Tag: financial utilities

Innovation

Where will the innovation come from in financial services?

Colin Henderson

A central question for financial services is this:  “Where will the innovation come from in financial services?” I read this piece from Dave over at Digital Money Forum, and it highlights a central problem that traditional financial services falls into. The 50 year plan : Digital Money forum That sounds like the Greek restaurant will have to give a British cardholder a couple of pages of A4 and make sure that the customers reads them before they punch in their PIN. Anyway, the point is that for banks, the PSD comes at an interesting time when transaction banking is becoming … Continue reading Where will the innovation come from in financial services?

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Enter the Zombie banks: Liquidity fixes for banks will not solve their solvency problem

Colin Henderson

James Baker of all people sums up precisely why the current government approaches to fixing banks’ problems is flawed.  As you will have gathered I fall in the Niall Ferguson/ Martin Wolf camp that says this situation is not just worse than we think but more importantly it is different than the prevailing wisdom.   We risk fixing the wrong problem in other words. ‘How Washington can prevent ‘zombie banks’ | Financial Times Beginning in 1990, Japan suffered a collapse in real estate and stock market prices that pushed major banks into insolvency. Rather than follow America’s tough recommendation – and … Continue reading Enter the Zombie banks: Liquidity fixes for banks will not solve their solvency problem

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The Economic Outlook for 2009 and Community banks | Yellen SF Fed

Colin Henderson

Economists, even good ones, can sometimes state the obvious and leave a sense that the impossible can actually occur, which of course it will not. The Economic Outlook for 2009 and Community Banks  Delivered February 6, 2009 in Hawaii | Janet Yellen, CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco It’s also important to acknowledge that banking organizations find themselves under intense scrutiny and are subject to conflicting pressures. At a time of nearly unparalleled challenges for financial institutions, you find yourselves called on simultaneously to preserve capital, avoid excessive risk, and step up your lending. Policymakers are mindful how difficult … Continue reading The Economic Outlook for 2009 and Community banks | Yellen SF Fed

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A future that has hope for banking innovation only in North America?

Colin Henderson

In something that is a bit ironic, the Democratic US government is looking the most conservative in management of banks amongst the G-7 scheduled next week in Italy.  Geithner is also looking the most thoughtful of the finance ministers, alongside Lagarde in France. This is seriously not a time for grandstanding as Brown and Darling continue to do too often.  Time to get it right with a sustainable approach that will not relegate banks to becoming permanent financial utilities which I fear is happening when you read this dire summary of the current state. Could we have a system in … Continue reading A future that has hope for banking innovation only in North America?