Regulation

Jan 27, 2010

Davos trials, investigations and procrastinations

Like everyone, I’m amazed by how much pure madness there is in the markets right now. Not the madness of crowds, the madness of bankers or the madness of investors. No, it’s the madness of politicians and regulators. First we had Alastair Darling’s tax on bonuses. Then Sarkozy followed suit. Finally Barack Obama announces not…

Jan 26, 2010

Is MiFID working?

Just had an enjoyable morning floating around the City and talking with folks about MiFID 2. Now you may think that’s not so enjoyable, but it has been interesting. For a while now, MiFID has been of concern as it has not achieved what it set out to do, namely to improve trade execution by…

Jan 25, 2010

Are you taking the PSD?

Interesting article on the guide to all things Europe today, Euractiv, about the Payment Services Directive. The Directive “has been transposed in all but 11 of the 31 EU/EEA countries”. Hmmm … that would be Cyprus, Estonia, Italy and Latvia (Jan); Norway (Feb); Belgium, Greece, Spain, Finland, Malta and Poland (Mar); whilst Sweden is last…

Jan 21, 2010

David vs Brick Wall: How Banks are Sticking to Customers

Mint’s blog, a must-read for all bankers if you want to know what consumers top of mind priorities are, sent a post out yesterday titled: “David & Goliath: How Customers are Sticking it to the Big Banks”. It immediately caught my attention because the Huffington Post in the USA has been promoting the idea of…

Jan 19, 2010

How far can investment firms innovate?

I’m continually impressed and amazed by the speed of change in the technology of the investment markets. For example, last year was all talk about low latency and lit versus dark pools. This year, it’s all about private cloud-based services based upon colocation and proximity services. Next year, it will be all about real-time liquidity…

Jan 15, 2010

What is this f****r fee?

So yesterday’s big news is the new Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, the FCR fee or f****r fee as the bankers are calling it. This is Obama’s big idea to get back lost TARP funds, by introducing a tax of $1.5 million per billion dollars of liabilities on a bank’s balance sheet. The aim is to…

Jan 14, 2010

Europe’s new regulatory agenda

We had a fascinating and packed meeting at the Financial Services Club this week with David Doyle, EU Policy Advisor, discussing the challenges of the new Barosso European Parliament and their legislative drive in financial services. David is a regular visitor to the Financial Services Club, and runs our European Financial Regulatory Advisory Group. In…

Jan 13, 2010

Survival of the richest

It’s been a difficult time for City bankers, what with all the flak over bonuses and easy money after almost bankrupting the world. The longest lasting row relates to bonuses and remunerations packages. This hit the headlines a year ago, and was debated here with the arguments for and against. A year later, and the…

Jan 4, 2010

2010: what’s in store for the business of banking?

Each year, I try to start the year with a few predictions of what will happen. Last year proved to be pretty accurate, although it was playing fairly safe. This year is fuzzier in outlook, with not a great deal of obvious trends emerging. But a few that seem likely are: Certainty in the economy…

Dec 17, 2009

3,238 days to the end of the cheque

With the news that the cheque will end its life as a valid payments instrument in the UK on 31st October 2018, it's worth reminding all that it's not just old people who use them: But that the main usage is with businesses, who want to keep cheques. Because they like them for cashflow management….