Archive | October, 2012

A Volcker rule for the UK?

30 Oct

Disagreements over bank ring fencing

It appears that not everybody is happy with the Vickers proposals to ring fence retail banking operations from the “casino” operations of investment banking. Paul Volcker criticised the approach to the UK Banking Standards Committee, and last night John Kay weighed in with his views, commenting, according to the FT, that “it would be very difficult to do this”. Not surprisingly, Volcker prefers his own per se ban on proprietary trading, while John Kay’s own views on (very narrow) banking have already been published.

In the (unlikely) event that the UK were to switch from ringfencing to a Volcker rule, we would be aligning ourselves with the US approach rather than the Europeans, who, under the Liikanen proposals, look to be going down a ringfence route. Banks trading in both US and the EU are clearly going to have a fun time.

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No time for the Brett King Bank 3.0 book? Well, try the images I’ve pinned..

28 Oct

In the last couple of days I’ve come across two good graphics on the growing ubiquity of mobile – even in a pre-4G world. Pinned to a new board on Pinterest – see the link on the right hand side.

Something for the weekend – Brett King’s Bank 3.0 is here – see my first thoughts

26 Oct

My copy arrived, courtesy of Amazon during the week. On first look, it maintains the high quality of the original, and is a more detailed think piece than his “Branch Today, Gone Tomorrow” polemic. Of course, in the couple of years since Bank 2.0 was published (May 2010), his ideas have become more mainstream, and social media/mobile/digital relationships can no longer be ignored. The investment required is less the cash (£13.99 on Amazon) than the time to properly read & think through his analysis. Let’s hope Sir David Walker has bought a stack & is giving them out to his new Barclays board nominees.