Technology

Oct 19, 2010

Innovation has nothing to with technology

It intrigues me how often we have a conversation about innovation, and everyone starts talking about new technology. “Oh, have you seen our iPad app, it’s really hot.” “Sorry, but our Android apps beat that hands down, and Android is hot today.” “Yea, Android is hot today but forget all of those things. You need…

Oct 15, 2010

Zo good Zo far Zopa

We had an excellent presentation from Giles Andrews, CEO of Zopa, at the Financial Services Club this week. Giles follows on the tradition of Zopa presenting to the Club, started by their late founder Richard Duvall in 2005 and former CEO James Alexander in 2008. What intrigues me about Zopa is how their business is…

Sep 30, 2010

Mobile Money: the Samee and Dave Show

Another great evening at the FSClub last week with the Samee and Dave show. OK, it’s not a double-act although I’m trying hard to make them into one, with Samee the straight guy and Dave the fungi obviously. Samee Zafar and David Birch are both great speakers about payments and, in particular, mobile payments. As…

Sep 27, 2010

Why does the card securities council not care about card security?

I mentioned that I spent last Friday morning with card fraud and security experts. The conversation began with a wide view of what’s happening, and a focus upon PCI DSS Standard 2.0, which is yet to be published. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Securities Standards Council (SSC) have developed new versions of the PCI Data…

Sep 22, 2010

The end of privacy

I continue to be stunned by how Facebook and other social media allow me to see things in other people’s lives that should not be seen. For example, all of my friend’s friends photographs. This is a feature of Facebook I particularly dislike, and I’m not sure people are even aware of it, although the…

Sep 20, 2010

Who owns the #sibos hashtag?

For those who Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, having an out-and-out public spat online is not a good idea. OK, the odd outburst from a cricketer or swimmer may be a faux pas, but a professional social media advocate? Surely we should avoid such bickering. Well, not me. I guess it’s my nature, but when Liz…

Sep 17, 2010

What would a Microsoft – Apple merger look like?

As I waited to speak at a conference this week, someone said that I seem to have a lot of gadgets. It’s true, I’m a gadget freak, but they all serve a function. Recently, I’ve been assimilated into the Apple fold through the ease of use, great user experience and simplicity of the iPhone and…

Sep 15, 2010

Dark Pools are 1.36% of all EU trading

After the earlier discussions of flash crashes and HFT, on to dark pools. It was interesting that a colleague made the statement this week that all orders could be seen on US exchanges before they are filled as that may be true for some markets, but dark pools exist to ensure that orders cannot be…

Sep 14, 2010

So what was the cause of the ‘flash crash’

I got into a bit of trouble yesterday, as various colleagues told me that the discussion on the flash crash was inaccurate and full of errors. A key issue was the discussion of flash orders being part of the problem as, apart from a rare exception such as Direct Edge, flash orders no longer exist…

Sep 10, 2010

If you can’t afford the tech, get out of the market

More on the Deutsche Börse open day and this time it’s the impact of algo news. Most of you will know about algo trading. If you don’t, it’s just a fancy way of saying automated trading and if you checkout the stats, 80% of trading in London is automated today compared to just 40% four…