Finextra is soon to head off in our separate directions for our Christmas break. So I thought I would scribble down some New Year predictions.

• Fed up with Sibos prices, a 'major international bank' will set up a snack booth outside one of Amsterdam's various cafes - attendees claim bratwurst at the show was the best ever and would gladly pay twice the amount to attend next year.
• Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA and Citi et al, as a gesture of gratitude to all the taxpayers of the Western world agree to send every working adult a bonus check for £/$/E 5,000. (I can dream, can't I?)
• The Sifma Technology & Management Conference, faced with only three vendor booths, move to the downstairs canteen at the NY Hilton - SunGard World moved to Madison Square Garden.
• Microsoft announces a .Net installation at the Zagreb Stock Exchange in Croatia - hires out of work actors to hold a ".Net is Awesome" party on YouTube - ZSE bought by the LSE; suffers its first ever outage.
• Bank of England announces the end of coins and paper money; instead we will all be microchip-ed - microchips adorned with the head of the monarch made available for those who can 'trace their ancestry back to ice age Britain' and former Ghurkhas.
• Ladbrokes and Paddy Power apply to become a Payment Institution under the PSD - partner with Citi, which opens up a horse race swaps desk.
• The US Fed will require all Dark Pools to report, in real time to the tape - but will be allowed to scribble out their counterparty names with a black Sharpie.
• Three tech geeks from Berkley reveal that cloud computing was just "a joke we thought up while playing World of Warcraft" and never thought anyone would take it seriously.
• Homeland Security in the US finally track down those ‘high frequency traders' hiding in a basement in Newark, NJ.
• All the top tier investment banks agree to require all new risk manager hires to have at least have an A-level, or ‘one or two years in college' of basic math.
• Faster Payments renamed "You'll get paid when we feel like it and not a moment before, allright!" to reflect new customer service ethos.
• Paul Penrose, our esteemed editorial leader, finally drinks the Kool-Aid and buys an iPhone - spends his days playing the ‘Paper Toss' game.
• Christmas 2010 will see a rash of paid invoices, new investment in IT projects and more of us employed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everybody!