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Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

Zopa calls for change in tax laws

So, through this lobby group, Prosper and Loanio are trying to pitch themselves as fresh-faced, clean alternatives to the big bad banks that have got us into a bit of a mess. These paragons of virtue now want the government to help them help ordinary folks get a loan. I'm a fan of the model but these companies should have checked the rules a bit m...

/retail

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

Stressed traders get a helping hand

To be a successful online trader you need to keep calm and rational but it can be a stressful business and sometimes emotions get the better of people. So Philips Electronics and ABN Amro have come up with an "emotion mirroring system" that warns the owner when they're getting a bit het up about a stock and should probably take a step ba...

Whatever...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

Oh no, not more Twitter-related 'news'

Couple of stories from the FT this week that demonstrate the value of social networks to the financial world (or alternatively, the media's obsession with Twitter and Facebook - you decide). First up, Nomura has apparently been using Facebook to track down Lehman Brothers graduate trainees so it can offer them jobs. I suppose it makes a nice change...

Whatever...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

A message from Prince Obi Matumbe Akumbe

E-mail is so 2001. Prince Obi Matumbe Akumbe knows this and has turned to YouTube and Twitter in his bid to find a kind soul willing to help him transfer $50 million out of Nigeria. Anyone prepared to hand over bank account details will be compensated to the tune of $10 million. Unfortunately, we live in a cynical world and some people seem less ...

/retail Whatever...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

In an electronic world, the trading floor still has a place

Over at Seeking Alpha, Ray Pellecchia from Nyse offers a nice little lesson on the dangers of putting all your eggs into the e-trading basket. A couple of days ago, before the market opened, a customer sent thousands of orders in a lightly traded stock by mistake. If the Nyse operated a purely electronic market the orders would have sailed through...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

PayPal falls over but at least it bothered to tell us

PayPal will naturally get some stick for this, and rightly so, but I think you have to give the firm some credit for the way it handled the problem and kept us all informed. During the outage a blog on the site kept frustrated users informed with regular updates and once everything was fixed another post appeared apologising profusely and explain...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

Nyse network data exposed on unsecured server

Another day, another example of sloppy security. Wired reports that sensitive information about the New York Stock Exchange's network has been lying around on an unsecured server for about a year. On the server were "directories of files containing logs, server names, IP addresses, lists of hardware, lists of software versions running on the ...

/security Information Security

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

The case of the amazing disappearing bank

Here at Finextra we often cover clever, tech-driven scams dreamt up by criminals looking to part people from their money. Sometimes though, the simpler a plan the better, as a gang of crooks in Uganda has demonstrated. The group set up a bank, Visa Finance, in the town of Malaba on the Kenyan border. They rented an office and began advertising on l...

/retail

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

From exchange floor to prison yard

You've got to feel for the Madoffs and Stanfords of this world. Federal prison is no country club and you suspect that these well-to-do white collar crooks are in for a bit of a shock when they get thrown in with the riff-raff. But never fear, Larry Levine is here to help them adjust. Larry served 10 years for fraud and drug dealing and he's puttin...

Whatever...

Matt White

Matt White North America editor at Finextra

More on the Goldman Sachs code theft case

Bit of a follow-up to the Goldman Sachs code stealing shenanigans story. Firstly, Reuters reports that Aleynikov posted bail yesterday. Secondly, the mysterious company that offered to triple his salary to lure him from Goldman is called Teza Technologies. It's a new firm based in Chicago co-founded by Misha Malyshev, a former trader at hedge fund...

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