Join the Community

23,590
Expert opinions
41,345
Total members
351
New members (last 30 days)
188
New opinions (last 30 days)
29,160
Total comments

Latest expert opinions

clear
clear

477 Results from 2007

Retired Member

Retired Member 

The Lure of Global Infrastructure

Fueled by the explosive growth of emerging markets and the never-ending maintenance curse in developed economies, infrastructure appears poised to be one of the main growth engines in capital markets for the foreseeable future. It represents an attractive opportunity for both the sell and buy sides. Debt ceilings and political pressures have ste...

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Will the real Damian McMeekin please stand up

Catch this hilarious video of Damian McMeekin, ANZ's global head of security having his identity stolen by ABC TV's Julian Morrow at the annual Combatting Identity Fraud summit in Australia earlier this month. As McMeekin is called to give his presentation a wigged-out Morrow beats him to the lectern and starts lecturing the audience on the peril...

/security /retail Video extravaganza

Russell Burke

Russell Burke Senior Payments & E-Money Authorisation Specialist at The Central Bank of Ireland

'Less Cash' not 'Cashless'

This story which deals with an interesting subject. Who actually benefits from a shift away from the traditional use of cash? Ultimately the economy of a country should benefit the use of more efficient, electronic payments rather than the slower and more costly forms of payment such as cash and cheques. Whether this manifests itself as lower ...

/payments

Alan Goodrich

Alan Goodrich Regional Sales Manager at ERI

Blinded by Blue Mist?

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Ann Cairns, at the Financial Services Club, giving her personal perspective on "Managing technology change in the financial services industry". For those who don't know, Ann is CEO of Transaction Banking at ABN Amro, having joined ABN Amro in 2002, after 15 years at Citigroup wor...

/payments Financial Supply Chain

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Bloggers point finger at Microsoft as PCs grind to a halt

Interesting story in The Register that seems to show that Windows update has been installing a resource-hogging item on machines. Yes - even more resource hogging than Windows normally is. So if your XP machine seems to grind to a shuddering halt - perhaps this is why? As you can imagine, long suffering sys admin types are not best pleased.

/security

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Making innovation pay

McKinsey assessed the IT strategies of ten leading global corporations to understand how they invest in innovation while running their core IT operations efficiently. The consultancy found that they typically define their IT investments across three criteria - as low risk (“stay in the race” projects to improve basic services), medium risk (“win t...

/retail /wholesale Trends in Financial Services

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Is demise of cash the death knell for small businesses?

The "cash still king" story on Finextra caught my eye. Something about all this talk of replacing cash has been bothering me. It's all very well the banks trumpeting that you can use various contactless payment cards in the Starbucks of the world. I don't like the coffee in Starbucks. And I don't want to buy something in WH Smiths on th...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Greenspan's Age Of Turbulence - must read!

I was stuck abroad last weekend and picked up Alan Greenspan's "Age of turbulence" to kill some time. I read the book cover to cover in one go (well actually two sessions to allow for dinner and drink) and want to endorse this book to anyone out there with the faintest interest in economics, US financial policy and business in general. “...

/wholesale Trends in Financial Services

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Hosting customers willing to stump up cash to be greener

A survey by hosting company Rackspace shows that 62 percent of respondents are concerned and are either acting already or looking at ways of reducing the impact they have on the environment. The rest presumably don't care. Shame on them. Just over half are willing to pay 5 to 10 percent extra for a "green" option and around the same are ...

Going green

Retired Member

Retired Member 

GE loses on Shenzhen Dev Bank - Karma doesn't work in China

Two years ago in 2005, GE agreed to buy a 7% stake in Shenzhen Development Bank, which at the time was worth US$100M. However, the deal had been held up due due to disagreements amongst the shareholders, one of which was the private equity group TPG. Most of the disagreements centred around government requirements on share restructuring as the i...

Asia Financial Services

Now Hiring