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[from amaah] The TARP has been passed; what more to do, and what not to do now
Willem Buiter sounds almost as grim as Nouriel Roubini... I believe that the collapse of confidence in the banks and in the rest of the highly leveraged system of financial intermediation that has developed without any effective regulation and supervision has now become so widespread and so deep that it will take the socialisation of much of the banking sector broadly defined to restored confidence, order and functioning financial intermediation. This is true in the US, the UK and for most of the rest of Europe, including the euro area, the rest of the EU and the EU-fringe states.
Jonas Bonér " Blog Archive " Real-World Scala: Introduction
The last nine months I have been running my own business together with some friends (Triental AB). We are building a product suite for private banking and wealth management with a focus on portfolio management, analysis and simulation.
http://www.paydayloansnofax.co.uk
Payday Loans No Fax is a trustable and online loan arranging company. Avail Cash loans no fax, payday loans, and instant loans easily with Payday Loans No Fax.
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BambooInvoice: Simple, Beautiful, Open Source, Online Invoicing
BambooInvoice is free Open Source invoicing software intended for small businesses and independent contractors.
Banking as a Platform 2
Last week in Banking as a Platform, I discussed how banks might use the platform concept (for example as discussed by Tom Steinthal in a post called Some Thoughts on Platforms in Financial Services) to support radical improvements in customer experience and service.
Tom has now replied. In a post called Platforms - Are They Coming, he mentions a banking product called PNC Virtual Wallet. [PNC Bank Takes on Mint & Quicken with PNC Virtual Wallet, NetBanker, July 14th 2008]
The NetBanker article mentions several companies offering financial management platforms that apparently sit on top of (and aggregate) online services from regular banks. These financial management platforms include Geezeo, Jwaala, Mint, Wesabe. I haven't studied these in detail, but from a quick review of the material on their respective websites they look fairly similar, and a lot more like real platforms (according to the criteria stated in Tom's earlier post) than PNC Virtual Wallet. Although PNC deserves some praise for innovating at all, I can't see anything very radical in the PNC innovation.
Among the comments to the NetBanker article, I note contributions from Aaron Patzer (CEO of Mint) and Andrew Taylor (CTO of Jwaala). This is not the first time these two have clashed in public: in September, Andrew put a post onto the Jwaala blog called Hi I'm Mint. Ugg., which prompted a robust reply from Aaron.
Behind the rivalry between Mint and Jwaala is a fundamentally important difference in platform strategy. Mint appears to be selling to customers - "use our platform to get a better service over and above your existing bank accounts and other financial service providers". Whereas Jwaala appears to be selling to banks - "use our platform to provide better services to your customers". (Back in 2005, I noted a similar dilemma for software billing specialist LaCayla - whether to market its services upwards or downwards. There are some complex questions of platform strategy here, as I indicated in my post on two-sided markets over on the Asymmetric Design blog. There are also questions of trust.)
I really hope that innovations like these are successful, but there is a lot of work to do. Big banks like PNC may offer a watered-down and "safe" version of the innovation, but they might possibly have mixed feelings about the outcome. Meanwhile we can expect a lot of exciting stuff to be produced by small energetic companies with disputatious senior management; but it will be interesting to see how far they get with or without the active collaboration of any of the big banks.
Tom has now replied. In a post called Platforms - Are They Coming, he mentions a banking product called PNC Virtual Wallet. [PNC Bank Takes on Mint & Quicken with PNC Virtual Wallet, NetBanker, July 14th 2008]
The NetBanker article mentions several companies offering financial management platforms that apparently sit on top of (and aggregate) online services from regular banks. These financial management platforms include Geezeo, Jwaala, Mint, Wesabe. I haven't studied these in detail, but from a quick review of the material on their respective websites they look fairly similar, and a lot more like real platforms (according to the criteria stated in Tom's earlier post) than PNC Virtual Wallet. Although PNC deserves some praise for innovating at all, I can't see anything very radical in the PNC innovation.
Among the comments to the NetBanker article, I note contributions from Aaron Patzer (CEO of Mint) and Andrew Taylor (CTO of Jwaala). This is not the first time these two have clashed in public: in September, Andrew put a post onto the Jwaala blog called Hi I'm Mint. Ugg., which prompted a robust reply from Aaron.
Behind the rivalry between Mint and Jwaala is a fundamentally important difference in platform strategy. Mint appears to be selling to customers - "use our platform to get a better service over and above your existing bank accounts and other financial service providers". Whereas Jwaala appears to be selling to banks - "use our platform to provide better services to your customers". (Back in 2005, I noted a similar dilemma for software billing specialist LaCayla - whether to market its services upwards or downwards. There are some complex questions of platform strategy here, as I indicated in my post on two-sided markets over on the Asymmetric Design blog. There are also questions of trust.)
I really hope that innovations like these are successful, but there is a lot of work to do. Big banks like PNC may offer a watered-down and "safe" version of the innovation, but they might possibly have mixed feelings about the outcome. Meanwhile we can expect a lot of exciting stuff to be produced by small energetic companies with disputatious senior management; but it will be interesting to see how far they get with or without the active collaboration of any of the big banks.
Hitachi XBRL " Blog Archive " An Interview with Dominic Jones (Part I)
"I believe companies in countries where XBRL has not been championed by regulators to the same extent could find it harder to attract investors in the future."
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Banking as a Platform
Searching for "Business as a Platform", I come across a post by Tom Steinthal, the Financial Services chief of nGenera, called Some Thoughts on Platforms in Financial Services.
Tom lists a few criteria of a good platform.
- extensibility, open
- utility beyond utility envisioned by the designers
- foundational (not sure what he means by that)
- simplicity, focus
- powerful, scaleable
- open
- incorporating, facilitating and/or leveraging collaboration
- accessible and/or leveraging the Internet (reachable via Web Services and/or SaaS?)
Tom suggests that financial services might learn something useful from platforms like Amazon. Sure they could, but will they? Are they? There are loads of services that I'd like my bank to provide me with, and I can see exactly how the platform concept would give an innovative bank a cost-effective and powerful way to provide me with services like these, but (sadly) I don't see much evidence that banks (at least in the UK) are interested in that kind of innovation.
I really like the idea of a bank providing services to its customers that are flexible and secure, allowing the customers (or their financial advisors) to compose these services into customized solutions. I also like the idea of financial advisors actually doing some real work, rather than simply earning commission by selling me some fancy investment plan. There may also be opportunities for social provision - voluntary agencies and community groups creating easy-to-use customized banking services for selected target groups.
But is that going to happen? Browsing further back in Tom's blog, I find a link to an article by Penny Crosman called The Future of SOA on Wall Street (Wall Street and Technology, Feb 2008). Banking platforms are mentioned, but only as a means to internal flexibility, reuse and interoperability, not yet as a mechanism for providing radical improvements to customer experience and service.
However, I live in hope.
Finance Industry View of Security 3
Hans Gilde (who works in investment banking) left a comment on my previous post noting some difficulties with the implementation of security tokens, especially by a single bank in isolation, and arguing that the banks aren't just being stubborn.
I don't want to focus the argument on a particular security mechanism, but on the overall approach to security displayed by the banks. And I agree that it isn't just about individual banks being stubborn; it is a collective failure of the retail banking system as a whole to respond properly to a complex and difficult set of requirements.
The NLP principle of Positive Intentions indicates that instead of labelling an organization as "stubborn" or “stupid” or “bureaucratic”, we should look for a way of framing the situation in which its behaviour makes sense. There are lots of reasons why an individual bank might be reluctant to take an innovative stance on the security of its customers. The customers might be suspicious, and reluctant to adopt an unfamiliar security mechanism. (And of course there is a positive intention there as well behind this kind of suspicion and reluctance.) If the bank tempted providence (or hackers) by boasting of its improved security, any subsequent breach would be doubly embarrassing for the bank. And, perhaps most important of all, security is not one of the areas in which innovation is thought likely to produce a quick increase in new business and profitability.
My disappointment is therefore directed, not at individual banks, but at the finance industry as a whole. The finance industry is one of the most enthusiastic adopters of SOA and related technologies, but these technologies are not being used to improve the quality of service (including security) experienced by retail banking customers.
So what's the answer? Hans agrees with Dan Glass (quoted in my previous post) that regulation is needed. But banking regulators have other things on their minds right now, and there is little appetite for so-called self-regulation. So until banking customers have a reasonable alternative, nothing's going to change.
I'm not rash enough to make any predictions here. But the Internet has shown itself capable of throwing up radical surprises for established industries. If I was running a bank, I'd be looking at a medium term strategy for converting the business into a flexible and secure platform. Before someone else does it.
I don't want to focus the argument on a particular security mechanism, but on the overall approach to security displayed by the banks. And I agree that it isn't just about individual banks being stubborn; it is a collective failure of the retail banking system as a whole to respond properly to a complex and difficult set of requirements.
The NLP principle of Positive Intentions indicates that instead of labelling an organization as "stubborn" or “stupid” or “bureaucratic”, we should look for a way of framing the situation in which its behaviour makes sense. There are lots of reasons why an individual bank might be reluctant to take an innovative stance on the security of its customers. The customers might be suspicious, and reluctant to adopt an unfamiliar security mechanism. (And of course there is a positive intention there as well behind this kind of suspicion and reluctance.) If the bank tempted providence (or hackers) by boasting of its improved security, any subsequent breach would be doubly embarrassing for the bank. And, perhaps most important of all, security is not one of the areas in which innovation is thought likely to produce a quick increase in new business and profitability.
My disappointment is therefore directed, not at individual banks, but at the finance industry as a whole. The finance industry is one of the most enthusiastic adopters of SOA and related technologies, but these technologies are not being used to improve the quality of service (including security) experienced by retail banking customers.
So what's the answer? Hans agrees with Dan Glass (quoted in my previous post) that regulation is needed. But banking regulators have other things on their minds right now, and there is little appetite for so-called self-regulation. So until banking customers have a reasonable alternative, nothing's going to change.
I'm not rash enough to make any predictions here. But the Internet has shown itself capable of throwing up radical surprises for established industries. If I was running a bank, I'd be looking at a medium term strategy for converting the business into a flexible and secure platform. Before someone else does it.
Accounting & Business Software | Free Web-Based NolaPro
Account Receivables, Inventory systems, etc.
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Techdirt: 'Give It Away And Pray' Isn't A Business Model... But It Doesn't Mean That 'Free' Doesn't Work
A strategy for making money from free (via Charlie Leadbeater)
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