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133 Results from 2007, /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Y2K-redux

It’s déjà vu all over again. An imminent early switch to daylight savings time in the US is raising fears of a Y2K-style disruption to date-sensitive computer applications. And the problems could extend far beyond US shores. Thanks to a new law aimed at saving energy, daylight savings time in the US will start three weeks earlier on 11 March and en...

/retail /wholesale

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Faster Payments on track

It seems appropriate to start blogging about UK Faster Payments (UKFP), the scheme to provide cheaper and easier "near real-time" via internet and phone banking, by a reference to the most recent APACS announcement. At face value it is reporting good news - the scheme is on track. However, there is the strong hint in the text that even t...

/payments /retail UK Faster Payments

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

MyBankSpace

Belgian financial services firm Fortis has made a bold move into the social networking space with the launch of a new Website. The join2grow network is being touted by the bank as a MySpace for entrepreneurs. Research house Gartner has suggested that banks should monitor emerging Internet social networks for their potential for partnerships, to ...

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Digital Monopoly

Dave Birch at Consult Hyperion has come up with a splendid wheeze for the tenth annual Digital Money Forum. The goal of the not-for-profit Forum is to encourage discussion and debate around electronic money in all its forms. This year, Dave has got together with toymakers Hasbro UK to run a charity Monopoly tournament at the end of the first day...

/payments /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Heart to heart

It’s Valentines Day and the Finextra mailbox, as ever, is crammed with messages of affection from doting PR bunnies. Spurious press releases linked to the annual love-in are an occupational hazard for financial journalists at this time of the year. Our passions were initially aroused by an e-mail from UK insurer Legal & General headlined 'Mat...

/retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Stripping away the comfort blanket

Researchers from Harvard and MIT have questioned the effectiveness of site image authentication technologies. The technique, pioneered by RSA subsidiary PassMark Security, relies on the exchange of personalised digital images between customer and bank Web site in advance of password entry. In the study, only three per cent of users chose not to l...

/security /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

ING boss gets personal online

Let’s face it – business videos and podcasts on the Web are a real turn-off. The medium itself has plenty of potential – and at Finextra we’ll be looking to produce more audio/video content over the coming months – but the application of the technology in the business space is all wrong. How many times have you tuned into a Webcast only to tune ...

/retail Video extravaganza

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

No change for interchange

Red faces at the Polish Competition Authority after the European Commission backed down on threats to outlaw credit card interchange fees on retail transactions. (EC abandons retailers and backs down on interchange fees). The Commission – sensibly enough – has decided to stay its hand on interchange in the absence of any obvious alternative fee-c...

/retail EBAday

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Citi to bring Egg back to the boil

Muted cheers across the City after UK insurer Prudential eventually offloaded its loss-making Internet banking operation Egg to Citigroup for £575 million (Prudential sells Egg to Citigroup). The price, at twice book value, is not bad (UK banks typically sell at 1.5 times book value), but it’s a far cry from the £1.1 billion price tag attached to ...

/retail Finextra50 fintech index

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Microsoft micropayments

Further to my recent musings on Microsoft Points (The Virtual Bank of Microsoft), Dow Jones reports on CNN that Microsoft boss Bill Gates has been looking into the possibility of developing an online payment system that will be cheaper than credit card transactions, making it possible for companies to charge small fees for Web-based content and se...

/payments /retail Trends in Financial Services

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