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Paul Penrose

Head of Research

Finextra

Member since

06 Oct 2006

Location

London

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Paul's opinions

Heaven knows I'm miserable now

New figures from Peter Gabriel’s entertainment recommendation website TheFilter.com show a dramatic rise in liking for ‘depressing music’, as the credit crunch bites. The Ten Most Popular Depressing Songs, as rated by The Filter users in order : 1. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own 2. The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby 3. The Smiths - Heaven knows...

16 July 2008 Whatever...

Bank puts user PCs into quarantine

Australian credit union BCU has taken a novel approach to online banking security by scanning customer PCs at the point of log-in for security weaknesses. Given Pete's rather scary post yesterday on the amount of time it takes for an unpatched Windows PC to be compromised simply by being connected to the Internet, BCU's actions make perfect sense....

16 July 2008 /security

The madness of crowds

A man sits in the pouring rain outside a city centre shop wearing an all-in-one body suit fashioned from slepping bag material. He is joined overnight by a 200-strong line of people, but steps aside at 6.30am in the morning to make way for another man who has just bought his first-place spot in the queue for £45 off the auction site eBay. Yes, it...

11 July 2008

Egg looks fragile as Citi begins sell-off

Citi's decision to offload its profitable retail business in Germany could mark the start of a major re-alignment for the US bank's vast overseas network. Citi has announced plans to shed $400 billion of non-core assets over the next three years in an effort to rebuild profitability and shrug off recent losses. The German retail operation was the ...

11 July 2008 /retail Finextra50 fintech index

Bloomberg, PayPal and Bank of America tune in to iPhone

Hats off to Bloomberg (financial fundamentals), PayPal (P2P payments) and Bank of America (mobile banking) for being ready on day one of the launch of Apple's AppStore on iTunes for iPhone widgets. But a big thumbs down to the rest of the financial services industry for such a tardy response. For an overview of some of the more interesting (non-...

11 July 2008 /retail /wholesale Finance 2.0

CommSec iPhone trading app shows the way

The share dealing arm of Australia's Commonwealth Bank is ready to cash in on iPhone mania ahead of the initial 3G release in the country Friday. CommSec has developed a native iPhone app that effectively converts the device to a wireless laptop, from which users can check out news and market movements, view their holdings and outstanding orders ...

10 July 2008 /retail /wholesale Futuristic Banking

Tellers and sellers don't mix

From the Rip van Winkle school of analysis: "Retail banks must add skills in sales and service to tellers' current transaction processing responsibilities" - TowerGroup. Where have they been the past twenty years? Makes you wonder if anyone from TowerGroup has actually stepped foot inside a bank branch lately, since I get hit upon every...

09 July 2008 /retail

Just how much is Thomson Reuters worth?

Further to my previous post on Merrill Lynch's ruminations over whether or not to shed its 20% stake in Bloomberg (Just how rich is Michael Bloomberg?), maybe we should also be asking: Just how much is Thomson Reuters worth? Shares in the vendor rose 48p to £13.07 Monday as brokers began to re-evaluate the company in light of the £3 billion to £6...

08 July 2008 /wholesale Finextra50 fintech index

Humble pie on menu in Daily Mail staff canteen

Egg on face time for executives of Associated Newspapers. The publisher of UK tabloid the Daily Mail has admitted that a laptop containing financial and personal details of thousands of staff, suppliers and contributors has been stolen. The laptop, which was password-protected but not encrypted, contained names, addresses, bank account numbers an...

07 July 2008 /security /retail

Cityboy goes Glasto

Cityboy, Beer and loathing in the Square Mile, is a fictionalised account of rampant egotism, greed, prostitution and drug-taking in the heart of London's financial centre. The lurid tome was penned by Geraint Anderson, a former utilities research analyst at DrKW, who grew tired of the City's excesses after a debauched ten year's at the sharp end....

04 July 2008 /wholesale Video extravaganza