Regulation

Solving the bonus questions I’m fed up with the argument about bonuses and cannot believe it still rumbles on after a year of debate and G20 meetings. With Barclays announcing record profits last week, and therefore increased bonuses, the media latched onto this angle more than the fact that Barclays, UBS, Goldman Sachs and others…

Cayman – the bank’s main loophole? Three times this week, I’ve come across dodgy dealings by banks in the Caymans to avoid taxation. The first is the Portuguese Bank BCP, or Banco Comercial Portugues SA to give it its proper name. In a detailed report in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, they recount the story of billionaire…

If you haven't seen it yet, here's Richard Curtis's (he of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually fame) short clip with Bill Nighy for the Robin Hood Tax campaign: … well worth a look.  The idea of the campaign is to charge 0.05 percent per £1,000 transacted by banks between each other, and…

As many readers know, I've disliked Chip & PIN pretty much since it was launched, as there are better solutions out there.  Here's my comment from 2006: Chris Skinner, CEO of financial services think tank Balatro told silicon.com: "I'm an anti-chip and PIN person. Sorry Apacs – I like them very much but it's not…

Just found a report from this year’s Davos that explores the forces that are shaping the future of the financial services landscape in the near term, and provides tools to approach the most pressing challenges of the post-crisis world, namely: managing and resolving governments’ newly acquired equity interests in financial institutions and restoring trust in…

With so much hullabaloo about banker's bonus taxes, taxes on liabilities, a return to narrow banking, the closure of leveraged prop trading, bankers versus Obama, Sarkozy and Davos, you might miss a few key changes in emphasis. For example, the bankers view as demonstrated by Bob Diamond's comments yesterday: 'World leaders may find it increasingly…