August 26, 2016
Keeping up this topic is a real challenge. I feel much like I did when Dodd-Frank, EMIR and Clearing were foisted on us; you think you have a grasp of things, when along comes some news and you start to question what you know. Here are my three observations for the week on the B […]
August 15, 2016
Discuss. That would be the one word added to that sentence if this were a school exam paper. In the spirit of answering questions and exam season, this week’s post looks at the money that is wasted by banks, because they don’t get the basics right. Banks are not consistently effective; a Guardian article last […]
July 18, 2016
That sort of money is a big deal for ordinary folk, it is even enough to pay 20 people at Goldman Sachs for a year and while it may not be a lot for Citi, which has a rap sheet as long as a career criminal’s in Essex, if you are the the Bankers’ Plumber […]
June 30, 2016
Hey! The Canadians are out in front. Not the one at the helm at the Bank of England doing his best to steady the good ship Sterling post the Brexit vote, but their Central Bank, which is working with R3Cev to put CAD on the Blockchain. Or to be precise to allow for CAD to […]
June 13, 2016
I was thrilled to learn of the progress that Peter Randall and the team at SETL have made with a working Blockchain-based platform for securities settlement. I had the good fortune to see an early prototype; it impressed me then and has obviously moved on. Peter was one of the prime movers behind the success […]
May 30, 2016
$2B a year in cost. That is how much I think our industry is carrying in avoidable costs (cf. last week’s post). But who cares? Certainly the regulators don’t really care if the banks have extra costs, but they should be careful what they wish for, or avoid doing. Credit is the oil that makes […]
May 22, 2016
This week there is twice as much at stake as there was in last week’s post; $2B vs. just $1B. Every year. The focus for this post is on the external; why is it so expensive for our industry to support the daily process payments processes which make the wheels go round every day? What […]
April 17, 2016
This week’s post takes a look at how the network and applications layers of a three tiered Blockchain ecosystem might interact. For more on the three tier view of life, see the last post. In all the experimenting that is being done, there is a risk of RTW, re-inventing the wheel and FTLFH, failing to […]
April 5, 2016
Fundamentals. How often we use that term in our industry. My thoughts for this post were headed in the direction of how trading, settlement and payment would need to be structured in a Blockchain world. Those ideas were derailed as I realised how important three recent communications on matters Blockchain were. There is a lot […]
March 30, 2016
Unintended consequences and the potential for a MAD outcome; Mutually Assured Destruction. Whilst this week’s post is not about the arms race, it is about how banks are arming themselves. From previous posts, readers will be aware that banks are now having to be proactive around Intra-day Liquidity and the national regulations coming as a […]