Latest opinions that Richard Barr has shared on Finextra

Join the Community

23,844

Expert opinions

40,607

Total members

397

New members (last 30 days)

198

New opinions (last 30 days)

29,241

Total comments

Join Sign in

Richard Barr

Principal Associate

Citadel Advantage Ltd.

Member since

08 Oct 2007

Location

Shoham

View Richard Barr's full profile

Richard's opinions

Is it really all doom and gloom?

I just had a friend phone me to tell me that after almost 12 years at the same firm, he's being laid off. I had another friend phone me yesterday to tell me how horrible his job is now. A couple weeks ago, the British newspapers screamed about 20,000 financial industry jobs evaporating overnight. But does this mean that all is gloom & doom? We...

15 December 2008 /payments /regulation

Who is to blame for the current financial markets crisis

Who’s to blame for the current financial markets crisis? The simple answer is everybody! That out of the way, onto my rant.. When Mortgage Brokers and Bankers are pushing home loans like too much candy at the county fair, what can we expect but an upset stomach the next day? Worse, we see the sickness but continue in order to feed the gods of profi...

29 September 2008 /regulation Operational Risk Management

Dow Jones and CCE Launch Global Emissions Index Series

Here's an interesting development. This is neither tangible goods or real service being turned into a derivative of sorts. I just read that the "Dow Jones Indexes and the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the legally binding integrated greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and trading system, yesterday announced the launch of the Dow Jon...

04 September 2008

Who's paying the EUR 21bn?

Let me get this right... The banks are paying EUR 21,000,000,000 a year for payments not going STP? Not likely! SEPA directives are quite clear in what information a customer must provide for a SEPA payment. If there's an error in STP due to data errors, it's likely the customer is at fault, or will at least take the blame. Almost all banks, if no...

04 September 2008 /payments

SWIFTs Role in Operational Risk Compliance

Banks are focusing inward in their quest to comply with Basel II operational risk requirements. This is of course critical if the banks are to achieve an acceptable level of success in its compliance. However, by focusing solely inward, the role that external parties play may inadvertently be overlooked, and is a serious concern. One of those key ...

13 August 2008 /payments /regulation

We need an olympics in financial markets

I just arrived home after a week in Hong Kong. Two unrelated events happened while I was there. The start of the Olympics and the Asian markets patting themselves on the back for not being in the top 20 bank list of sub-prime losers. It seems to me that by touting to the world that you're not the biggest loser in the world in connection to this mar...

11 August 2008 /regulation