Regulation

Oct 23, 2012

Has your customer sold their soul?

Every time I click on something online, I get this funny thing about agreeing terms and conditions. The popup window appears and my brain shuts down. I just hit ‘accept’, ‘agree’ and move on. I guess the reason is that I don’t care what the small print says, I just want the end result. I…

Oct 22, 2012

The World Payments Report, Part Two

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…

Aug 20, 2012

What is the alternative to LIBOR?

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…

Aug 15, 2012

Who are you f-ing Americans?

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…

Jul 26, 2012

Transparency is like forcing everyone to fly naked

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…

Jul 25, 2012

Forget about rebuilding trust … it won’t wash

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,…

Jul 24, 2012

UK House of Lords to investigate reform of the EU banking sector

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…

Jul 9, 2012

Yes, Prime Minister: Boring Liars

Every now and again I fall into the position of writing an episode of today’s issues set in a classic British sitcom. Monty Python and Yes Minister are the two comedies that set much of my outlook on life and so, to celebrate the events in the City of the past week, here is this week’s Yes…

Jul 6, 2012

Back to banking basics is nice, but not realistic

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…

Jul 4, 2012

Social mobile will make financial inclusion a basic human right

More interesting dialogue about banking yesterday, and this time about financial inclusion. The fact that mobile phone ubiquity is creating a wirelessly connected planet, is a key part of changing our world for more inclusion. First, six billion people now have 1:1, P2P connections. You only need to look at mobile densities by continent to realise…