The biggest news stories of the week include:
Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA): cross-border direct debits now a reality (Europa)Taxpayers hit for £28.7bn more amid banks break-up (Independent)
FSA's Lord Turner: splitting banks will make sector more risky (Telegraph)
The Kroes UK’s banks have to bear (Evening Standard)
Profit `Not Satanic,’ John Varley, CEO of Barclays Says (Bloomberg)
Some Wall Street Year-End Bonuses Could Hit Pre-Downturn Highs (New York Times)
Phishers set their sights on corporate accounts (Silicon)
More Than 10% of Kenya's GDP Now Pass Through the M-Pesa Mobile Banking Service (Reuters)
Could China's Economic Policies Trigger Another Crisis? (Time Magazine)
Global Finance: Britain Is No. 1 (Business Week)
And our biggest stories of the week include:
Are Bankers Good or Bad for Society, Part One
I gave a speech at Gresham College last week that started as a little white paper and ended up being a 30-page monolith. The paper is in six parts released day-by-day covering:
- Part One: Why Bankers are essential for society
- Part Two: A Bankers pivotal role between good and bad
- Part Three: A Bankers' role in religion
- Part Four: Bankers in historical booms and busts
- Part Five: Bankers today
- Part Six: Bankers in the future
What's next for the EU in light of the financial crisis?
Eurofi had their annual conference in Gothenburg, Sweden last month. The meeting was themed: what priorities for the incoming EU authorities in the light of the financial crisis? and saw a number of common themes recur in discussions by key policymakers, officials and industry figures.
Today is SEPA day, wa-hey!November 2nd is SEPA day. SEPA direct debits go live today and the PSD was transposed successfully across all of Europe to become law yesterday. Apart from a few countries who missed the deadline.
Just got an email from Charlie McCreey's office that announces the launch of SEPA Direct Debits (SDD), as covered here last Monday. Here's the official line.
With the news this week of 3,700 job cuts in Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) branches, the government increasing its stake in RBS from 70% to 84% and Lloyds setting off on a £21 billion fundraising spree, it seemed like a good time to launch the Financial Services Club Scotland. We had our first meeting on Monday.
Update from First Direct's CEO on their social experimentMatt Colebrook, First Direct's Chief Executive, has just written his initial observations about their social media experiment.
America is bleedingA lot of American sites are looking at the issues of unemployment right now and the charts they are posting demonstrate a clear view that this is the worst recession US workers have experienced since the Second World War.
Numbers: Barter is backBritish Airways Business Magazine leads with an in-depth article on barter. Some great numbers here ...
Gimme all your money ... and hugs and kisses tooFascinating wee blog called Bank Notes, dedicated to banks and the notes robbers use.
Great cartoonOne of the few cartoons that made me laugh out loud ...
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