Another day another dollar, and so SIBOS day two begins. Up a little later today, after yesterday’s very early start for an interview on CNBC. Yesterday also finished quite late as we had a speaker’s dinner with the high and mighty of the SWIFT community at a top restaurant in the centre of Amsterdam. Must…
The final part of the work day yesterday was an interesting discussion with Stephen Hester, Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Here’s a summary of what he said, not verbatim and slightly interpreted, but near enough to be accurate: Martin: Why did you join RBS…
Just out of the first plenary session which focused upon how regulatory reform and its likely impact upon the future structure of the industry. The session was chaired by Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor of the Financial Times, and comprised four panellists: Om Prakash Bhatt, Chairman, IBA & Chairman, State Bank of India Charles Goodhart…
Just sat through the first innotribe Long Now discussion and it proved to be interesting. A small but nicely formed crowd gathered and we talked about banking for the next century and investing in the world for the next millennia. It all seems fairly esoteric maybe, but it did have one important outcome for me,…
And so this year's SIBOS begins here in Amsterdam, and I'm up bright and early for a 7:30 meeting which is 6:30 UK time … yawn! First main session of the day is a discussion of securities and market infrastructures with the folks who lead various clearing and settlement firms. There's Phil Brown, Member of…
If you are unaware, a book has just been released by our good friend Ruth Wandhofer on the Payment Services Directive titled: EU Payments Integration – the Tale of SEPA, PSD and Other Milestones Along the Road. Ruth is well known in the payments industry for her in-depth knowledge of the regulatory, market and competitive landscape…
I received an email from my friends at American Banker the other day. They had just published a letter from a rather angry CEO of an American Community Bank. Community banks are like mutuals, cajas or sparkassens over here, and they exist for their members’ interests. With that in mind, I think we can all…
