Dan Barnes

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Writer

Information Corporation

Member since

11 Sep 2013

Location

London

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Dan's opinions

Trade in Services Agreement threatens bank data sovereignty

A clash between globalised financial services and domestic governments is looming. Activity by the US authorities particularly – from spying on friendly foreign governments, to aggressively pursuing sanction breakers and tax avoiders domiciled overseas – risks fragmenting globalised industry into regionalised pockets of influence and jurisdiction....

10 July 2014 /security /regulation Future Finance News Analysis

Google search: What’s my credit score?

The hype around big data is, ironically, huge. There is more to big data technology than the marketing bandwagon. The scale of the difference that systems like Hadoop – the open-source platform based on Google’s storage model – can have on making sense of lots of input at once is interesting to observe. Using parallelised, decentralised processing...

01 July 2014 /regulation Future Finance

Trade finance creates a 10 billion dollar risk

BNP Paribas is in a real fix. It faces censure for allegedly being found guilty of breaching US rules on money laundering, and of breaching US sanctions, between 2002 and 2009. These alleged breaches relate to Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The risks involved for the bank are potentially terminal; the fine it is threatened with – rumoured to be around US$1...

11 June 2014 /regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Bad as gold

The news that Barclays has been fined for manipulation of the gold benchmark is another nail in the coffin of trader autonomy and of voluntary data-based benchmarks. It also highlights the risks for speculators operating in the unregulated derivatives market when the ‘house’ is in charge of fixing the price. Q: So who got stung this time? A: Bar...

29 May 2014 /regulation /wholesale Future Finance News Analysis

Is Bitcoin mo' money or no money?

Last month the Bank of England wrote an in-depth explanation of money, in which it explained why Bitcoin is more like a commodity - e.g. gold - than a currency. Basically it isn’t popular enough. Yet. US market regulator the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) issued its latest note of concern regarding Bitcoin in May, and US central bank the...

29 May 2014 /regulation Future Finance

That's settled: T plus 2 settlement takes hold

The settlement lifecycle for equity trades is being shortened from T+3 to T+2 across developed markets. Cost benefit analyses have shown support from correspondent banks, custodian banks, buy-side firms and service bureaus on the basis of risk reduction and efficiency improvements, however the costs for implementation may be disproportiona...

07 May 2014 /regulation Future Finance News Analysis

Defending the indefensible

An astonishing situation has arisen in UK courts, whereby fraud cases brought by the State are being dropped as the defendants claim to be unable to find defence lawyers, following budget cuts to public legal aid. The problem is that lawyers are refusing to take on the work at reduced rates. In one case which was brought against men convicted of a...

07 May 2014 /security /regulation Future Finance

'Flash Boys' in a nutshell

The PR bluster around the new Michael Lewis book ‘Flash Boys’ is deliberately confusing, yet almost no-one seems to have read it. With the FBI investigating high-frequency trading (HFT), the issues that the book raises are clearly very serious. This is what you need to know. 1) HFT strategy is under the spotlight, specifically latency arbitrage. W...

16 April 2014 /regulation Future Finance

Regulators reveal budgets for surveillance and technology

Regulators have budgeted for enormous spend on surveillance technology in the year ahead. On 31 March 2014, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority revealed a 15% increase in its IT budget for 2014-2015, rising to £88.2 million from £76.4 million in 2013-2014. On 4 March 2014 the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US derivatives ma...

16 April 2014 /regulation Future Finance

Smartphones can unlock bank vaults

Apps are making the banking sector more vulnerable to cyber-attack, say European regulators, who recommend that firms hold capital as insurance against such an event. The ‘Joint Committee Report on risks and vulnerabilities in the EU Financial System’ is just as applicable to financial institutions elsewhere in the world, providing an assessment o...

15 April 2014 /security /regulation Future Finance News Analysis

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