Knowledge review and opinion .......................

Easy way to get gold coins

2009-06-16T08:40:00.001+07:00

Want to have gold coin? But you don’t know how to do it? You can find all information’s about gold coin here, gold coin infestation is very interested; you can get gold very easily and don’t worry because it is trusted. Gold coins gain is an aurum can help you to identify, to reach, and analyze a good think for gold. Actually you can buy gold.
Gold coin business you want can help you improve your profit, I think its good job to join it if you have some interesting to gold, its not difficult job and very easily. Gold is very beautiful, want to have it and if you can why not…. So don’t closely, lets registry now as soon as possible click here.

PSD and SEPA Implementations

2009-05-22T17:09:00.001+07:00

SEPA implementation

In particular, there are issues with the SEPA model.

This was illustrated by two questions put to delegates at the start of the IPS 2009 sessions on SEPA implementation, that received overwhelming agreement: we need to create new cooperative models with the involvement of all market participants – banks, users, suppliers and regulators (70%); and we need to widen our vision of the types of services and infrastructures we should provide, such as e-billing, e-invoicing and supply chain data (75%).

Rob Jonker, Senior Product Manager, Global Payments, Deutsche Bank said the SEPA business case for corporates was still very minor. Large corporates do view SEPA as part of a bigger picture and potentially strategic, but the lack of an end date was a problem.

Mario de Lorenzo, Director of Payments Systems, SIA-SSB, said banks’ payments architectures must evolve in order to optimise processes and reduce costs. Standards would enable innovative services to be developed that can increase revenues and reduce time to market.

A key message that emerged from the sessions on SEPA was the need for better communication between banks and corporates.

Ashley Dowson, Chairman of The SEPA Consultancy, said the leadership of the political agenda had “disappeared” during the past few years. “SEPA customers were excluded from discussions for too long and are now too vocal. There must be a balance between banks and their users. Banks need to stretch their budgets to provide the services that are required, but corporates mustn’t request certain services merely to antagonise banks.”

Martine Brachet, Head of Interbank Relationships, Payment Services Division, Société Générale reminded delegates that SDDs were very complex and “there will be many lessons to be learned in November when they become a reality”. She also assured delegates that the French banking community had begun work on SDDs, having recently received clarification about multilateral interchange fees (MIFs). “The French banking community felt it was better to undertake all of the necessary preparation for SDDs before doing things we maybe could not manage.” France has committed to introduce SDDs in November 2010.

The MIF issue was important when it came to SEPA for cards as well. Norbert Bielefeld, Deputy Director, Payments and Securities, European Savings Bank Group, World Savings Banks Institute, reminded delegates of the principles of MIFs. “Interchange was successful in building and developing the cards business. If one of the objectives of SEPA is to have market transformation, you cannot have that without continued innovation. It is very difficult to innovate without investment and without MIFs this will be a real challenge.”

SEPA was introducing a more cooperative approach in the payments industry said Manfred Schuck, Executive Advisor to the Board of Directors at Equens. “Before SEPA was introduced, we had more than 30 different local infrastructures servicing only national markets. There will be a network community in the future comprised of partners. I think the number of infrastructure providers that will survive can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

Marc Niederkorn, Director, McKinsey and Co, said SEPA would happen – something that a year ago he would have said with more caution. “SEPA will encourage interesting new economic models because banks will need to cut costs and increase efficiency. I think we will see much more outsourcing of operations that are difficult to manage inhouse, which is good news for the banks that can propose centralisation and network management.”

Jad Khallouf, Chief Executive Officer, STET, said SEPA expectations had been mismanaged. “You have to face up to SEPA if you are to survive but it is a huge challenge. Corporates are not ready, not only because of the lack of an end date. Like banks, they are striving to survive in the current economic turmoil.”

PSD Implementation

With the Payment Services Directive (PSD) due to come into effect from 1 November this year, Ruth Wandhofer, Head of Payments Strategy, EMEA Global Transaction Services, Citi, said there were still a number of challenges with the PSD, particularly for banks operating in more than one country across Europe.

“Most banks can tackle the customer communications aspect of the PSD at the last minute, but making the required system and procedure changes is more of a long-term project and some people are running slightly late on this.”

The overriding message that came out of the day was that the PSD cannot be reversed and financial institutions need to deal with it. As Dermot Turing, Partner, International Financial Institutions and Markets Group at Clifford Chance said: “It’s too late to argue about the content of the PSD. What law firms need to do now is help to interpret the PSD in a consistent way that minimises system and client-facing burdens.”

Daniela Umstätter, National Expert, Retail Issues, Consumer Policy and Payment Systems DG, European Commission said she was puzzled that uncertainty remained in the market about the transposition of the PSD into national law. “We are well on track with the PSD. Only one state, Sweden, has a problem with transposition and we will be helping them out. In general, the PSD is a fully harmonised directive, there is no room for interpretation and where there is, we are trying to solve it.”

John Burns, Senior Associate Retail Policy, Financial Services Authority had an uncompromising view: “The industry says complying with the PSD is difficult. We understand that, but the law is there and will have to be dealt with. Saying it is difficult doesn’t get us beyond what the law is.”

The PSD does present difficulties to banks, particularly those that operate in more than one country. Only the UK and Bulgaria have so far issued new payments laws based on the PSD. Concerns were raised about the treatment of leg-out transactions when no currency conversion was involved, what was meant by making funds immediately available, how to deal with late payments, charge codes for corporates, execution times for card payments and the impact of being non-compliant.

Bjorn Flismark, Senior Vice President, Global Transaction Services, SEB said the PSD changes a great deal for banks, imposing rules where previously they were used to doing “what they wanted or what they thought they could get away with”. Complying with D+1 on payments would require banks to consider new business models and how to charge customers in the future. “Those that have relied on float income in the past will be asking how they can replace this.” However, once systems have been changed “at a terrible cost”, banks will in the longer-term enjoy cheaper processing and simpler rules to live by.

Martin O’Donovan, Assistant Director, Policy and Technical, Association of Corporate Treasurers said from a corporate perspective, whether it takes one or three days for a payment to arrive is not crucial; having certainty is. The possibility of corporate opt-outs from certain provisions is being discussed among corporate treasurers and O’Donovan said many treasurers were taking stock of banking services and how they differ from country to country. “We are advising our members to ensure that they understand what they have so they can talk to banks in a meaningful way about opt-outs.”

Changes in law don’t make for a new market, it is business opportunities that do, Dr Thaer Sabri, Chief Executive, Electronic Money Association, reminded delegates. “If the PSD creates opportunities for a deluge of new payment institutions to come on to the market you would have to ask are these business opportunities that banks have left open? Money remitters, merchant acquirers and some third-party processors may all see opportunities in extending services. At the same time, some banks might hive-off their payments businesses and create specialist subsidiaries.”

Participants in the boot camp were left in little doubt that the PSD would have a significant impact on their payments operations. And as Burns pointed out, with countries outside the EU and EEA looking at the PSD, it may well be that in the future representatives from financial institutions elsewhere in the world will be mulling over the same questions.

Percentage viewer of SEPA

2009-05-15T16:04:00.000+07:00

hroughout the conference, interactive electronic voting was used to guage people's views of the markets, the economic crisis and the implementation of SEPA.

Here are the results.

The first question was:

What is the value of transaction services (payments processing) to a bank?
32.7% A stable source of revenue
25.5% An anchor product for the bank to keep the customer
23.6% Provides infrastructure for enabling financial processes
5.5% Other

Ah, so Johnny may have been right in thinking that banks view payments processing as a way to lock in customers. After all, money transmissions are the core of a bank’s services aren’t they?

What is your most pressing area for near-term focus in 2009?
38.2% New revenue sources
22.4% Regulations
19.7% Risk management
15.8% Cost reduction
3.9% Surviving

Interestingly the focus is finding growth, which is positive.

What is your most pressing area for longer-term?
82.89% New revenue sources
5.26% Regulations
3.95% Cost reduction
3.95% Surviving

I note here how risk management disappeared from the list. So risk is just a short-term focus whilst we get over this market blip?

Of the following, which are the most interesting areas in 2009?
54.23% SEPA and the Payment Services Directive
28.81% Remittances and mobile payments
15.75% Getting back to basics
1.69% MT202 Cover Payments

So over half the audience are focused upon SEPA and the PSD. Not surprising as it’s a European audience and, in a separate voting sessions, the audience were asked specifically about their views of SEPA and the PSD’s progress.

Is SEPA going to help Europe’s Lisbon agenda for an integrated EU financial marketplace?
66.7% Yes
9.5% No
23.8% No idea

Around a quarter of attendees, most of whom specialise in payments in the EU, have no idea whether SEPA will help the Lisbon agenda to create a single European financial market. Interesting.

Who is going to benefit most from SEPA?
33.33% Consumers
46.97% Businesses
12.12% Banks
4.55% Public Authorities
3.03% No idea

Apparently 84.85% of the audience were bankers and 12.12% corporate users. The other 3.03% just confused.

Will the PSD be implemented homogeneously throughout Europe?
26.1% Yes
68.1% No
5.8% No idea

I think the audience conclusively concur with some of Johnny Brit’s views (by the way, this poll was taken before his speech).

The interactive voting finished with the general question:

When do you expect the turnaround to happen?
1.5% Before summer 2009
10.6% Second half 2009
21.2% Early 2010
28.8% Mid 2010
28.8% Late 2010
9.1% Later

whats new financial channel?

2009-05-14T09:14:00.000+07:00

he idea of mobile financial services has been a hot topic for a while now with many excursions into mobile finance from both banks and telco’s, with some successes and many failures.

More often than not we are now seeing successes, with mobile finance ranging from simple person-to-person payments via short text messages; to contactless payments on the underground through Barclaycard’s partnership with O2 and Oyster; to full financial services through Monitise’s infrastructure behind HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group.

What is the latest state of play?

Find out at this Financial Services Technology Trends meeting where we will be joined by industry leaders and innovators including:

József Nyíri, Chief Technology Officer, IND Group
Richard Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer, Monitise
Samee Zafar, Director, Edgar Dunn & Co
Steve Townend, Chief Executive Officer, MoBank

József Nyíri leads the Innovation Lab of IND Group and is an evangelist in the online banking innovation area. The IND Banking Front-Office (IND BFO) is a complete sales and banking suite of channels including branch, internet, mobile, contact centre on the same centralized platform, improving service quality and performance.

Richard Johnson joined Monitise in 2006 to lead the development of their product and service roadmap after 20 years working with some of the UK financial services' leading brands. Monitise run a mobile banking and payments service with partners including VocaLink, Metavante, Sun Microsystems, BT Global Services, T-Systems, HSBC, First Direct, Alliance & Leicester, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Sprint, AT& T, Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Hutchison 3G.

Samee Zafar is a Director with Edgar Dunn & Co leading their annual Advanced Payments Study which is co-sponsored by Mobile Payments World magazine. Edgar, Dunn & Company (EDC) is an independent global financial services and payments consultancy founded in 1978.

Steve Townend is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MoBank, which is a new mobile service that allows customers to buy and pay for goods wherever and whenever they want. Steve was previously a founding Director of both Egg and First Direct.

Top 10 CEO salaries of 2008

2009-05-05T17:29:00.000+07:00

The Huffington Post published the list of the Top 10 CEO pay packages for 2008.

The list is based upon the Associated Press formula which adds up salary, benefits, bonuses, preferential interest rates on pay set aside for later and company estimates for the value of stock options and stock awards on the day they were granted last year:

1. Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake Energy Corp., $112.5 million

2. Sanjay Jha, Motorola Inc., $104.4 million

3. Robert Iger, Walt Disney Co., $51.1 million

4. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $42.9 million

5. Kenneth Chenault, American Express Co., $42.9 million

6. Vikram Pandit, Citigroup Inc., $38.2 million

7. Steven Farris, Apache Corp., $37.2 million

8. Louis Camilleri, Philip Morris International Inc., $36.9 million

9. Kevin Johnson, Juniper Networks Inc., $36.1 million

10. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co., $35.7 million

Chip & PIN on mobile banking

2009-05-01T08:40:00.000+07:00

had a call the other day about the success of Chip & PIN.

Admittedly Chip & PIN did reduce fraud for a while in merchant stores, but it’s now on the rise again. At the end of the conversation, I realised why and how Chip & PIN happened and why it is here to stay. It also made me realise why Chip & PIN is not the solution and why mobile banking is taking so long to take off.

To illustrate the process, here’s a snapshot of one bank’s boardroom:

The boardroom meeting began with the minutes of the last meeting, apologies for absence and matters of the day. After the usual mutterings and demands and debates, the large oak-panelled door opened and Mr. Mobile stepped into the room.

“Ah, Mr. Mobile”, said the bank’s CEO, Big Cheese. “Welcome to Fusty Bank’s Monthly Board Meeting. As you can see we have the Chairman here and my cohorts in attendance.” The other attendees nodded at Mr. Mobile in welcome, “and the agenda item I believe you are presenting is: ‘the business case for Fusty Bank’s move into mobile banking’. Fire away.”

“Thank you Mr. Cheese”, replied Mr. Mobile. “And let me begin by saying what an honour it is to be here with you today”.

“Get on with it Mobile”, snapped Big Cheese.

Hmmm, that was a good start.

“Well lady and gentlemen”, Mr. Mobile had always liked the bank’s only female board member, Mrs. Human Resource, “I could present numbers to you but you have those in your books and background reading, so let us look at the three main points for investment in our mobile channels today. First for competitive reasons; second for customer and revenue growth; and third for cost savings.”

“Mobile, I have heard this so many times before”, said the Big Cheese.

The Chairman nodded in agreement and, a moment later, so did the cohorts.

This was not going well.

“We have business cases presented here every month and they are all the same”, Big Cheese continued. “They all talk about numbers, competition, customers and costs, so tell me something I don’t know.”

The room fell silent and Mr. Mobile felt a little despondent already, even though he had only been in the room for two minutes.

Mr. Mobile thought for a while and finally, after what felt like an eternity but was just a matter of a few seconds, he turned to Big Cheese’s Head of Fraud, Robin Banks, and said: “you wasted millions of the banks money by ignoring my business case.”

Robin’s face reddened and he closed his eyes.

Big Cheese turned and looked at Robin in surprise, whilst the Chairman gazed like a serpent watching the room’s dynamics.

Big Cheese quietly asks, “Robin, what does Mr. Mobile mean by this?”

Robin picked up his notes and tried to hide.

“Robin?” Big cheese was losing patience.

“Sir, yes sir. I think Mr. Mobile is referring to Chip & PIN sir”, Robin replied in a slightly shaky voice.

Both the Chairman and Big Cheese looked confused, so Mr. Mobile stepped in.

“That’s right Robin, and sorry to drop you in it but Chip & PIN was a farce.”

Big Cheese glowered and asked Mr. Mobile to explain his accusation.

“Well it’s not Robin’s fault really”, said Mr. Mobile, “but more the fault of the UK Banking Industry and APACS, what is now the Payments Council. But it’s not really their fault either. They were just too short-sighted to notice how rapidly the world was changing.”

“Look”, interrupted the Chairman, “we’re in the middle of a Board meeting, listening to your business case which has so far been very unimpressive.” The Chairman does not suffer fools gladly. “Either tell us the facts in a short and succinct fashion or you can get out of here now.”

“Sorry Mr. Chairman”, Mr. Mobile replied sheepishly, “I don’t wish to annoy but some of the facts are critical in the case for this business.”

Once again the Chairman said: “Make it short and sweet, Mr. Mobile”, and now he had the full attention of the room.

“A decade ago, the British banking industry decided to introduce a better way to avoid fraud and decided on Chip & PIN. This was agreed around 2002 after a global analysis determined that the French PIN card system, which had been in place since 1995, worked well and that the EMV Chip in Credit and Debit cards was functional enough for national deployment.” Mr. Mobile was on a roll.

“The system was launched in 2005 and mandated in 2006 when all merchants had to invest millions in new PIN terminals.”

“Mobile, I am getting bored”, sniffed Big Cheese. The Chairman’s eyes had closed about a minute ago and Mr. Mobile wasn’t even sure if he was still awake, and Robin Bank’s eyes were boring into Mr. Mobile’s forehead so hard that he felt them on his face like daggers.

“Sorry Mr. Chairman”, said Mr. Mobile, “but, you see, all that cost and effort was wasted.”

“I don’t see that”, said Big Cheese, “and unless you make yourself clear in less than a minute, you can leave the room.”

“OK sir, short and sweet”, Mr. Mobile now knew he had them.

“At the same time the UK determined upon Chip & PIN, Hungarians were rolling out an alert service which is now used across Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa and other economies. It’s a mobile telephone service which simply alerts customers every time their card is used with an SMS text message. It costs virtually nothing, customers love it and are willing to pay for the service, banks make money out of it, and no infrastructure or millions were spent on terminals to avoid fraud.”

He stopped and looked around the room.

The cohorts were sniggering, Robin Banks was festering, the Chairman was now wide awake and Big Cheese looked unhappy.

“You mean we didn’t need Chip & PIN?” asked Big Cheese.

“No sir”, said Mr. Mobile.

“Banks. Is this true?” asked Big Cheese.

Robin Banks visually trembled and said, “not strictly true sir. When APACS and the industry made this decision, we didn’t think mobile telephones were going to be as ubiquitous or usable as they are today.”

“Are you an idiot, Banks?” asked Big Cheese.

“No sir”, said Banks looking a little like Forrest Gump with his mouth wide open with surprise at such an accusation. “But bear in mind this was a decade ago when we were making the decision for Chip & PIN. How could we have known?”

“And what about those one-time password terminals the banks just spent more millions on rolling out?” asked Mr. Mobile.

Big Cheese was now looking distinctly angry.

“What terminals are you talking about now, Mobile?”

“Well sir”, says Mr. Mobile feeling more and more assured, “the very same group that made the decision to go down the Chip & PIN alley found that fraud at merchant’s terminals was reduced dramatically but the criminal fraternity just shifted their attention to the internet. As a result, the industry made a decision to give customers terminals to authenticate internet transactions.”

The Chairman grunted, “I’ve even used one!” he said.

Mr. Mobile smiled and continued: “The terminals work by entering your card and PIN. You then receive a unique one-time password code that you enter to authorise the payment. The fact that you enter that code proves the cardholder is present.”

“So that sounds good if it reduces fraud online”, said Big Cheese.

“It is. Except that customers hate it and the cost of the terminals has been a waste of money”, says Mr. Mobile.

“Is this true Banks?” roared Big Cheese.

Robin Banks cowered back in his chair, “not strictly true sir.”

“Is it or isn’t it?” asked the Chairman.

“It is but we ...” before Banks could finish Big Cheese growled “get out of my sight” and the two bank security officers who guard every Board meeting picked Banks’ chair up off the floor, with him in it, and physically removed him from the meeting.

“Explain more Mobile”, said the Chairman.

Mr. Mobile was now really pleased with how it was all going and ploughed onwards and upwards ... or so he thought.

“The fact is that, just as a phone can be used for fraud alerts to customers, it can also be used for one-time password generation and authentication.”

“How?” Big Cheese asked the question, looking genuinely interested.

“Well, every time a transaction needs authentication, we send an alert to the customer with details of the transaction via an SMS message to their phone. They should send back a message to the bank server saying it’s ok with a secure code to prove it is them. The bank server then sends them the unique one-time password number as a text message which they enter into the online payment system. Voila. Job done.”

Big Cheese leaned forward and said, “this all sounds remarkably simple Mobile, so why didn’t we do this?”

Mobile smiled and said, “well, we could have done. However, we were so wrapped up with working as a collegiate industry together, and then with all the vagaries and challenges of the Chip & PIN rollout followed by the urgent issues of internet and cardholder not present fraud, that the password terminal and keyfobs seemed the obvious thing to do. However, it once again cost the industry millions, didn’t solve the problem, irritated the customer and created more complexity. If only these people making the decisions could have seen the opportunity for mobile telephones, it would have been so much more simple, cheap, cost-effective and fast.”

“Anything else?” asked Big Cheese.

“Yes, it would also have generated revenue and profit for the bank as the mobile service is a service that customers would pay for, rather than being forced to use”, said Mobile.

“Well, thank you Mr. Mobile. A most interesting presentation and business case”, said the Chairman. “Do you have anything else to say before we conclude?”

“Only that we now have a fantastic opportunity to not only differentiate Fusty Bank from the competition, overcome fraud and create great customer service experiences, but that we can also add on many more revenue-generating applications and services to the mobile.”

“Such as?” The Chairman, Big Cheese and the cohorts were all now listening to every word Mr. Mobile said.

“Billing, payments, remittances, proximity services and marketing, 24*7advisory and support for customer financial management ... anything really. It’s effectively like placing the whole bank in the customer’s hand and, as a result, you can create far more customer activity and revenue.”

Big Cheese digested what Mr. Mobile had just said. He flicked through the notes in the business case. He quietly whispered a few words in the Chairman’s ear and the Chairman nodded.

Big Cheese then waved a finger at the security guards by the door, who came over and talked quietly with Big Cheese. Upon completion of these discussions, they approached Mr. Mobile.

“What’s going on?” asked Mr. Mobile.

“Taking care of business”, said Big Cheese, at which point the two guards lifted Mr. Mobile off his feet and threw him head first out of the Boardroom window.

The cohorts screamed, with several looking visibly distressed. One was even sick.

When the furore died down a little, Big Cheese addressed them all in a very stern manner.

“Colleagues. What you have just seen is something I hoped you would never see, but it had to be done I’m afraid.”

The cohorts squealed and squirmed.

“You see, Mr. Mobile just committed the ultimate crime in banking.”

The cohorts shook and trembled.

“He pointed out the folly of our ways.”

The cohorts moaned and groaned.

“We do not like wasting money and losing revenues.”

One of the cohorts then had the temerity to ask Big Cheese the question they had all be dying to ask (in Mr. Mobile’s case literally).

“So, we are going to rollout mobile services sir?”

“Of course not you fool”, bellowed Big Cheese, rounding on the individual concerned with his face bursting into reds, purples and veins bulging, “we’re going to bury this whole discussion until someone comes into this market with a product that works and then we shall copy it.”

The room went deathly quiet.

Nothing stirred.

Not even a mouse.

Then the Chairman decided it was time to retake control.

“Big Cheese. Why would we do that?”

“Because Mr. Chairman, we cannot afford to let the mobile carriers eat our lunch and I am not about to write-off a ten year security program that cost us millions.”

“Oh yes. I forgot.”

With this, Big Cheese called the meeting to a close and left the room.

Robin Banks, who had been hiding behind the Boardroom door listening to the meeting through the keyhole, crashed into the filing cabinets as Big Cheese pushed the door open with a hefty boot.

Incumbent Exchanges

2009-04-28T16:14:00.000+07:00

There were two more great discussions during TradeTech that compared and contrasted the incumbents with the new MTFs. The first focused upon attracting liquidity and what that means; the second on the likely view for the future of trading venues.

The first discussion was a debate amongst a panel comprising:

Hirander Misra, COO, Chi-X Europe;
John Wilson, Chief Executive, Baikal;
Rainer Riess, Managing Director, Cash Market Business Development, Deutsche Boerse;
Mark Hemsley, CEO, BATS Trading Europe; and
Simon Brickles, CEO, Plus Markets Group;

chaired by Andrew Silverman, Managing Director Electronic Trading, Morgan Stanley.

There was a little of the usual spikey stuff about “our exchange is better / cheaper / faster than your one” especially when Hirander of Chi-x mentioned how their order execution was 1.6 basis points better than Xetra’s, to which Rainer of Deutsche Bourse responded that: “Chi-x can claim a 1.6 bps improvement over Xetra but Xetra could claim a 10 bps improvement over Chi-x dependent upon how you measure it.”

Herr Riess was quite fired up in fact and continued: “you must not confuse reality with marketing. It reminds me of the bargain airlines for example, where you advertise very cheap seats but when you try to book, the seats are not there. Ignoring the depth of book is not useful.”

Ah yes, the old apples and pears difficulties of comparing the full execution, clearing and settlement cycle, although there has to be some truth in Hirander’s claims or why would Chi-x have picked up so much market share off the incumbents over the last two years?

There were also some key notes of substance during this panel as well, such as Rainer’s closing comment that you cannot ignore the depth of the book when comparing execution venues.

Mark Hemsley counteracted that liquidity flows to BATS because they have “tighter prices, a diversified customers base and no dependence upon a single order flow”; whilst Hirander talked the fact that regulations mandate Best Bid-Offer (BBO) reference pricing which, without a consolidated tape for a European BBO (EBBO) style service – which Equiduct offers if anyone’s interested – then you cannot achieve this BBO capability.

Equally, Hirander stated that you need EBBO with Volume Weighted Average Pricing (VWAP) to make it really work.

True.

John Wilson agreed, but clarified that a mandated tape would be a bad thing because it would create latency issues and challenges in determining where to take the prices from.

In fact, the entire panel felt a consolidated reference pricing on a single tape would be great, but that is should not be a regulatory requirement. The Chairman Andrew of Morgan Stanley then made the most telling comment: “fix it or we will be regulated”.

Also true.

There was also a clear view that the clearing and settlement area is a problem, with Mark Hemsley of BATS saying it was “a joke” due the log jam of requests for change. “We will go out of our way to support those clearers who create interoperability”, and that there was room for three pan-European CCPs maximum.

John Wilson of Baikal agreed, saying that interoperability of CCPs is critical which is why CCP intermediation is increasing. With intermediation increasing, CCPs are now concerned about disintermediation, which is why interoperability and risk models are being opened up for discussion between the Clearing & Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs).

Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of NASDAQ OMX, speaking in the next session added a nice little sound bite to this debate, when she said that it didn’t matter if they were 0.1 or more basis points better on price discovery if “the elephant in the room – clearing and settlement – was not solved.”

Implication: EuroCCP and EMCF are going to get the full support to lean on Eurex Clearing and Euroclear to make change happen.

Rainer Riess then countered with a view that the Code of Conduct had created transparency and debate, and that there is competition so we do not need more regulation. Equally, in the clearing space, you have to remember the issues of risk and that interoperability between two CCPs is hard to control. “An integrated vertical silo is needed and we can do that in that we can marginalise across asset classes”. Rainer finished with the view that you “must balance competition against market integrity”.

Implication: Deutsche Bourse with Xetra, Eurex and Eurex Clearing has the straight-through processing under a single umbrella for end-to-end trading clearing and settlement … if you want to avoid risk and / or prefer a more single provider (competitors call ‘monopoly’) approach.

All in all, a great panel session.

Turner and Compliance

2009-04-27T14:35:00.000+07:00

It will be different in the future though, and there are some firm dates such as June 2009 when the new collegiate of supervisory boards that comprise the Financial Stability Board start their work.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) itself is there as an early warning system rather than as an actual decision-maker. In fact, it has no decision making powers and so each national and regional regulator can make their own choices. This means that there is no global regulator and there is unlikely to be one.

Equally, there is unlikely to be a regional regulator for Europe, which is why the De Larosière Group recommended strengthening CEBS, CESR and CIOPS but not to make them the EU regulatory power. That power still lies with the FSA, AMF, BAFIN and other national regulators.

So the FSB is the alarm bell and standard setting organisation between nations and regions, but not a powerbase.

The real meat of the G20 pronouncements however had more to do with liquidity – a word that had not appeared on any risk radars or regulatory agendas just two years ago – and capital adequacy. As a result Basel II will be amended to address pro-cyclicality through minimum levels of capital although, as this short clip illustrates,

are Order routers has providing Best Execution?

2009-04-24T08:41:00.001+07:00

Chi-x began trading two years ago, soon to be followed by Turquoise, BATS, NASDAQ OMX and Equiduct. And there will be more. According to the dialogue so far, there are 125 or so MTFs registered with CESR across Europe.

Admittedly, many of these are broker-dealer based systems and services, but there are at least 10 pan-European MTFs registered, with Burgundy the next to launch.

So it’s obvious that not all of them can succeed, but having three or four in each area of service from dark pools to liquid stocks to all markets and eventually to derivatives, bonds, fixed income and other markets certainly seems to be on the cards according to the discussions here so far.

I’ll talk more about the other MTFs tomorrow but right now Chi-x is the one that shouts loudest, probably because it’s been around for longest and has first mover advantage. In fact, unlike BATS, NASDAQ OMX and Equiduct, it also had the advantage of launching well before September r2008 when the credit crisis hit, which is a definite advantage.

So Mark Howarth, the new CEO of Chi-x Europe – my friend Peter Randall left on the day I last blogged about this stuff in depth – stands up and presents some interesting slides.

For example, gross consideration for Chi-x rose steadily through to September 2008 and then dipped away as follows:

Gross Consideration (€ billions)

Q2 07 €1.5
Q3 07 €20.2
Q4 07 €34.6
Q1 08 €74.2
Q2 08 €132.5
Q3 08 €246.3
Q4 08 €205.5
Q1 09 €148.9

Now you may look at those numbers diving since Q3 2008 and think Chi-x should be worried, but that’s not the whole story in that, by the end of Q1 2009, Chi-x proudly claim fifth spot in the European pecking order of exchanges, closely followed by NASDAQ OMX Nordic and Turquoise:

Value of Equity trading, March 2009

Exchange / MTF Order Book Trades Order Book T/Over (EUR m)

1 London Stock Exchange 17,279,867 123,650.0

2 Euronext 15,365,479 116,839.0

3 Deutsche Borse 8,118,311 95,835.8

4 Spanish Exchange (BME) 2,832,093 60,682.8

5 Chi-X Europe 10,554,888 57,168.5

6 Borsa Italiana 6,227,802 45,937.2

7 SWX Europe 2,875,388 45,495.4

8 NASDAQ OMX Nordic 4,802,676 43,150.6

9 Turquoise 3,309,508 22,567.8

10 Oslo Bors 1,240,279 11,397.7

11 BATS Europe 1,760,985 8,277.7

12 SIX Swiss Exchange 462,090 2,802.3

Equally, market share of all the new Exchanges has been steadily rising. For example, the three new MTFs – Chi-x, BATS and Turquoise – are averaging around 20% of the DAX30 daily volume. That’s a wee dent in the Deutsche Bourse’s pie I suspect.

In fact, Mark claims that Chi-x’s research shows that there would be a significant shift in liquidity and market share to Chi-X and the other MTFs from the incumbent exchanges if best price routing were in play. This would be in the order of 17% of all orders for November 2008, 15% in December, 13% in January 2009 and 12% in February. The reason for the decreasing numbers is the decreased volume of trading during these months, rather than any uncompetitive aspects of the new MTF models.

In other words, and I’ve heard this from the other MTFs too, the fact that order routers aren’t smart enough to seek out best price in Europe right now is the reason why the liquidity sticks with the incumbents.

Not sure if true, but Chi-x claim their market share would have been 10.6% higher between November and February if the full price improvement transparency and best execution rules were enforced.

job hunters rejected

2009-04-23T17:31:00.000+07:00

Another year, another TradeTech, Europe’s largest technology exhibition and conference focused upon the investment markets for the buy and sell side.

I love TradeTech. The smell of money, the buzz of aggressive trading strategies, the master of the universe swagger as you walk round the exhibit hall, the sound of ‘buy, buy, buy’.

More like the sound of bye, bye, bye this year it seems, as lots of workers have been laid off, bonuses cancelled or delayed and a generally sombre atmosphere around the markets.

Or that's the impression my colleague gave me as I arrived here at lunchtime.

Not sure if true, as there’s a good size exhibit hall and attendance list ... but yes, there is something missing.

What could it be?

Why regulators find it so hard to regulate

2009-04-22T10:32:00.000+07:00

The theme was around how to make the G20 supervisory framework work with regulators, compliance heads, bank directors and a CIO in attendnace. All in all a nice crowd, and a convivial conversation.

However, I did note a few comments such as:

“Europe is run by the Council of ministers”
“European regulations are overly prescriptive”
“Greed is the biggest desire and how do you regulate that?”
“I’m amazed by the financial regulator’s lack of teeth”
“The French make the laws as complex as possible and then don’t follow them” …

and more.

Oh yes, nothing like being a London-based European is there?

Now this may sound like a disaffected group, but it isn’t. It is more a case that you can create as many rules and laws as you like but if they are unclear, unworkable or inappropriate, then you cannot enforce them.

This is the frustration of the regulators as much as the regulated, and there is no simple answer.

We then talked about principles- versus rules- based regulation, with three-quarters of the room saying that principles-based regulation is still far more appropriate than rules-based. Although rules are easier to follow, they can be too constraining.

Then the conversation was pulled up by the statement that principles-based regulation no longer works and we should focus upon outcomes-based regulation.

Interesting, especially as we have a lengthy process of new outcomes-based regulation coming through, such as the FSA’s Consultation Paper entitled 'Strengthening liquidity standards 2: Liquidity reporting' (CP09/13) released yesterday.

I haven’t had time to read the document but PJ Di Giammarino, who chairs the Financial Services Club’s Capital Markets Chamber**, posted a commentary as follows:

“After a rapid review of the 174-page CP09/13 response on liquidity reporting, we think the FSA is essentially saying ‘We appreciate it is going to be hard but get on with it, because we are serious’.

“Despite many of the 98 respondents to the 15 questions in CP 08/22 (the first consultation paper released last December) highlighting the practical issues associated in delivering new reports, the FSA has decided that liquidity problems need to be monitored daily. And for banks this means exactly what it says on the tin.

“The FSA recognises that reporting requirements may be costly to implement but believes the data concerned would normally be utilised by most firms during the normal course of business.

“In an important nod to the recent G20 meeting, it is also clear that the FSA is engaged in international efforts to align other regulators to its data-intensive approach – and then use this as the basis of cross-border benchmarks.

“Firms should expect the new rules and guidance to be in effect in the fourth quarter of this year with new FSA reporting arrangements going live in Q1 2010. It goes without saying that there’s a huge amount of work to be done across the industry to get this right.

“Our discussions with practitioners in banks lead us to conclude that, whilst much of this makes good business sense, it has the consequence of asking banks to rethink their infrastructures from the bottom up. The good news is that investment firms now have a clear and certain regulatory target to aim at.”

This also builds on the De Larosière report and other rulings as discussed previously, and my take on PJ’s comments is that the FSA has placed stringent rules in play which will force banks to report daily based upon strong liquidity data analysis.

Sounds like a prescriptive regulation if you ask me, and promotes the idea that outcomes-based regulation is not going to be based on principles but will be based upon strong controls, enforceable through prescriptive data reporting structures.

A-ha … and hopefully with teeth and co-ordination for a consistent approach across geographies.

But even if it isn’t, it does not matter as the key here is to have a transparent regulatory environment which ensures a robust marketplace, and the more robust the marketplace the more market players.

It honestly doesn’t matter what the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy or others implement in their interpretation of EU Directives, it just matters that each creates a strong and robust marketplace which attracts liquidity and has some form of consistency, even if not quite 100% the same.

This is why the FSA always jumps in first, because they want the UK market to be the most robust and well regulated, to encourage participation in that market over others.

And there's the rub. Who can create the market that has great regulations, which are easy to work with and robust, whilst avoiding constraints and rules which might deter business and liquidity.

And one, of course, that averts a disaster anything like the one we’ve just experienced in this crisis, e.g. from Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed yesterday:

Anyways, back to the dinner and the comment that resonated the loudest around the room was the one that asked: “where’s the customer’s voice?”

In all the dialogue about regulations and regulating, the focus appears to have been to lock the horse back in the barn after its bolted whilst the fact is that the farm still needs looking after.

In other words, are we focusing too much upon the crisis and its issues, or should we be focusing back on what is good for corporations and citizens, and then apply this to the banks?

I guess we’re trying to do both: to plug the holes in our existing legislation that allowed the credit bubble to balloon and burst, whilst protecting corporations and customers from past, current and potential future misdemeanours.

No wonder the regulators have such a hard time.

about Bank CEO

2009-04-15T13:42:00.001+07:00

The Banker magazine hit the mark again this month with a research report on CEOs views.

During February and March, they surveyed 87 bank CEOs across Western (6.5%) and Eastern (15.6%) Europe, North (5.2%) and South (14.3%) America, Africa (20.8%) and Asia (23.4%).

The figures in brackets are the percentage of CEOs from each region responding, and here’s a summary of key results:

Will business be better or worse in 2009 compared to 2008?

28.7% expect business to be better;
31% expect business to be a little worse; and
11.5% expect business to be a lot worse.

Comment: if 1 CEO was Canadian, then Western European and the USA would equal around 11.5%, about the same number that expect things to be a 'lot worse'!

When will we recover?

Q2 2009 25.3%,
Q3 9.2%
Q4 23.0%
1H 2010 17.2%
2H 2010 19.5%
2011+ 5.7%

That means approximately 57.5% of CEOs expect recovery this year … interesting that South America, Africa and Asian CEOs equal 57.7% of respondents, which means American and European CEOs may be looking to next year.

The main causes of the crisis were:

Exotic financial structures
Excessive leverage
Global macroeconomic imbalances creating excessive liquidity
Poor regulation
Poor management

48.2% described their capital levels as higher than regulatory requirements, whist only 3.5% thought theirs was too low (Citi? BoA? RBS?).

50.6% expect their balance sheet structure to stay the same, whilst 15% thought a significant restructuring would be needed … woohoo!

A key note for those in my community is where do you see investment areas in 2009:

71.3% IT Systems
64.4% Core Banking Systems
63.2% The Bank's Retail Network
56.3% Compliance
36.8% Customers Surveys
29.9% New Staff
25.3% Environmentally Friendly Technology
24.1% CSR Projects

In other words, bugger the planet … we’re more interested in survival and prosperity!

Some other interesting notes include:

40% of CEOs reported retail savings and deposits are the most active business are for the bank and 25.3% said that corporate lending is the most active area; less than 5% said that mortgage lending would be the most active area; and

Asked how governments can help banks, less than a third answered through quantitative easing … is that why the Treasury is having second thoughts about more quantitative easing

status of the G20

2009-04-14T09:14:00.001+07:00

So the G20 meeting is over and has an agreement to spend over $1 trillion through the IMF on nations that are worthy. The other key agreements include:

a lockdown on the tax regimes of countries where people hide place their wealth. The age of bank ‘secrecy’ is over they say, although I’m not sure that Switzerland, the Caymans and other nations will appreciate that very much. Mind you, the OECD has just listed the tax havens they views as uncooperative, with Costa Rica, Malaysia (Labuan), the Philippines and Uruguay singled out as “jurisdictions that have not committed to the internationally agreed tax standard”;

a crackdown on light touch regulation and particularly on hedge funds, credit rating agencies and the operations of banks in the Over-the-Counter, or ‘shadow’ banking markets;

the creation of a new Financial Stability Board, which will focus upon financial stability across all major economies; and

measures to address the issues in the banking system by preventing excessive leverage and forcing banks to have higher reserve policies so that we avoid being left under-capitalised in a downturn again.

There’s a lot more to it, but I guess the key implications for banks are that there will be a fundamental rethinking of core products and services as:

all systemically important financial institutions will be covered by the rules, including hedge funds;

capital requirements will change provisioning, and this may lead to a new Basel III;

the current Financial Stability Forum becomes the Financial Stability Board and will embrace all G20 countries, the European Commission and Spain;

the new Board will have a much wider mandate to promote financial stability, set financial guidelines and monitor supervisors for the major cross-border institutions; and

challenges in using cross-border tax loopholes for profits and products.

On the last one, I just realised something. One of my bank friends works in London two to three days a week, but lives in a tax haven called Monaco to escape tax here. Surely now, he'll move to Costa Rica. Nice weather, and no pressure from the G20 on his tax.

Maybe they should register the bank's head office there too?

Anyway, the G20 Summit was a useful step forward as it gathered clarity from the world's largest nations in stemming this crisis and moving forward. It was useful, even though all of the agreements were made beforehand by the civil servants. It was managed well, as the predicted riots were quelled through strong police action and control (if you didn't notice, the riots in Strasbourg at the NATO meeting have been far worse).

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in learning more from a real expert, then come to the next Financial Services Club meeting on Thursday 16th April 2009 in the London.

David Bagley, Global Head of Compliance for HSBC will discuss his view of the implications of a new G20 Supervisory Framework.

for the multichannel myth purpose

2009-04-09T09:04:00.001+07:00

For years, I’ve dealt with banks talking about multichannel integration and adding new capabilities to the core traditional channel of branch operations.

In the 1970’s we added ATMs, the 1980’s added call centres, the 1990’s the internet, and now mobile.

For all those years, we merrily added these techno-capabilities as the world revolved around us because we felt we had to and because, in some cases, they saved us money.

We added ATMs because they reduced costs; we added call centres because new competitors were eating our lunch; we added the internet because we thought we could close branches; and we’re adding mobile because it’s the latest fad for customer service.

For all those years, we did the best we could to keep up … but we failed.

You see, I had a realisation this week.

One of those eureka moments.

The realisation that multichannel does not work.

It was something that we’ve been doing in our sleep, but it’s wrong.

What we actually created is mixichannel. Mixi stands for mixed up.

We added ATMs and they’ve grown massively in the UK, from 10,000 in 1986 to over 60,000 today.

These were typically stuck on the outside of branches and are now in car parks, pubs, casinos and anywhere else you might need cash (there are many around Soho, which I’m informed need refilling far more frequently than most ATMs!).

The ATM saved cash by increasing transactional services without the human hand involved, or not the bank's hand anyway.

The ATM however is not really a channel.

It’s an adjunct to the bank’s reach. It’s a cost reduction mechanism. It’s a method of getting rid of a branch or adding a remote branch, but it's a transaction engine.

It’s not a channel.

A channel is one where you can sell stuff and provide advice.

Anyone lingering at an ATM talking about a pension would either be (a) mad or (b) annoying, as the 100 people standing behind them wanting cash will be out with the daggers.

So the ATM is not a channel as such, but call centre, internet and mobile are channels.

And the thing about the call centre, internet and mobile is that the banks have typically added these channels onto existing operations after another player has proven their success.

In the case of the call centre, First Direct were one of the first movers to make this channel work, and are the UK’s leader in this area.

First Direct built their bank around a remote telephone based centre, rather than adding call centre to branch operations. Therefore, the difference is that First Direct have processes designed for remote customer reach, rather than a process designed for administering customer service when the branch is closed.

In the case of the internet, Britain’s leading internet bank is Smile. Smile is a bank designed for exploiting internet self-servicing, rather than adding traditional bank processes to a home-based self-service channel.

And in the case of mobile, we now have a new dedicated mobile bank, Mobank, which is soon to launch in the UK.

What’s the point?

Well, my eureka moment is that the banks of the 1970’s are still the banks of the 1970’s.

The reason why their call centre operations ask for name and account number, and focus upon balance and transaction statements, is because they view the branch as the key contact point.

The reasons their internet services are dull and boring is because they are just automating statements online, rather than leveraging and using broadband-based social media.

And their mobile services will be the same.

This is because the technology is being added to the bank focused around branch operations, rather than using the technology to design a new bank specifically for that technology.

However, when a bank is designed around the technology, it wipes the floor of the competition.

First Direct is not only Britain’s largest call centre based bank, but it’s one of Britain’s favourite banks.

Smile is not only an internet designed bank for internet access, but also Britain’s favourite bank.

According to a BBC survey last year of 13,000 UK viewers, these are the top banks for customer satisfaction and service in the UK.

They are banks without branches designed for the channels of today, rather than banks with branches who added these channels onto their traditional structures.

In Japan, I recently talked about Jibun Bank and eBank. eBank has half of the internet banking market in Japan, as a bank designed for the internet. Jibun Bank has already stormed up the bank charts, as a bank designed for the mobile.

What this tells me is that it’s not about banks closing down and being eaten by new competition, as all of these banks other than eBank are owned by traditional branch-based banks.

What it says is that a bank is far more likely to be successful with a new channel if they design a bank for that channel, rather than tagging on the technology as another on top of their branch operations.

Just a thought as, if true, it says that banks should really be launching new banks designed for new channels under separate brands as their future strategy, whilst making the absolute minimum investment in the new channel with their older channel brands.

Some banks do the latter anyway, but I’m not sure whether it’s by design or lethargy.

Final thought: if my business can run today for 80% of the costs it did a decade ago, thanks to broadband access and low cost technology, why hasn’t a bank passed on these savings to their customers?

UK bank branch numbers declined 11% between 2002 and 2007, and broadband means that UK banks have most customers looking after their own needs these days through self-service. Call centres have been outsourced and offshored, and ATMs have extended to cheque deposits and more.

how much user today?

2009-04-09T09:01:00.001+07:00

A website created in 2004 reached 200 million users today.

That's the size of America near enough!

A website has built an America in just five years.

Not bad going is it and, even though it's not a bank, this is as important to banking as the internet as it has become the home page for almost 200 million people.

The site is Facebook, as if you didn't know, and here's Mark Zuckenberg's note explaining what it means to them (a lot of share options I would have thought):

We will welcome our 200 millionth user to Facebook some time today, and I want to take this opportunity to describe what this means to us and what we hope it can mean for everyone using Facebook.

When we built Facebook in 2004, our goal was to create a richer, faster way for people to share information about what was happening around them. We thought that giving people better tools to communicate would help them better understand the world, which would then give them even greater power to change the world.

Creating channels between people who want to work together towards change has always been one of the ways that social movements push the world forward and make it better. Both U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have used Facebook as a way to organize their supporters. From the protests against the Colombian FARC, a 40-year old terrorist organization, to fighting oppressive, fringe groups in India, people use Facebook as a platform to build connections and organize action.

More broadly, technology has made it easier and faster for people across the world to share more and more -- from the daily activities of their lives to events that impact their communities. At Facebook, we want to build the best service in the world for people to connect with and share everything that is important to them, whether day-to-day or world-changing. A heat map of our growth since 2004 shows how quickly people across the world are connecting on Facebook.

Growing rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start, but we've always known that in order for Facebook to help people represent everything that is happening in their world, everyone needs to have a voice. This is why we are working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, whether they are a person, a company, a president or an organization working for change.

To celebrate and support all of these voices and their potential to improve the world, we are creating a space on Facebook where people can share their stories about how Facebook has helped them give back to their communities, effect change or connect with a distant relative. We've also worked with 16 charitable and advocacy organizations to create gifts that are now available in our gift shop. The organization the gift represents will receive between 90 percent to 95 percent of the cost of the gift, after administrative expenses for the transaction, so we encourage you to share your passion for a cause with your friends and in doing so, support the cause. Facebook will not keep any part of your contribution.

There are still many more people and groups in the world whose voices we want to connect with everyone who wants to hear them. So even as we celebrate the 200 millionth person and all of you using Facebook today, we are working to bring the power of sharing to everyone in the world.

Trust the complete banker?

2009-03-31T09:52:00.000+07:00

First, there’s the Global Trustometer from Edelman. I’ve been a follower of this for years. You can see summary results at Edelman’s website.

For quite a few years, even during the good times, Edelman found that bank and finance brands are trust challenged. Equally, they find very different attitudes between Asian, European and American brand views.

For example, I remember a few years ago that European consumers voted the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Oxfam as their most trusted brand names whilst Americans had Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Ford as their top names.

I’m sure the US view may have changed a bit after Vista and the auto bailout, but Europeans are still tree-huggers and fluffy-bunny lovers.

Anyways, the 2009 Edelman survey, its tenth, is based upon a thirty minute telephone survey with 4,475 people in 20 countries between November 5th and December 14th 2008.

These interviews comprised 1,075 people aged 25 to 34, and 3,400 people aged between 35 and 64.

Globally, 62% of people trust companies less now than they did a year ago, with this drop the most marked in the USA, falling from 58% of American consumers trusting business to do what is right in 2008 to only 38% in 2009.

Funnily enough, trust in government to do what is right stayed pretty much on track globally.

Although the Swedish, Americans, Mexicans and Indians trusted their governments less, these were offset by the Brits, Germans, Dutch, Polish, Brazilians and Canadians who all trust their governments more.

Companies headquartered in Sweden, Germany and Canada are trusted more than any other, whilst Chinese and Russian firms are trusted the least.

Now to the crunch (not the credit crunch!).

Trust in banking.

Unsurprisingly, it’s down.

It’s down more than any other industry.

It’s down 11% globally, from 56% to 45%, only just above Media and Insurance.

Ah well, at least banks are more trusted than sponsored links and payout avoiders (not my view but the masses maybe?).

In America, trust in banks dropped a massive 33% from 69% to 36% of consumers believe that banks can be trusted to do what is right. In the UK, France and Germany, bank trust dipped from 41% to 27%, again the biggest drop ever.

What may be surprising is that trust in the banking sector in emerging economies was up from 72% to 84% in China and from 52% to 59% in Brazil.

Trust in articles in business papers, along with analyst's stock reports, have been blown off their most trusted mantle, whilst blogs appear on the trust scale for the first time this year.

Now, that’s good news isn’t it?

Similarly, the only person to gain more trust this year is an academic or expert on an industry.

Also good news for some.

There’s a load more in the Edelman survey so I commend you to download and read it.

Meanwhile, for the UK folks, there’s also the Trustometer from Marketing Week.

Now in its ninth year, Marketing Week with Reader’s Digest produces a view on whose brands are most trusted in the UK.

Reader's Digest (RD) claim to represent Middle England with 650,000 readers spread over a wide variety of the population:

Men Women Chief Income Main Shopper Working
Earners
GB Population 49% 51% 58% 66% 55%
Reader’s Digest 47% 53% 62% 71% 51%

ABC1 <35 35-54 55+ Presence of
School Age Children
GB Population 51% 34% 35% 32% 24%
Reader’s Digest 60% 17% 37% 46% 23%

So the results are interesting.

According to the survey, the most trusted brands in Britain for financial services are:

Bank/BuildingSociety Lloyds TSB
Credit Card Barclaycard
Insurance Company Direct Line
Mortgage Lender Nationwide Building Society

Noteworthy above is that Halifax had won the mortgage lender category since the survey launched nine years ago, but not this year as they are eclipsed by the Nationwide Building Society.

That's interesting as Lloyds TSB, the most trusted bank/building society, just took over Halifax.

Ah well, I guess Lloyds still did well, as it won the most trusted bank and, in a year that we've seen over here, that's some going. Mind you, Lloyds has apparently dominated this space since the survey began, which makes me question the RD readership figures.

For example, Lloyds most loyal customer base are seniors who also happen to be the typical readers of RD. The median age of an American RD reader is 52 and I reckon that's who voted in this survey. Not Americans, but readers with an average of around 52 years old.

Anyway, it still makes interesting reading as you may think that only a few people could name a trust bank brand after the events of last year, and yet 89% of respondents named one.

Marketing Week comments: “perhaps this demonstrates the distinction between how people perceive the dismal economic outlook overall, against their ongoing personal experience of banks as day-to-day service providers of financial services, with whom many have had long-term relationships.”

True.

Meanwhile, the fact that Barclaycard wins in the credit card sector may reflect its independence.

The magazine notes that the Barclaycard won the top spot for the second year running, sitting comfortably ahead of Capital One, which is in fourth position, and Visa and MasterCard, who are second and third, even though you can’t have a Barclaycard without one of those brands on it!

Maybe they won because of their great ad for contactless cards, which has also been a viral hit.

The other interesting point is that Norwich Union has been knocked off top spot for the first time since 2004 by Direct Line in the insurance category.

FSA Liquidity Regs

2009-03-24T08:40:00.000+07:00

The FSA’s new rules on liquidity management threaten to overload banks with reporting that the regulator won’t be able to understand while missing the source of the current financial crisis, said panelists at the Financial Services Club Capital Markets forum.

Because the session was conducted under Chatham House rules, this commentary doesn’t identify individual speakers. There was broad agreement that the FSA’s new rules, which are to take effect in October, largely miss the cause of the current problems.

Panelists agreed that banks are holding onto liquidity to survive.

“What kills a bank? If it loses liquidity it dies. The essence of why banks aren’t lending to banks isn’t any longer about counterparty trust. It is banks thinking they need a liquidity buffer that is bigger than in the past – if there is a run they want to make sure they can pay everything they owe on the dot.” The American program to offer insurance is a useful approach to improving liquidity.

National regulators threaten to undermine international banks because they focus just on performance within the nation’s borders.

“How can the FSA or any national regulator adequately regulate multinational institutions when all they do is look at the local part of that institution? If Asia is in trouble the FSA may ignore it but the bank with operations in Asia won’t.” Regulators will simply want to ensure a bank is self-sufficient in its home country, but that won’t work in a global work.

“If you trap liquidity in your own system, how does the UK function as an international center?” Parliament appears to want finance to shrink to the national borders, said another speaker. The FT reported Thursday that the FSA’s proposals are under fire from the financial services industry.

“The FSA's proposals would force banks to hold greater reserves of government bonds than in the past. It would also force UK subsidiaries of foreign banks to be self-sufficient in terms of funding, unless their parent companies met certain criteria.”

The FSA stressed that its proposals were subject to consultation and that it was supportive of efforts to come up with a global solution to the problem, said the FT.

At the FS Club, participants suggested delaying implementation of the rule for six to nine months.

The problems of national regulation aren’t limited to the UK.

Also on Thursday, the FT reported that American Congressmen want the Treasury to insist that banks which have received US funding invest in the US. Reacting to $8 billion of financing that Citi is arranged for public authorities in Dubai and a $7 billion investment by Bank of America in the China Construction Bank, they have raised questions about why US bailout money should be used outside the US.

Several FS Club participants said the FSA liquidity rules, which are to take effect in October, were adding cost to banking without adding much value. Banks will have a difficult time finding some of the data and it is unlikely the FSA will have staff in sufficient numbers, or with sufficient knowledge, to make use of it.

However, some vendors said that the information is more readily available than many banks think. One or two said that banks would actually derive business benefit from following the FSA liquidity regulations because this is information they need.

How to choice a good payment processing services to your business

2009-03-19T08:39:00.003+07:00

What do you need to enhance your retail establishment business and internet Website.
I think you must do something to fastest your payments for your business, one way to do it using a credit card. The problem is how you get a suitable credit card from your business.

To choose a suitable credit card you can find it more on http://www.fivestarpayments.com you also can find the solutions if you have any problem with your credit card to resolved that, so you don’t have any problem with your credit card its mean your payment process will always in a good conditions I think it will help you to trusting your business is good.

http://www.fivestarpayments.com provide you to choose your payment processing services, its very helpfully to your business, do your business simple easy, trusted but have a good profit with a suitable payment possessing services.

are human hands needed?

2009-03-18T09:52:00.000+07:00

The final day in Hong Kong focused upon innovations and several speakers provided a rich overview of innovation across the region, mainly n Japan and China.

I’ll blog about some of these for the rest of the week, as I was particularly impressed with a few areas of leading-edge technology being deployed in a consumer and business friendly manner.

For example Kazuhiko Saiki who leads marketing and operations for eBank in Japan, discussed the latest developments in eBank in-depth. Now I’ve blogged about eBank before and use them regularly as an example of how to do things differently because they have over 3 million customers with a total bank staff of under 200 people. That’s 15,000 customers per employee. Amazing.

I also notice that the number of accounts almost doubled from the end of 2006, as the bank moved access to both mobile and internet channels rather than just internet services.

How eBank manages the on-boarding process and structure is fascinating, as I haven’t seen this in other countries yet, and it’s also a major part of their success as it means no human hand is involved with the account opening process.

This is fascinating stuff and, as a result of such innovations, eBank have become the most popular inter-based Japanese bank with almost 1 in 2 online accounts, a 48% market share.

This success attracted an acquirer to step in and, in January 2009, eBank become a fully owned subsidiary of ... an etailer!

Rakuten Group purchased eBank to become the one of most popular internet sites in Japan behind Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo!

Considering our concerns about Wal-Mart and others entering the retail banking space, it is interesting to consider that we now have several internet brands running the largest financial operations in the world. For example, Rakuten in Japan, eBay in America with PayPal and Alibaba in China with Alipay.

This is a space to watch.

Meanwhile, eBank aren’t alone with their success, and are now threatened by a new bank.

A mobile telephone only bank.

A bank with no branches or internet site as such, but everything focused upon self-service through the mobile.

A bank launched only a few months ago.

A bank launched by a major Japanese bank.

Use Mobile for payments

2009-03-17T09:08:00.001+07:00

Mobile payments in China

Researchers estimate that there were only 83.5 million online payment users in China in 2006, due to the lack of access to payment cards. Admittedly, Tencent with the QQ coin has enabled more payments outside the banking system, but the lack of access to e-payments has been an inhibitor to the democratisation of commerce in China.

However, this is changing and changing fast with UMPay, a Joint Venture between Unionpay and China Mobile, targeting this space through mobile services.

According to UMPay, e- and m- payment users will exceed 500 million people next year and there are already 100 million m-payment users under the UMPay scheme. That’s more than the total number of online payment users only two years ago.

UMPay launched in 2003 and provides China Mobile users with a comprehensive mobile payment platform and mobile payment system provide mobile wallets, financial message services, top-ups and mobile ticketing.

Where they are going to gain the greatest growth is from rural farmers though. This is the strategy of UMPay today - to saturate the rural locations with UMPay access - and will take the 100 million users through the half a billion number in the very near future according to UMPay CEO Bin Zhang.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Mr. Zhang in Hong Kong and asked him to briefly explain their strategy. Here's a short version of our discussion** and apologies for the sound, but we were in the middle of a conference

Mobile finance is fast demonstrating its power in countries that are using such technologies to leapfrog established financial infrastructures.

In China's case, this is a sophisticated mobile financial service from billing and payments to utilities and transportation. In other words, a comprehensive use of mobile for banking and financial services.

We could learn a thing or two.

crisis is an economic

2009-03-11T09:02:00.000+07:00

Warren Buffett said yesterday that the US economy had “fallen off a cliff”, describing the current crisis as “an economic Pearl Harbor” as concern spread about the US Administration’s fitful attempts to halt the collapse of the American banking sector.

The leading investor, an informal adviser to President Obama whose financial diagnoses are widely respected – even though he conceded that he failed to predict the severity of the crisis – said that the economy had come “close to the worst case” imagined, and that recovery would be slow.

Mr Buffett, a multibillionaire, said that the entire banking sector had been hours from collapse in September, and would have imploded without the $700 billion Wall Street emergency bailout.

Mr Buffett also spoke of the growing fears over Mr Obama’s muddled approach to the central issue in solving the economic crisis: what to do with the banks’ $2 trillion of toxic debt that is threatening the collapse of the financial sector. Mr Obama and his Treasury chief, Timothy Geithner, have said that they do not want to nationalise any banks but they are coming under increasing pressure after massive and repeated injections of cash into crippled financial giants such as Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG have failed to stem losses.

Mr Geithner, who is woefully understaffed at the Treasury Department, has yet to come up with a detailed plan to stabilise the financial sector. Mr Buffett told CNBC that there needed to be a “very, very clear message”, adding: “People are confused and scared. People can’t be worried about banks, and a lot of them are.”

Whats the big barrier?

2009-03-10T10:24:00.001+07:00

this about disruptive models of banking and payments, such as complementary currencies, the new European Exchanges, Paypal, Zopa and SmartyPig.

The aim is to illustrate that there is the potential to do banking without banks.

This is not to say that, we believe people want to do banking in a different way, and even to do banking without banks. It's possible.

This is a theme explored by Banking as a Service and many of the other presentations, discussions and dialogues you will read on this blog.

Much of the dialogue is there to create a discussion, no more and no less. It is not to promote or demonstrate it has to be this way, just that it could be.

And each time the same questions are nearly always raised:

"Ah, but no-one trusts those new forms of finance which is why they stay with us."

So what does this mean: trust?

Does anyone trust the bank these days?

After the collapse of so many institutions, can banks really claim any trust at all?

Not necessarily.

The banks admit that trust is no longer guaranteed, and so we then move onto the next barrier to disruption:

"These new forms of finance do not work because they are not regulated."

Sure, and the banks were regulated with light touch, principles-based, self-regulation and look what that did for us.

Does regulation work in banking?

Not necessarily.

That's why the G20 and all the supervisory bodies are scrambling around to find a new way to regulate the system.

A Global Deal.

But if banks aren't trusted and regulation hasn't worked, are there really any barriers to new entrants in banking?

"Yes", say the bankers. "To be a bank you have to be licenced by the Central Bank, and many of these new players do not have that guarantee."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means that if we fail, the government guarantee the return of our customer's money."

Mmmm ... if that's the only reason customers stay, it's not a great case for keeping the business models of the past is it?

The banks of tomorrow are arising already.

They are nothing like the banks of the past and they may not have the licence, trust or regulatory endorsements that the old banking system had ... but do they need it?

power of low latency

2009-03-05T17:00:00.001+07:00

Last Thursday was one of those days where you wake up knowing it’s going to be a good one and you go to bed realising that it was … for some that is, but not for everyone.

In my case, I was up with the birds to get into the City and chair a conference all about trading technologies, from smart order routing through low latency equities exchanges and beyond.

On the way into the conference I discovered that for my good friends Peter Randall might not be having his best day as the headlines held the news that he had left Chi-X. This shocked me as Peter was joining our Financial Services Club’s panel on low latency that very evening.

I rang Peter and obviously gave him my best wishes and that I totally understood that he would not be able to join us that evening and wished him well. Then, in the spirit of the City, I immediately grabbed Hirander Misra, COO for Chi-X, and asked if he would take Peter’s place that evening which he did.

Joining Hirander were Todd Golub, COO of NASDAQ OMX and Yann L’Hullier, CIO of Turquoise.**

Terry Quigley of Colt Telecom and Chris Pickles of BT both joined us as well. Terry and Chris are key advocates and deliverers of low latency networking.

The results were also fascinating and, to an extent, staggering so I'm going to provide here a collection of clips and slides from the evening. The video clips are variable in quality due to the various converters used, and Slideshare isn't accessible for everyone, but here's a complete multimedia view of the evening.

what's going on In Ireland, cash or just a cheques

2009-03-04T09:04:00.000+07:00

What it shows is that Ireland is still extremely reliant on paper payments, particularly cash and cheques.

Ireland has historically had a policy of such usage, and the government has actively discouraged electronic payment until recently by taxing citizens for using debit and credit cards. This is illustrated by Slide 5, which shows that the volumes of paper payments processed have remained remarkably constant during the last four years.

Equally, I was amazed at Slide 9 that shows the use of cash per capita has been surging between 2006 and 2007. Is this the result of the credit crisis I wonder, or the fact that every newsagent, post office, public house and field in Ireland has recently seen off-premise ATMs deployed? If you don’t know btw, Ireland has more ATMs than any other country in Europe per capita, as illustrated by Slide 11.

Therefore, although card values are rising, cash is still dominant (Slide 12).

Cheques are also rampant and Slide 13, 14 and 18 put this in context. They are also fascinating slides in their own right.

For example, slides 13 and 14 show that whilst Ireland’s use of cheques is not as bad as France, the value of cheque is massive. This implies that cash is traded for general sundries and small trading, whilst cheques are for the big stuff.

Slide 18 particularly speaks volumes, as countries such as Britain and France have actively been targeting the reduction in the usage of cheques.

In the UK for example, we have many firms that decline cheques completely or will only accept them with a high processing fee or value.

France has seen cheques reduce from over half of all payments in 1990 to under a quarter today, and it’s reducing further.

Ireland’s cheque usage remains constant – another sign of a government that has encouraged paper payments by discouraging electron ones, and a culture where paper is more trusted than bytes.

The other charts and stats are also worth reviewing.

roll-out - SQL and XML

2009-03-03T10:26:00.000+07:00

Wow. What a stir I caused when I put XML and SQL side by side! Thanks to all of your for your feedback.

Please correct me, but I believe there are two reasons for that interest: the first is simply that this is a novel and unusual idea. The second is that ISO 20022 being work in progress, the people involved in it are (quite rightly) protective about it.

The idea is not to run ISO 20022 down, nor to say that SQL is an alternative to XML. Saying that car A is good and putting it side by side with car B does not necessarily mean that car A is the same as car B, nor that car B is bad. In fact, the purpose is rather to contrast them, by which I mean, their initial similarities might then lead us to learn something interesting from their differences.

The crux is deployment or, to use Swift terminology, roll-out. And a model case I often think of, is precisely Swift, because they have been able to succesfully manage all these evolutions over the years -- my first arms were with USE/BKE, then I witnessed SwiftNet, and so on. The vast majority of these roll-out efforts have been fruitful and the ecosystem is still prospering (which was not granted either). No flattery intended here -- it is fact.

The reason why it has always worked out, despite the unavoidable grumblings here and there, is that Swift staff paid enough attention to what skills people had in the banks, what equipment was required, what training they needed and so on. They were always careful to provide a realistic roadmap to help any bank -- big or small, advanced or without in-house IT staff -- catch up and stay close. Everybody had to make it together, or nobody.

So, roll-out is not merely a technological proposition. It has to do with people, processes, systems and the environment. With constraints such as culture, capacity to accept change, cost, security policies, and how each tool fits into the balance of things.

That being said, let us get down-to-earth: suppose that today I want back office staff in my bank to be more effective in exchanging and processing interbank data. I want them to be able not only to make reports, but I want to empower them with something that will help them better exploit information from data feeds, fund administrators, back offices of other banks. They also must be able to provide data in the same way when requested.

And, since it is time of short budgets, they must be able to do it with whatever tool they already have on their desktops.

So I am going to train them.

Let us first check that they already know the part of FIN that relates to their job, because otherwise I would first send them to get trained by Swift. Since FIN is already deployed, that is a must.

Then what I am going to teach them? XML or SQL?

First XML: certainly, quite a few actors in the financial world are able to ship data in XML format. But what tool (that we already have) should I to teach my staff in order to exploit it? How to write an XSL stylesheet for their browser ? Programming javascript and the DOM model, in the browser? vbScript from the command line? And when that is done, how do we criss-cross that with other data get it into a usable report ? Let us face it: XML is complex for non programmers and, for now, should better be left to IT departments. I do hope that this will change,with user-friendly tools, but that is not possible yet.
With SQL, by contrast, I know with certainty that I can give two or three half-days of training and already get a significant increase in productivity. I know that if I teach them some Access, they will be able to import Excel and CSV files from their brokers, custodians or correspondents, mix all that and produce useful reports. Those who already create Excel macros will make good candidates.

Soon, the "rest of us" start to naturally exchange data using mdb files (preferably from a network disk), or through e-mail if necessary. And after a while, querying "serious" databases like SQL Server or Oracle,with Access,and exporting that to Excel becomes a normal thing.

The interesting part, is that SQL is not really the enemy of XML. Because then, back offices can work out ways to import XML data into their home-made relational databases and exploit it. That could even help them accept it.

Perhaps spreading the knowledge of SQL into back offices might even help pave the way for ISO 20022!

Germany's banks .................

2009-03-02T16:30:00.000+07:00

Over the past few months, the liquidity crisis storms have hit Germany as hard as any market. The German government had to bail out HypoReal Estate (HRE) and pumped €500 billion into the banks, a figure that is about to double.

The question this raises in my mind is whether there are some more surprises yet to come out of the German bank system - another Black Swan** - and, having investigated a little, it seems there might be one or two.

Germany’s banking system is unlike most, as there are few large commercial banks. The largest banks, such as Deutsche, Dresdner, Commerzbank, are known primarily because they have large overseas operations. Domestically, the banking system is mainly comprised of regional and private banks, and then there are the standalone savings banks, known as Sparkasse banks. Sparkasse banks are the German equivalent of American savings and loans institutions, except that they are owned by local governments rather than private investors. Hence, they are immensely trusted by Germans, and manage almost $1 trillion in deposits.

With 2,500 banks in Germany and 45,000 branches, Germany also has one of the densest banking networks in the world.

There are other differences in the German banking system and markets in that there are relatively few foreign banks. Although the number of foreign banks increased sharply during recent years, due to the growing globalisation of business activities, they cater mainly for firms from their home country.

For example, under the recent European legislation the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, MiFID, any bank can offer investment services in Germany under a home-host passport. This means that the bank is regulated by their home country, with only their code of conduct of their branch operations regulated in Germany. This code of conduct relates to the advice they give to their client and the suitability of the products they provide to them in a German market context.

Therefore, there are few dealings in Germany where Germans are exposed to foreign bank dealings, and probably why only 1 in 10 Germans invest in the stock markets compared to half of Americans.

All of this paints a conservative risk avoidance society and financial structure.

No.

Not at all.

Unfortunately, for many Germans, their biggest banks have leveraged themselves to the point of collapse in this liquidity crisis, similar to the American, British and other banks.

This is disputed by German's bankers, but the “big banks” such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, HypoVereinsbank, Commerzbank and Postbank, are all merging and consolidating as a result.

Bank in the future

2009-02-27T08:20:00.002+07:00

the presentation of the future of banking.

Of course there is a future in banking … it’s just that no one knows what it is or what it looks like right now.

So here’s my way to clarify it.

First, use Michael Porter’s forces of change, which we use extensively to model the future in one of the other companies I founded: Shaping Tomorrow. Michael Porter’s forces are based upon the key drivers of impact upon a company, which are Political, Economic, Social and Technological or PEST for short**.

What’s the PEST in banking, apart from regulators and politicians (ed: are these today’s pests)?

Reasonably obvious.

Politically, lawmakers are desperately trying to come up with ways and means to get some stability back into the system to restore confidence, control and credibility.

Economically, the seizure in lending and liquidity is driving down economies worldwide. Apart from major concerns related to protectionism and retrenchment, economists are tryig to figure out whether we are facing normality, stagflation, deflation, or something worse (ed: Reformation, Revolution, Armageddon?).

Society meanwhile has completely lost confidence and trust in bankers and policymakers. Therefore, they are postponing spending, with savings levels rising for the first time in years in many of the ‘borrowing’ economies.

Technology continues to develop at a pace meanwhile, with everything completely transparent. Nothing can be hidden anymore. As a result, new models of access to financial services are arising, such as Zopa, Prosper, Wonga, SmartyPig, the new MTFs and clearing systems for trading, the Barter Network, complementary currencies. All of these are discussed extensively in the discussion series around

Euroclear Entity overview

2009-02-25T15:10:00.000+07:00

Turnover

Turnover was effectively stable at Euroclear Bank, Euroclear UK & Ireland and Euroclear France.

Euroclear Bank’s turnover was EUR 282.5 trillion in 2008 compared with EUR 284.5 trillion in 2007. Euroclear UK & Ireland had a sixth consecutive year of turnover growth by recording EUR 177.7 trillion in 2008, slightly higher than the EUR 176.5 trillion recorded in 2007. High UK market volatility during 2008 was a contributing factor to this development. Turnover at Euroclear France was EUR 93.6 trillion in 2008 compared to EUR 94.7 trillion in 2007. An increase in settlement activity for fixedincome transactions largely compensated for the decline in equity settlement activity in France.

Turnover for Euroclear Nederland receded from EUR 5.6 trillion in 2007 to EUR 4.3 trillion in 2008, a decline of over 20%. In 2008, Euroclear Belgium’s turnover dropped by 34%, from EUR 510 billion in 2007 to EUR 335 billion in 2008. The declines in Belgium and the Netherlands mirror the difficult market environments and lower equity investment levels experienced throughout the year. For example, the BEL 20 and AEX both contracted more than 50% by the end of 2008 compared to year-end 2007.

Euroclear Finland’s combined turnover for the months of November and December 2008 was EUR 90 billion. Euroclear Sweden’s turnover for the same period was EUR 1.3 trillion.

Number of netted transactions settled

In 2008, Euroclear Bank settled 42.0 million transactions, an increase of 3% from the 40.8 million transactions processed in 2007, which constitutes a strong achievement in comparison to similar service providers in the market. Euroclear France settled 31.7 million transactions in 2008, almost equal to the 32.3 million processed in 2007. Euroclear UK & Ireland settled 69.1 million versus 75.0 million, or 8% fewer transactions than in 2007. Euroclear Nederland processed 4.4 million transactions in 2008, almost on par with the 4.7 million transactions processed the previous year. Euroclear Belgium processed 2.2 million transactions in 2008, 21% less than the 2.8 million transactions in 2007, partly due to account consolidation by clients.

Euroclear Finland settled 2.6 million transactions in November and December 2008. For the same period, Euroclear Sweden recorded 5.3 million settled transactions.

Securities held in custody

The results reported across the group for assets held in custody reflect the sharp erosion of securities values across asset classes, most predominantly in equities, as well as the market trend towards cash liquidity. At the same time, Euroclear benefited from the inclusion of Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden, and from growth in fixed-income securities holdings.

The value of securities held in custody by Euroclear Bank was relatively flat in 2008 at EUR 9.1 trillion, compared to EUR 9.2 trillion recorded in 2007.

At Euroclear France, the 2008 total value of securities held was EUR 4.5 trillion, a 15% decrease from 2007’s EUR 5.3 trillion.

Securities held for clients through Euroclear UK & Ireland dropped 10% in 2008 to GBP 2.3 trillion from GBP 2.6 trillion in 2007. The large swings in sterling/euro currency exchange rates in 2008 magnifies the decline when expressed in euro, i.e., 26% from EUR 3.5 trillion in 2007 to EUR 2.6 trillion in 2008.

The value of securities held in Euroclear Nederland fell to EUR 819 billion in 2008 compared to the EUR 945 billion recorded in 2007, a decrease of 13%. Last year, securities held by Euroclear Belgium declined by 29% to EUR 161 billion from EUR 228 billion in 2007.

Euroclear Finland recorded EUR 199 billion and Euroclear Sweden posted EUR 643 billion in the value of securities held in custody at year-end 2008.

Daily value of collateral provision outstanding

The combined 2008 yearly average in triparty collateral management deals outstanding at Euroclear Bank and in daily Delivery-by-Value (DBV) and money-market instrument repo instructions at Euroclear UK & Ireland decreased by 29% compared with 2007. The fall in triparty collateral management activity can be attributed to several factors: the failure of Lehman Brothers, an active triparty client; substantially lower levels of leveraged borrowing in the banking system; and less overall collateralised trading as most financing is now provided by central banks, which largely takes place through bilateral agreements.

Reflecting market trends in 2008, triparty collateral management deals outstanding managed by Euroclear Bank at year-end 2008 fell 35% to a daily average of EUR 211.9 billion compared with EUR 328.1 billion at the end of 2007.

Euroclear UK & Ireland processed the equivalent of GBP 190.2 billion in daily Deliveryby- Value and money-market instrument repo instructions in 2008, 3% less than the GBP 196.9 billion in 2007. When stated in euro, due to currency exchange rate fluctuations, the figures show a 20% decline to EUR 212.4 billion in 2008 compared to EUR 266.9 billion in 2007.

Funds

Like most other sectors, European investment funds were severely affected by the credit crisis in 2008. The combined assets of European investment funds plunged to EUR 6.1 trillion at the end of 2008 from EUR 7.9 trillion a year earlier, according to figures from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (Efama).

Contrary to market trends, the number of fund transactions processed by the Euroclear group, including EMXCo, reached a record 10 million in 2008. FundSettle now covers more than 39,000 offshore and domestic funds from 22 countries, including clients’ in-house funds, having added more than 6,000 funds in 2008. The number of active FundSettle accounts increased from 451 to 482 in 2008.

EMXCo, a leading UK provider of investment-fund order routing and part of the Euroclear group since 2007, routed over 22.7 million messages in 2008, an increase of 17% on the 19.2 million messages routed in 2007. This increase, during difficult market conditions, is attributable to growth from existing participants as well as the high number of new joiners to the system; 14 fund providers and 160 distributors joined the EMX Message System in 2008, taking the total to 89 fund providers and 342 distributors by the end of the year.

Note to Editors

Euroclear provides domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity, derivatives and fund transactions. User owned and user governed, the Euroclear group comprises Euroclear Bank, based in Brussels, as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden and Euroclear UK & Ireland. Euroclear also owns EMXCo, a leading provider of investment-fund order routing in the UK, and is awaiting regulatory approvals to acquire Xtrakter, owner of the TRAX trade matching system. Euroclear Bank is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

www.euroclear.com

Althought in a turbulent year but euroclear have a solid performance

2009-02-25T15:06:00.001+07:00

Brussels, 23 February 2009 – The 2008 business results for the Euroclear group of national and international central securities depositories (CSDs) were resilient. Against equity market capitalisation decreases of more than 45% in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK in 2008, the Euroclear group settled 157 million transactions worth approximately EUR 560 trillion in 2008, on par with 2007.

Euroclear also made good progress on delivering its strategic objectives, launching its platform to process all domestic and cross-border transactions involving Belgian, Dutch and French securities in January 2009, finalising in October 2008 the acquisition of NCSD, covering the CSDs of Finland and Sweden, and announcing an agreement to purchase Xtrakter in early 2009.
Pierre Francotte, Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear SA/NV, said: “Euroclear proved very resilient in 2008, helping to bring safety and stability to the capital markets, precisely what is expected of a market infrastructure, particularly during periods of tremendous volatility. We have been leveraging our risk management expertise to offer our clients a safe haven for their securities business, now and in the difficult months ahead. Notwithstanding the impact of the financial crisis on securities values and the levels of client trading and settlement activity generally, Euroclear’s solid 2008 operational performance demonstrates our clients’ search for low risk and low cost posttrade solutions. Our focus in the coming months will be to further reduce their costs and risks."

Operating highlights

The entity-specific and combined results of the Euroclear group (including November and December 2008 figures for turnover and transactions settled, and the year-end 2008 value of securities held for Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden, which became part of the group on 31 October 2008) are:

• Turnover, or the value of securities transactions settled, was largely stable at EUR 559.8 trillion compared to EUR 561.8 trillion in 2007.

• The number of netted transactions settled in the Euroclear group increased slightly to 157.3 million in 2008 compared with 155.6 million in 2007.

• The value of securities held for Euroclear clients at the end of 2008 was EUR 18.1 trillion, a 6% decrease from the EUR 19.2 trillion recorded at year-end 2007, driven mostly by lower equity and fund asset values in some of the CSD markets of the Euroclear group.

• The combined daily value of collateral provision outstanding in Euroclear Bank and Euroclear UK & Ireland experienced a 29% drop in 2008 to EUR 424.3 billion compared with EUR 595.0 billion at the end of 2007, largely due to deleveraging in the industry.
by: https://www.euroclear.com/

May be riot for the banking

2009-02-25T09:08:00.001+07:00

The start point of such a conversation has to be Iceland, where the Prime Minister's car was surrounded during daily protests outside the government buildings

This is from January 21st, just before the government was replaced wholesale.

Displacing a government doesn't solve the issues, but it does make folks feel better which is why there's also a lot happening around Europe.

In fact, Eastern Europe has a growing range of issues, with shares of banks with major exposure in Eastern Europe - such as Raiffeissen, Erste, Uncredit and Societe Generale - tumbling in recent weeks.

This is because of growing political instability in some of these countries, particularly Latvia, Ukraine and Georgia, triggered by the global economic crisis and made worse by deep internal problems, such as corruption.

It has also been made worse by a battle between the European Union and Russia over the allegiance of these countries and where their interests lie.

Whilst in Europe, there are protests and battles everywhere from Greece to France, Spain to Ireland; and the UK will not miss out, as the police fear a 'summer of rage'. This rage may well spill over at the G20 Summit in April, with organisations clearly trying to create a co-ordinated plan of action.

I am not saying there will be trouble on April 2nd, but I do believe that a large crowd of people protesting can easily spill over into rage and violence ... not always, but with the current anger boiling beneath the surface of most societies, don't be surprised if this happens.

Equally, I am not saying that Europe is falling apart, but it is being truly strained.

Outside the EU it's just as concerning as even the usually mild and sedate Japanese are having mild rumblings as the country sinks into 'despair'.

Most suprisingly of all the Canadians, who have the safest economy of all, are protesting as "a growing online community of Canadians who feel disenfranchised by social turmoil, economic instability, and 21st-century uncertainty (are) beginning to speak out."

ESES – cost saving through

2009-02-24T11:17:00.001+07:00

The launch of the ESES platform for the three CSDs of the Euronext
zone that are part of the Euroclear group (Belgium, France, and The
Netherlands) is the functional equivalent for these markets of what
the Single Platform of Euroclear will provide for all markets in 2011. It
includes the full range of services, such as corporate actions and the
services that T2S will deliver in 2013 on the settlement side, for these
three markets. What this means for our clients
is that they can settle crossborder transactions between
national markets just like domestic transactions, thereby reducing the
direct and indirect costs of settlement and custody of cross-border
transactions. This is of importance even for firms
that have only a small percentage of business in foreign securities, as
it can represent as much as 80% of their processing costs in these
markets. With the new harmonised ESES platform, user firms can move
parts of their international back office into their domestic back office
and save by using one team and one infrastructure to process three
markets in a standardised way. It is now also cheaper and easier to access
the CSDs of Belgium, France and The Netherlands directly. Previously, for
example, a client of the French CSD that was also active in the Belgian
or Dutch market would have had to use an agent bank or an ICSD as
intermediary. Now, it can operate in these markets directly if it so
wishes, while operating from a single location.

A trusted and reliable partner through good times and bad

2009-02-24T08:44:00.001+07:00

The current crisis is not just another
blip in the financial heart monitor,
soon to be forgotten. The structure
of the market will change in a
lasting way and regulatory changes
will profoundly affect the way in
which business is conducted. The
repercussions of the crisis will remain
with us for many years to come.
The trading and post-trading sectors
have been creating competition in
the market, but have simultaneously
brought greater fragmentation and
complexity. There is a particularly
strong need to ensure that risks in the
market are further reduced and kept
to a minimum. At the same time the
pressure on costs will continue and
indeed intensify. This dual objective
creates considerable challenges.
Infrastructure services providers like
Euroclear are in a unique position
to help take on this challenge
successfully. It is their duty to do
so in a way that contributes to the
stabilisation of markets. And it is also
in their interest, as they are the ones
who can provide this combination of
lower costs and lower risks so that
clients will have a better chance of
weathering the storm and attracting
greater critical mass. Euroclear
has gained a reputation over the
years for being very risk conscious
and for developing world class risk
management expertise. We also
have a track record of developing
innovative and highly reliable
solutions for the market, including
large scale projects. Now is the time
to make sure that all of our clients can
benefit from all of this expertise in the
difficult months ahead.

What a New Economics in Banking

2009-02-24T08:39:00.001+07:00

The bank recognises that most activities outside direct servicing of the customer is commoditised. A commodity is worth nothing, and so all processing and technology is priced at near zero because they become freely available networked widgets

Commodity processing being made freely available is a radical departure from bank histories which is why this will be a culture shock for many bankers … and yet, the pricing and economics is relatively obvious.

Let’s start with the cost of building BaaS.

The cost can be however much you want it to be. In HSBC’s case, the cost of building their global internet service is around $250 million … but that’s cheap enough considering that they were building a global bespoke service.

For HSBC that means they can launch a completely customised internet banking service in any country, by just ticking the boxes you want in that service and it's up and running. No additional development or cost.

But for most, it's not $250 million developments, it's a few thousand dollars to deploy a piece of functionality.

Y’see the key point is that, whatever the cost is, once it’s built - it’s built.

That’s it.

You have sunk the cost and built the widget.

Now, the critical point is not to protect the widget but to get everyone to use it.

What’s the point of investing in a developments today if you can’t get volume?

And that’s the point of BaaS: once you’ve built your widget, crank up the volume and volume increases fast these days.

That’s how Chi-X, the pan-European equities trading facility, could take more than 10% of many traditional European exchanges equities trading ... within a year.

And, having built the system, it is why Chi-x, Turquoise and NASDAQ OMX and co are after volume.

It is why Zopa, SmartyPig and PayPal are leveraging volume.

And that's what any bank building components of applications should be thinking about today.

Volume.

Because additional volume adds zero cost and purely feeds return on investment.

Think of it like making movies. Once the movie is made, you’ve spent all the budget. Now, the point is to get bums on seats and market the hell out of it.

And that’s how banking widgets in BaaS should be considered.

Market the hell out of your widget, crank up the volume and focus upon the service delivery – the human interfaces – as your critical value-add differentiation. Your value-add is how you package the widgets and present them, not the widgets themselves.

That’s why Citigroup have been marketing the hell out of their FX and other services for the last two years. They want volume on their widget, and Citi are one of the few banks who have been white labelling their systems to other banks. They get some of the BaaS components.

The idea is really illustrated by telecoms folks who get networks. For example, I once worked for NCR when they were owned by AT&T. I always remember the AT&T guys talking about “minutes on the network, it’s all about minutes on the network”, and that’s the key.

Once you’ve built the infrastructure, it’s all about getting volume because it costs you no more to process a billion calls than it does to process one.

Which brings us back to the economics of banking in the future, under the BaaS model and the culture shock this creates.

I was recently with a head of payments at one bank for example, who said: "our technology guys asked me the other day why we charge more for a $50 million payment than we do for a $5 payment, when the infrastructure costs to process are the same? Are they mad?"

No sir. They are asking an obvious question at the heart of the change that needs to be made to banking cultures as they realise the change that technology now delivers.

This payments guy was from that old school of banking that are the ones now waking up to the new world realities.

Thirty years ago, when many senior bankers were starting out in their banks, they were told that technology was expensive, inflexible and must be used forever, or at least until the systems peg it anyway.

That’s why every project was massive, time consuming and demanded huge cost.

When SWIFT, MasterCard, Visa and the key networks for transaction processing were built, for example, they had to be built by an industry consortium. No individual bank could afford such a huge project or cost. That is why these were cooperative groups back in the 1970’s across all banks, even though MasterCard and Visa are now proprietary firms. Nevertheless, the MasterCard and Visa IPO’s are only recent and recognise the economics of BaaS.

Banks market cap down $5.5tn in a year

2009-02-23T12:39:00.001+07:00

I just picked up Boston Consulting Group's (BCG's) annual report on banking which is called “Living with New Realities: Creating Value in Banking 2009”.

The preface says it all:

"Since the pre-crisis peak, the market capitalisation of the global banking industry has fallen by $5.5 trillion. This is equivalent to 10 percent of global GDP ..."

The report’s tables show that only four large-cap banks survived 2007-2008 with market capitalisation over $100 billion: ICBC, China Construction Bank, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC.

It then makes four key forecasts for the forward landscape of banking:

"We expect the much maligned universal banking model to re-establish its primacy. The fundamentals of the model are sound. These banks are built on strong customer relationship and funded predominately from their own deposit base.

"At the same time, banks will become more focused. They will compete where they can win. Large banks will still loom over the landscape, but they are much more likely to be multi-local institutions - repeating a simpler, more standardised business model across fewer countries - rather than wide-ranging, highly complex global titans. Competitive advantage is bank in fashion.

"Banks will move forward by returning to the past. They will once again emphasize the 'old-fashioned' products and practices, where the bias is to lend what gets taken in as deposits. Their business models will reflect a more cautious, more highly regulated, and less risk-oriented environment. There will be a stronger focus on transaction, processing and fee-based activities.

"This does not mean that banking will be dull or easy. If anything, it will become more demanding as banks get back to the business of focusing on customers - the emphasis will be on relationships, not products. Branches may need to extend their hours of operation. Advice will need to be more meaningful and relevant, and thus more valuable. Operations will need to become not only more efficient, but also more responsive to customers."

Not sure about those forecasts, as a return to basics with a focus on the customer is what some banks have been doing for years.

Nevertheless, the report has lots of charts and statistics which are worth a view, and shows which banks in the Top 30 were the best and worst performers by market capitalisation, return on equity and more.

For example, the top 5 gainers are: Blackrock, Sberbank, Unibanco, China Merchants Bank and State Bank of India; and the top 5 losers: Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and UBS.

NCSD becomes Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden

2009-02-23T11:19:00.001+07:00

Brussels, Helsinki and Stockholm, 9 February 2009 - Euroclear Finland Oy and Euroclear Sweden AB are today the official names of the central securities depositories (CSDs) of Finland and Sweden. Formerly known as Suomen Arvopaperikeskus Oy (APK) and VPC AB (VPC), respectively, together they formed Nordic Central Securities Depository (NCSD) which Euroclear acquired in November 2008. These name changes forge a common identity with the other group entities of Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear UK & Ireland and the international CSD, Euroclear Bank.

The transaction-processing platforms of Euroclear Sweden and Euroclear Finland will be fully integrated within the Euroclear group immediately after the launch of the Single Platform in 2011. It will then be possible for clients of these CSDs to access the post-trade infrastructure covering all seven EU markets served by Euroclear as efficiently and cost effectively as in their respective home markets. Harmonised market rules and practices will reduce cross-border transaction complexities and deliver sizeable client back-office synergies and cost savings.

Kjell Arvidsson, Chairman of the Boards of Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden, commented: “The Euroclear group is eliminating artificial boundaries and avoidable costs for clients conducting securities deals across national borders, often involving a multitude of intermediaries and different processing methods. Clients of Euroclear Sweden, Euroclear Finland and beyond can together expect to reap back-office savings of more than EUR 300 million per year.”

The seven Euroclear group CSDs represent approximately 65% of the Eurotop 300 equity markets. When including Euroclear Bank, the international CSD, the group covers over 50% of all European domestic debt outstanding.

Notes

Based on year-end 2007 data, the combined Euroclear group settled the equivalent of more than EUR 575 trillion in securities transactions, representing 198 million domestic and cross-border transactions, and held more than EUR 20 trillion in assets for clients. NCSD and the Euroclear group are interoperable with multiple CSDs and clearing houses, and serve various multi-lateral trading facilities and stock exchanges including NASDAQ OMX, NYSE Euronext, the London Stock Exchange, Chi-X, among others.

Once completed, Euroclear’s Single Platform will be an integrated post-trade processing platform settling domestic and cross-border transactions involving securities issued in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as the wide range of international securities serviced by Euroclear Bank. A new Common Communications Interface is being developed in parallel so that all clients of the Euroclear group will access the Single Platform using the same gateway via common communication standards (ISO 15022 and ISO 20022). Euroclear has designed the Single Platform as a multi-jurisdictional and multi-currency solution that will allow clients to settle securities transactions in central bank or commercial bank money, as they choose. The Single Platform will meet client needs for all types of CSD and ICSD processing requirements including corporate-action processing, collateral management, and securities lending and borrowing transactions. Euroclear provides domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity, derivatives and fund transactions. User owned and user governed, the Euroclear group comprises Euroclear Bank, based in Brussels, as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden and Euroclear UK & Ireland. Euroclear also owns EMXCo, a leading provider of investment-fund order routing in the UK. Euroclear Bank is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

Alliance Web Platform, harmonising the Alliance user interface

2009-02-20T11:00:00.000+07:00

With the next release of Alliance portfolio we launch a new browser-based graphical user interface framework for Alliance servers, Alliance Web Platform. The new approach offers a scalable and simple to deploy solution, effectively lowering the total cost of ownership.

Indeed, with Alliance Web Platform users can access Alliance server functions via Internet Explorer without any additional software installed on the user’s desktop.

As of April 2009, the Alliance users will receive Alliance Web Platform as a part of release 6.3. Without additional licensing and free of charge, the new user interface will be available for:

Relationship Management (RMA)
Accessing Browse-based SWIFTNet services
Alliance Gateway administration

In addition, a user interface for MT and MX message processing (the existing Alliance Messenger functionality) will also be available in release 6.3. Its usage, however, will require a dedicated licence option.

Alliance Web Platform will gradually replace Alliance Messenger, WebStation and Workstation and will evolve in the future to:

offering complete set of functions available currently on Alliance Workstation and Alliance WebStation
enabling simultaneous connections to several Alliance servers within the same user session
enhancing the user interface for better usability in a multi-server environment

The release 6.3 is the first step towards a single interface to the Alliance operational environment. In this community, we welcome your questions, comments and ideas on how to make this interface most usable and efficient in the future

by Diana Tourko

History of Euroclear

2009-02-20T10:37:00.000+07:00

The Euroclear System

While several entities that are now part of the Euroclear group were established some years earlier, the Euroclear name came into existence in Brussels in 1968 with the creation of the Euroclear System. The System was set up with the aim of enhancing efficiency and minimising risk in settling transactions in USD eurobonds, a fast-growing international securities market. Incorporated under and subject to Belgian law, it was then part of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York and the first International Central Securities Depository (ICSD) in the world.

The Euroclear System was designed largely to immobilise the transfer of physical securities and settle transactions through the simultaneous book-entry exchange of cash and securities. At that time, all processing took place manually, all instruments were still in physical form, and Euroclear was staffed by a mere 100 people.

Today, the Euroclear group has more than 3,000 employees and operates from offices all over the world.

User-owned

In the early 1970s, the Euroclear System was sold to the market-owned company Euroclear Clearance System Plc, which Morgan Guaranty Trust continued to operate. Euroclear has been user owned ever since.

Developing a single access point

Euroclear progressively expanded its service offering to include links to domestic bond, equity and, later on, fund markets. More recently, we also developed products to manage derivatives exposures and settle transactions in emission rights.

Over the years, Euroclear has continually built on its core settlement and safekeeping function, offering extensive wholesale custody, securities lending and borrowing and collateral management services.

This expanded coverage has strengthened the role of the ICSD as a single access point to multiple markets and instruments.

Leading settlement consolidation in Europe

A major development came in 2000 when Euroclear Bank, an independent, user-owned and user-governed company, was launched to assume the operating and banking roles previously carried out by Morgan Guaranty Trust.

Euroclear has since been at the forefront of settlement infrastructure consolidation in Europe, as a means of helping our clients to benefit fully from the prospect of a single European financial market.

The first step was the outsourcing of the Irish government bond settlement activity by the Central Bank of Ireland to Euroclear Bank in 2000. There then followed an intense phase of mergers with European Central Securities Depositories (CSDs):

Euroclear France
Joined Euroclear group: January 2001
Established: 1949 as Sicovam

Euroclear France is the CSD of France and is established under French law.

Euroclear Nederland
Joined Euroclear group: May 2002
Established: 1977 as Nederlands Centraal Instituut voor Giraal Effectenverkeer BV (NECIGEF)

Euroclear Nederland is the CSD of The Netherlands. All securities transactions settled through Euroclear Nederland are subject to Dutch law and take place in compliance with the Securities Giro Act (Wet Giraal Effectenverkeer).

Euroclear UK & Ireland
Joined Euroclear group: September 2002
Established: 1993 as CRESTCo, start of operations in 1996

Euroclear UK & Ireland is the CSD for UK securities and Irish equities. It is established as a Recognised Clearing House under the Financial Services and Markets Act and as Operator of the settlement system under the Uncertified Securities Regulations 2001 (as amended).

Euroclear Belgium
Joined Euroclear group: January 2006
Established: 1967 as Caisse Interprofessionnelle de Dépôts et de Virements de Titres (CIK)/Interprofessionele Effectendeposito- en Girokas

Euroclear Belgium is the CSD for Belgium and is incorporated under and subject to Belgian law.

In January 2007, the fund order routing provider EMXCo also became part of the Euroclear group. Established in 1999, EMXCo operates the EMX Message System, which is the de-facto standard for mutual fund order routing in the United Kingdom. This is an important step in Euroclear’s strategy to improve the efficiency of both domestic and cross-border funds processing.

A new corporate structure

As a result of these mergers, the corporate structure of the Euroclear group was reorganised on 1 January 2005. The international CSD Euroclear Bank, formerly the parent company of the other entities of the group, became a sister company of these entities, and a new non-bank holding company called Euroclear SA/NV became the parent company of all the entities.

Delivering a domestic market for Europe

Euroclear is now implementing its Business Model to make cross-border settlement cheaper and more efficient, in order to help deliver a domestic market for Europe. Euroclear SA/NV is developing the group’s Single Platform which will deliver harmonised custody and settlement services for all its (I)CSDs.

Following intensive market-wide consultation, the first stage of Euroclear’s Single Platform, the Single Settlement Engine (SSE) was fully implemented in early 2007. The SSE consolidates settlement processing across the group entities and is the foundation for future integration.

In November 2007, Euroclear launched the first phase of Euroclear Settlement of Euronext-zone Securities (ESES). This will provide the Euronext-zone market CSDs (Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France and Euroclear Nederland) with an integrated settlement solution and harmonised custody service for stock exchange and over-the-counter activities, and is an important intermediary step towards the Single Platform

Alliance Connect - Enhancing our network connectivity

2009-02-20T10:22:00.002+07:00

On 1 April 2009, we will introduce new network connectivity products. In line with our new customer segmentation, these products address the needs of low, medium and high volume customers:

The new products come with brand new VPN boxes, which are more powerful and adapted to the harsh Internet environment. They bring stronger resiliency, with advanced fall-over capability, for all our customers.

Targeted, cheaper prices
The pricing structure continues to be based on a monthly recurring port fee. Besides, it takes into consideration the needs of different customer segments. Network connectivity represents a large proportion of the overall connectivity costs for low and – to a lesser extent - medium volume customers. Alliance Connect Bronze is at least 30% cheaper compared to existing dial-up connections, and Alliance Connect Silver removes the back-up fees. This results in a cheaper, yet better performing network connectivity offering for low and medium volume customers.

Early adopters and upgrade programme
Early adopters:
As of December 2008, SWIFT Customer Services will intercept all new orders and inform customers of the upcoming availability of the new products. Customers will be offered the choice between participating in the early adopter programme during March 2009, opting for implementing one of the new products as of April 2009 or proceeding with the ordering and installation of the old connectivity product.
Upgrade programme:
As of June 2009, SWIFT will encourage existing customers to upgrade their current network connectivity solution to one of the new products.

In 2010, SWIFT will launch a programme to make it easier for the remaining customers to upgrade to the new products by end 2011. This will be done in close collaboration with our Network Partners.

More Information
Additional information is available in the fact sheets (please refer to the documents folder).
Do not hesitate to post your questions and comments.

Kind regards,
Eugenia

SIDE is expanding in Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

2009-02-20T08:23:00.003+07:00

2007 was a booming and eventful year for SIDE International: several new customers in new regions became users of our solutions, our SIDE SafeWatch Profiling solution was actively piloted, and SIDE became a proud member of the EastNets Group.

There has been a successful and ongoing restructuring of SIDE, which is now better adapted to serving our growing customer base. This new structure will leverage the synergies brought by the integration within the EastNets Group.

To support the continued growth of our organization, SIDE has relocated its Belgian, Luxembourg and French offices:

You can contact us at:

SIDE France – EastNets Group
Boulevard des Italiens, 9
F-75002 PARIS
FRANCE
Tel: +33 1 70 61 85 26
Fax: +33 1 42 60 47 59

SIDE Luxembourg – EastNets Group
Route des Trois Cantons, 11
L-8399 WINDHOF
LUXEMBOURG
Tel: +352 26 30 95 1
Fax: +352 26 10 80 66

SIDE Belgium – EastNets Group
(As from April 7th)
Drève Richelle 161 - Building P
B-1410 WATERLOO
BELGIUM
Tel: +32 2 656 00 60
Fax: +32 2 656 00 70

We look forward to hearing from you and we’ll gladly welcome you to visit our new offices.

For more information, contact SIDE International - EastNets Group marketing@side-international.com

29/07/2008 - EastNets™ elects new Chairman and new Board of Directors

2009-02-19T16:32:00.001+07:00

Meeting in Belgium coincided with the first anniversary of SIDE International Acquisition

EastNets™, an IT Solution Provider engaged in the provision of handling confidential transactions primarily for the financial, corporate and government sectors in Europe, United States of America, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, has announced the appointment of its new Board of Directors. Hazem Mulhim, CEO, hosted the Board’s second meeting on July 16, 2008, in EastNets offices in Waterloo, Belgium, coinciding with the marking of the first anniversary of EastNets™’ acquisition of SIDE International.
High-profile Board Members include Mr. Jaap Kamp, an Independent Expert and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) from Holland, who was elected as Chairman of EastNets Group Board; and Mr. Steffen Schubert, CEO of “Anapix Capital Ltd.” and former CEO of the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX), who brings 25 years of solid experience in financial markets to the group.

The Board also includes Mr. Ray Mulhern, an Independent Expert, President of “The M Consulting Group”, and former Vice President of Bank of New York from the US; Mr. Mohamed Kaissi, representing Technology World Company, from Kuwait; Mr. Hussein Ali Nasser, representing Industrial and Financial Investments Company, from Kuwait; Mr. Abdallah Al Kulaib, representing Aref Group, from Kuwait; Mr. Andi Dervishi, representing International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is part of World Bank Group, from USA; and Mr. David Salloum, the Board of Directors Legal Secretary.

“Our new members of the Board comprise of industry leaders who will help set new and exciting directions for EastNets™. Our recent meeting allowed us to fully assess our current status and start planning for the company’s future growth. We assure our valued clients that this is the beginning of even greater achievements and stronger partnerships for us all,” said Mulhim.

The meeting of the new Board of Directors in Belgium commemorated EastNets™’ first year anniversary of the strategic acquisition of SIDE International, a renowned developer of software for the IT infrastructure of the financial industry in 2007. The two companies have been close business partners since 2002 and have been leveraging their successful collaboration to expand operational capabilities and international reach since the strategic takeover.

Mr. Mulhim added: “After completing the successful year of SIDE International acquisition, and as part of our commitment and dedication to integrating and growing the market reach and product offering for SIDE International, we are happy to announce the appointment of Mr. Freddy Nurski as a Managing Director for EastNets-SIDE. Mr. Nurski brings to the company a wealth of experience spanning over 25 years in the ITC services with fortune 500 companies”.

Dubai-headquartered EastNets™ has been handling confidential transactions for more than 850 customers from the financial, corporate and government sectors in Europe, the US, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa for over 24 years. The company is accredited as SWIFT Business, Service, Service Bureau, Educational and Solution Partner to offer SWIFT customers’ customized services related to the implementation, integration, and upgrade of SWIFTNet infrastructure products and SWIFT interfaces, and to meet established quality standards.

For more information, contact EastNets Group marketing@eastnets.com

ECB to take over EU Supervision

2009-02-19T16:04:00.000+07:00

In a speech by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) last Thursday, he emphasized the idea of a single European supervisory authority.

This has been mooted since the EU's Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) was created in 2000, and is a regular discussion. It is now even more discussed as a result of the financial crisis.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Smaghi argues that the new central EU Regulator should be the ECB.

Chris Skinner

Euroclear

2009-02-19T15:36:00.003+07:00

Euroclear is a user-owned, user-governed Brussels, Belgium-based financial services company that specializes in the settlement of securities transactions.

It was founded in 1968 as part of J.P. Morgan & Co. Euroclear settles domestic and international securities transactions, covering bonds, equities, derivatives and investment funds. Euroclear provides securities services to financial institutions located in more than 80 countries.

In addition to its role as an International Central Securities Depository (ICSD), Euroclear also acts as the Central Securities Depository (CSD) for Belgian, Dutch, French, Irish, and UK securities. Euroclear also owns EMXCo, the UK's leading provider of investment-fund order routing.
Euroclear is the largest international central securities depository in the world.

Finance on me

2009-02-19T15:36:00.001+07:00

President Barack Obama's plan to tackle the foreclosure crisis will spend $75 billion in an effort to prevent up to 9 million Americans from losing their homes. In tandem, the Treasury Department said it would double the size of its lifeline to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government, which seized the mortgage finance companies last fall, said Wednesday it would absorb up to $200 billion in losses at each company.

Fluor Daniel Corporation vacancy open

2009-02-19T15:35:00.001+07:00

The company's Industrial & Infrastructure segment offers design, engineering, procurement, and construction services to the transportation, mining, life sciences, telecommunications, manufacturing, commercial and institutional, microelectronics, and healthcare sectors with respect to new construction and refurbishment. Its service offerings include roads, highways, bridges, rail, and airports. Its Government segment provides engineering, construction, contingency response, management, and operations services to the United States government, focusing on the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense.

The company's Global Services segment offers operations and maintenance, small capital project engineering and execution, site equipment and tool services, industrial fleet outsourcing, plant turnaround services, temporary staffing, and materials and subcontract procurement services. Its Power segment provides engineering, procurement, construction, program management, start-up, and commissioning services to the gas fueled, solid fueled, renewable, nuclear, and plant betterment markets.

The company also offers unionized management and construction services in the United States and Canada. It has a strategic partnership with E.ON Energie AG to develop a retrofitted pilot plant. The company was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas. Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) operates independently of Massey Energy Co. as of November 30, 2000.

Fluor Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides engineering, procurement, construction management, and project management services worldwide. Its Oil & Gas segment offers design, engineering, procurement, construction, and project management services to upstream oil and gas production, downstream refining, and integrated petrochemicals industries. It also provides consulting services ranging from feasibility studies to process assessment to project finance structuring and studies.

Consolidated Edison, Inc open vacancy

2009-02-19T15:34:00.002+07:00

Consolidated Edison, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides electric, gas, and steam utility services in the United States. It provides electric service to approximately 3.2 million customers and gas service to approximately 1.1 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, as well as provides steam service to office buildings, apartment houses, and hospitals in parts of Manhattan. The company also provides electric service to approximately 0.3 million customers in southeastern New York and adjacent areas of northern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, and gas service to approximately 0.1 million customers in southeastern New York and adjacent areas of eastern Pennsylvania.

In addition, Consolidated Edison owns, leases, or operates generating plants and participates in other infrastructure projects; sells electricity directly to delivery-service customers of utilities primarily in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions; and provides energy-efficiency services, including the design and installation of lighting retrofits, high-efficiency heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment, and other energy saving technologies to government and commercial customers. The company sells electricity to industrial and large commercial customers, as well as to residential customers. Consolidated Edison was founded in 1884 and is based in New York, New York.

The Coca-Cola Company (KO) open vacancy

2009-02-19T15:34:00.001+07:00

BUSINESS SUMMARY

The Coca-Cola Company engages in the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups worldwide. It principally offers sparkling and still beverages. The company's sparkling beverages include nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages with carbonation, such as energy drinks, and carbonated waters and flavored waters.

Its still beverages consist of nonalcoholic beverages without carbonation, including non-carbonated waters, flavored waters and enhanced waters, juices and juice drinks, teas, coffees, and sports drinks. The Coca-Cola Company also offers fountain syrups, syrups, and concentrates, such as flavoring ingredients and sweeteners.

The company markets its nonalcoholic beverages under the Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite brand names. The Coca-Cola Company also owns mineral water brands Kildevæld and Kurvand in Denmark and soft drink brand Hyvää Päivää in Finland. It sells its finished beverage products primarily to distributors, and beverage concentrates and syrups to bottling and canning operators, distributors, fountain wholesalers, and fountain retailers. The Coca-Cola Company was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Alliant Energy Corporation open vacancy

2009-02-19T15:33:00.000+07:00

BUSINESS SUMMARY

Alliant Energy Corporation operates in electric and gas utility businesses in the United States. The company, through its subsidiary, Interstate Power and Light Company, engages in the generation and distribution of electric energy; and the purchase, distribution, transportation, and sale of natural gas in Iowa and southern Minnesota. As of December 31, 2007, it supplied electric and gas services to approximately 526,401 and 233,903 retail customers.

Alliant Energy Corporation also provides steam services and various other energy-related products and services to customers in Iowa. The company, through its other subsidiary, Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL) involves in the generation and distribution of electric energy; and the distribution and transportation of natural gas primarily in south and central Wisconsin markets.

WPL supplied electric and gas services to approximately 450,920 and 175,887 retail customers. In addition, Alliant Energy Corporation has investments in environmental consulting, engineering and renewable energy services, and transportation businesses. The company was founded in 1917 and is based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Philip Morris International, Inc. open vacancy

2009-02-19T15:31:00.000+07:00

Philip Morris International, Inc. engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside the United States of America. Its portfolio comprises international and local brands. The company's primary international brands include Marlboro, L&M, Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Parliament, Lark, and Virginia Slims.

Philip Morris International operates in the European Union, the Middle East and Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Its local brands principally include Bond Street in eastern Europe; Red & White in central Europe; A Hijau, A Mild, and Dji Sam Soe in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in Russia; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The company is based in New York, New York. Philip Morris International, Inc. operates independently of Altria Group, Inc., as of March 28, 2008.

test

2008-10-08T14:57:00.004+07:00

Thanks God

2008-09-02T18:14:00.001+07:00

Tuhan

2008-08-11T08:16:00.002+07:00

1.1

2008-08-08T12:04:00.002+07:00

1

2008-08-08T07:50:00.003+07:00

huuuuuuuuuu

2008-06-02T13:39:00.004+07:00

...

2008-05-22T12:38:00.003+07:00

2008-05-10T00:43:00.005+07:00

2008-05-05T13:32:00.002+07:00

000n

2008-05-02T12:35:00.004+07:00

2008-04-18T08:53:00.001+07:00

2008-04-17T13:54:00.004+07:00

thanks Ve Oon

2008-04-17T09:28:00.008+07:00

2007-12-18T10:43:00.001+07:00

2007-07-12T10:01:00.000+07:00

kutiti hari demi hari...
krangkai kata demi kata...
namun tiada guna...
semua telah sirna...
hilang...
tinggal kenangan yang tersisa..
andai waktu bisa terulang kembali...

kisah itu tak kan pernah ada...
tak kan ada yang terluka...
menangis karena aku..
mereka yang beri asa padaku...

mereka yang selalu ada di sisi..
namun kini...
aku harus rela untuk pergi..
aku kan lenyap dari hadap mereka...
dalam sekejap mata...

aku akan jadi debu kembali..
tak ada yang tersisa..
apa aku boleh bertanya pada siapa saja...
apa aku bisa kembali ke sini..
bersama dengan mereka yang terpatri di hati....
berbagi dengan mereka...
namun...
apa itu mungkin...
apa itu kan jadi nyata...

tiada yang tahu....