Tag: Credit Cards

Payments1 Comment

A chat with Dave Birch | whirlwind review of changes in financial services

Colin Henderson

Today I had the pleasure of a chat with Dave while he visited Toronto on business. Inevitably the conversation weaved in and around banks, payments, and what is wrong with both. As we chatted it is evident there is much change going on in the world of financial services, and that change may or may not be as expected. It appears banks are not innovating much anywhere at the moment as predicted, while on the payments front there is a host of activity and very different activity in many parts of the world. This fits with my general theme of … Continue reading A chat with Dave Birch | whirlwind review of changes in financial services

AI

Credit Card defaults rising although manageable so far

Colin Henderson

As noted in Nov 2007, the next thing to watch following sub prime which was already prevalent then was credit card defaults.  It has taken longer than expected which is interesting, but it is now clearly a trend, although being managed so far.  It is clear that credit card companies are pro-actively managing the situation knowing full well that to ignore would bring disaster.  Read Calculated Risk here for examples. Capital One Chargeoffs Rise To 9.4%; American Express Chargeoffs 10%; Card Issuance Drops 50% Credit cards losses are accelerating at Capital One, a trend one should expect to continue given … Continue reading Credit Card defaults rising although manageable so far

Security2 Comments

Should the Fed be the 14th payment network, and how would that solve the problems?

Colin Henderson

President Kohn of the Kansas City Fed speaks at the ECB/De Nederlandsche Bank Conference conference in Frankfurt.  He argues for greater control by the Fed over the payments system.  While his outline of problems makes sense, they also describe the failure of the current system, and the lack of foresight from the existing controls, and its unclear that the proposed solution from them will have any impact other than exacerbating those problems.  The problems he describes are real and more importantly consumer facing.  They are also imho problems that large banks could address given their scale and the opportunity for … Continue reading Should the Fed be the 14th payment network, and how would that solve the problems?