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Trends in Financial Services

Archive for: January, 2008

Reetesh Vadodaria - Polaris Software Lab Pte Ltd - Singapore | 28/01/2008 | 2789 views

Cloud computing - only cloudy or with silver lining too?!

With the amazing speed & success of Google, cloud computing has emerged as the leading edge paradigm of computing architectures. The "newness" (or "fogginess", as the cynical banker is apt to think!) of this concept can be gauged from the fact that a Google search "define: cloud computing" results in zero results!G...

Alan Goodrich - Goodrich analytiX Ltd - Nairobi | 28/01/2008 | 3238 views

Anyone got 1 Euro to spare..?

On 5th March 1995 Dutch banking and insurance group ING bought Barings for £1 and assumed liabilities of over $600m.According to some McKinsey research presented by Mark Lawrence at a PRMIA event I attended in London on 18th December 2006, based on a sample of more than 350 operational loss events, normalized for industry performance, the dec... Tags: Dealing rooms, Risk & regulation

Alan Goodrich - Goodrich analytiX Ltd - Nairobi | 28/01/2008 | 3099 views

The Retail Branch debate won't die...

Just when you thought the subject had safely swam off quietly into deeper waters, frightened off by crazed French bankers; the debate resurfaces thanks to those nice analysts at Celent. Tags: Online banking, Retail banking

a non-active Finextra member | 24/01/2008 | 2714 views | 1 comment

Rogue Implications

Once again the vulnerability of global financial institutions is illuminated by the operations of a single individual. Today's announcement of EUR5 billion in losses at SocGen adds to an ever-expanding list of Nick-Leeson style trading debacles - Chinese metals trader Liu Qibing's copper loss of $100 million, a Mizuho broker's sale of ...

a non-active Finextra member | 22/01/2008 | 2088 views

Financial Power 2.0

It would seem that we have entered a period of bipolarity in global financial affairs. On the one side we have (Eastern) sovereign wealth funds charged with investing vast sums amassed through explosive economic growth (China, Singapore) or the skyrocketing price of oil (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia) and on the other, (primarily Western) private sec...