I’ve spent my life working with banks and technology firms, trying to align technology with business strategy and vice versa. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that these two industries are ripping each other apart. The fact is that banking was managed in a risk averse way for centuries through diligent book-keeping…
Since the financial crisis hit, there has been a regulatory spotlight shining on the whole of the banking sector. That light is now trying to bring vision to the shadow banking sector. Will it succeed? The European Commission is trying to close regulatory gaps that may allow risks from shadow banking to amass in the…
Since the financial crisis hit, there has been a regulatory spotlight shining on the whole of the banking sector. That light is now trying to bring vision to the shadow banking sector. Will it succeed? The European Commission is trying to close regulatory gaps that may allow risks from shadow banking to amass in the…
This week saw the inaugural meeting of the Clearing & Settlement Working Group (CAS-WG), which was well attended by over 100 industry figures from all parts of the investment markets and hosted at BT’s City Head Office in St Paul’s (BT are the first sponsor of the CAS-WG). The CAS-WG has been initiated by the…
We had a really interesting discussion at the Financial Services Club this week with Charles Thomson, former Chief Executive for the Equitable Life. The Equitable Life is a financial institution that failed at the end of the last decade and it was notable that many of the reasons why I failed are similar to those…
We had our annual pantomime debate at the Financial Services Club this week, with a classical Oxford style debate about whether SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, matters or not. This year, with the backdrop of the Eurozone implosion, the debate was far livelier than usual, with a lot of spicy discussion about countries defaulting,…
We had our annual pantomime debate at the Financial Services Club this week, with a classical Oxford style debate about whether SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, matters or not. This year, with the backdrop of the Eurozone implosion, the debate was far livelier than usual, with a lot of spicy discussion about countries defaulting,…
Sitting in a conference talking about living wills isn’t how you want to spend your typical day, but it did spark a whole bunch of thoughts in my mind. The FSA issued their consultative paper 11/16 last summer. The idea is that every bank with assets over £15 billion must produce a Recovery and Resolution…
Yesterday I wrote about the concept of banks being barred from betting on the bonds and equities markets. “Own account” trading disappears and the only folks who can “speculate” are those with their own chips to play in the game: the private equity, sovereign wealth, high net wroth assets and their asset managers who back…
