago; it was a theme that ran through Bob Diamond’s Today Lecture in 2011; and it is a theme that is running throughout the City still,…
I thought this press release was quite interesting, so here it is in its entirety: A new inquiry into reform of the EU banking sector has been announced today by the House of Lords EU Sub Committee responsible for looking into economic and financial affairs. The Committee will look at the sector in the context…
With all this talk of greed and corruption in the City (more on that later too), everyone is demanding a return to basic banking. I’ve heard this several times in the past week and over the past few years. Just yesterday, over lunch, my colleague was recalling the days when you needed credit from the…
