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Banker's Blog Watch

Track industry talk and discussion via headline feeds from industry blogs selected by American Banker editors.
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Today's Featured Post:

Credit Slips

Lehman & Barclays
Lehman has sued Barclays over the incredibly rushed sale of Lehman's key brokerage assets to Barclays a year ago. No doubt the financial industry crowd will use this to further promote their argument that chapter 11 does not work for large financial firms, thus supporting the need to reinvent the wheel create a new "resolution authority."

Bank Lawyer's Blog

Another Day of Progress in D.C.
posted on November 19, 2009
Whatever Mark Zandi's smoking, I want a toke. Testifying today before the Congressional Oversight Panel that "oversees" the Treasury Department's TARP, Mr. Zandi made a bold assertion. Mark Zandi, the chief economist and cofounder of Moody´s Economy.com, said that banks...
To The Contrary
posted on November 18, 2009
Former client and long time banker Pat Dalrymple (the subject of a previous post) has joined the world of banking bloggers with "Contrabanker: A Bank Contrarian's Blog"). If Pat's first post is any indication, he's going to provide a no-holds-barred,...

The Bankwatch

The ugly side of globalisation | security breach in Spain impacts German credit cards
posted on November 19, 2009
Courtesy of Finextra. More than 100,000 German credit cards have been recalled by banks following a suspected security breech at an unidentified Spanish payment processor Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: Security
The coming media crisis and parallels with the financial crisis
posted on November 12, 2009
A general thread that has been building for me for some years now is highlighted in a few things I have seen recently. The thread is my hatred of advertising and in particular online advertising. For me it lies in the same category as junk (paper) mail except worse. I can simply throw paper junk [...]

Celent Banking Blog

Research Agenda 2010
posted on November 18, 2009
I am planning my next year’s research agenda. I have identified a number of interesting topics to work on, for which I’d appreciate your input: how would you vote for, in order of priority, given the following titles? a> Transaction Banking for regional banks b> Strategies for Trade Finance c> Processes, People, and Technology in Transaction Banking d> Status of electronic [...]
In house or outsource: A request for input
posted on November 16, 2009
To run in house or outsource? At some banks this is a religious question. At others it is not even a question at all. Finally at some it is an ongoing debate. Celent hopes to write a report about this topic analyzing data across a wide range of US banks. The questions we ask? What [...]

Financial Services Club

What has MiFID done for democracy?
posted on November 20, 2009
Fascinating meetings with the Russian exchanges RTS and SPIMEX yesterday. After my reference to military intelligence yesterday, you may wonder whether SPIMEX is something to do with finding out who started the swine flu pandemic but no, it´s the St....
Talking about bank failures
posted on November 20, 2009
As we look towards the end of the year with America suffering one of the worst year's for bank failures in recent history (over 120 so far this year), I was impressed by an image at the Tretyakov Gallery of...

Credit Slips

Son of Pine Gate
posted on November 18, 2009
As Credit Slips readers may know, a group of key Philadelphia newspapers are currently in chapter 11. The debtor that owns the papers owes its secured lenders north of $290 million. It wants to sell itself under a plan to...
Lehman & Barclays
posted on November 17, 2009
Lehman has sued Barclays over the incredibly rushed sale of Lehman's key brokerage assets to Barclays a year ago. No doubt the financial industry crowd will use this to further promote their argument that chapter 11 does not work for...

Payments Views

A Revolution in Payments
posted on November 18, 2009
Today’s announcement of American Express acquiring Revolution Money caught many of us industry pundits by surprise – especially given the $300 MM price tag that Amex paid for the deal. But, upon reflection, and after listening to the Q&A section of Amex’s conference call earlier today, you can see why they were motivated to [...] Related articles:
Watch Out! Big Changes in Retail Bank Pricing Are Coming
posted on November 13, 2009
The Fed´s announcement on Thursday of a new rule prohibiting overdraft fees on debit card and ATM transactions without consumer opt-in is an economic earthquake for retail banks. The Center for Responsible Lending has estimated that banks make $23.7 billion in overdraft fees annually; the New York Times said this morning that Fed officials had put [...] Related articles:

Calculated Risk

National Survey: Data on Home Buying Financing
posted on November 20, 2009
Krugman on AIG
posted on November 20, 2009

Bankervision

The task worker divide
posted on November 19, 2009
I´m sitting here in London Heathrow airport, and scrolling through all last night´s Tweets on my Twitter client. I notice that, in addition to the Tweets I put up from #sdthinks, where I was speaking last night, there are lots of people I follow who were also at conferences doing live updates. There are lots of people who are at airports in work time and clearly do their work mobile, whilst keeping in touch with everyone else. They are lots who are arguing about Enterprise Architecture, or other professional stuff, in real-time. There are lots who, in time-zones opposite mine,...
Evidence of the chip
posted on November 18, 2009
A week or so ago, I wrote about the "chip" that some Microsoft employees seem to have implanted in their brains. A couple of people contacted me to tell me the days of the "chip" were long gone. Apparently that´s not the case, however. And here is the evidence. Profile Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge was laid off, recently, in the latest round of cuts. As he says on his blog: Microsoft announced more layoffs today, and I was one of them. This was a total surprise to me, and management offered no explanation. This is pretty standard procedure, mostly for...

Javelin Strategy & Research

Good News Holiday Shoppers: All Large Bank Debit Cards Now Offer Zero-Liability; Banks also Bolster ID Fraud Prevention and Minimize SSN Use
posted on November 19, 2009
Javelin´s Bank Safety Scorecard Rates Providers on 50 Customer Safety Measures Bank of America, Regions Bank and Wells Fargo Rank Highest San Francisco, CA, November 19, 2009 Javelin Strategy & Research (http://www.javelinstrategy.com) today issued a research report ranking top banks and credit unions on 50 identity fraud Prevention, Detection and ResolutionTM capabilities. The report scores how [...]
American Express acquires Revolution Money
posted on November 19, 2009
I’m buried with client and internal deliverables, so this note on the blogosphere will be brief. Smart move in buying Revolution Money AE, and not a surprising one. AE owns the upper end of the market, even if offerings such as Visa signature are encroaching fast. I’ve always wondered why Discover gets little attention as [...]

The Balance Sheet

Notes on This Week´s Column: The Debt Bias
posted on November 15, 2009
My column this week deals with one of the more important but less commented-on aspects of the American financial system: the way government policy encourages individuals and companies to take on debt. Given that...
Video: Elizabeth Warren
posted on November 15, 2009
James Surowiecki spoke with Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School and the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), about the importance of transparency in consumer financing,...

Bank Innovation

The Social Entrepreneurship of Goldman Sachs
posted on November 20, 2009
Goldman Sachs´ CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his largest investor, The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffett , descended from the mystical heights of Valhalla with some startling news. They were bearing a new mythical golden ring. As they held the ring aloft they made a bold proclamation. They would embark on one of the grandest social entrepreneurial programs of all time by offering some of the rings precious power, about $500 million worth, to capital starved small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs). The 10,…
SPREAD 'EM: Is the Thermometer Rising on Credit Prices?
posted on November 20, 2009
Credit prices have taken a sudden turn over the last two days, with spreads widening more than 20% since Tuesday.

While there is some modulation in the TED spread today, down 1.671% to 25.71 at 9:38 a.m. ET, the measure of the difference between three-month Treasurys and the three-month Libor rate, jumped to 26.15 yesterday. On Tuesday the TED closed at 21.66.

TED SPREAD

…

CU Soapbox

Shell Federal Recognized as National Community Credit Union of the Year
posted on November 18, 2009
by Ron Daly Way back in June of this year, we highlighted the efforts of Shell Federal Credit Union as a community credit union that was dedicated to reaching out to members and being active in their community. Back then,...
In Defense of Email Follow-Up: I'm not the only one who's defending email!
posted on November 12, 2009
by Ron Daly Last week, I reacted to an article from the Wall Street Journal about the impending death of email. I tried to give credit to Twitter, Facebook, etc. for the roll they've played in changing how we chatter...

The Daily Beast

The Best Job No One Wants
posted on November 19, 2009
A new CEO for Bank of America could be chosen as early as Sunday, reports Charlie Gasparino. Inside a selection process beset by rivalries, government pressure-and most of all a lack of interest from top candidates. The board of directors of Bank of...
Wall Street's Grinch Speaks
posted on November 17, 2009
With bonus season beginning, Charlie Gasparino talks to pay czar Kenneth Feinberg about limiting executive compensation, how Congress will manage risk, and why CEOs are scared. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is a very worried man, but not for the...

Digital Money Forum

What's the alternative?
posted on November 20, 2009
[Dave Birch] There are plenty of extinct "alternative" payment mechanisms already: c2it, Yahoo PayDirect, Billpoint, eMailMoney and so on. And there are a few that survive. But where does the label come from? I saw the comedian/musician Tim Minchin tell...
"I Know Nick Hughes"
posted on November 19, 2009
[Paul Makin] I went to a very enjoyable event yesterday evening, held to launch a joint DFID/CGAP report, entitled "Scenarios for Branchless Banking in 2020". There were presentations by two of the report's authors, Mark Pickens and David Porteous, describing...

Netbanker

American Express Jumps on the Alt-Payments Bandwagon in a Big Way; $300 Million Acquisition of Revolution Money
posted on November 19, 2009
Frankly, I haven't got my head completely around the latest acquisition in the alt-payments space (and I'm not the only one). I know that it makes my analyst life more interesting, but not sure what it means to the competitive...
Happy 10th Birthday PayPal!
posted on November 19, 2009
In preparation for our upcoming report I was re-reading our first report on P2P payments published almost 10 years ago to the day (29 Nov 1999). Although, it was early in the game, I was very impressed with PayPal,...

The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets

The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets - October 5, 2009
posted on October 5, 2009
What are we going to do when the Fed stops buying mortgage-backed securities ...
The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets - August 9, 2009
posted on August 9, 2009
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water ...

GonzoBanker

Five Things Gonzo Marketers Do
posted on November 16, 2009
Being a bank marketing officer today is like standing on a shooting range with a target Scotch-taped to your chest. You´re constantly under attack.
Bankers on the River Charles: BAI Retail Delivery 2009
posted on November 9, 2009
The idea drought may be making BAI's Retail Delivery show too easy to beg off. Here are some thoughts for attendees and organizers to start turning the tide from disinterest to action.

American Banker - On Focus and In Depth