Month: December 2015

Strengthening EU equity and venture capital markets is a valuable idea, but its success will still depend on a change in investor attitudes and a reduction of sovereign risks.

Fintech start-ups are adept at pulling apart the banking business, neatly picking off low-hanging fruit. Joy Macknight examines the disruptive business models erupting in the financial industry and the banks’ response to this wave of innovation.

Layers of resistance, from hard-to-update legacy systems to hard-to-break user habits, make the timeline for seeing a new technological innovation hit the mainstream surprisingly long. 

The UK’s Senior Managers Regime seeks to formalise responsibility for risk, yet the threat of cyber attack sits outside of traditional risk governance standards, and means that protecting against such attacks will require a rethink of the traditional ‘three lines of defence’ model.

Latin American banks may lag behind their counterparts elsewhere in the world when it comes to digital innovation, but German Pugliese Bassi, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Miami-based technology provider Technisys, believes that attitudes towards technology are changing, making it the ideal time to launch a digital-only bank in the region. 

Protecting the banks’ crown jewels – money and personal data – may have become more difficult than ever, but financial institutions have fortified their defences with a little help from their fintech friends.

UK Only Article: 
UK article only

Issue: 

Hyperactive, yet passive

Fly Title: 

The Lloyds-HBOS affair

Main image: 

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Rubric: 

An unhappy financial marriage is examined in court

LLOYDS TSB was boring and stodgy—the slow and steady tortoise of British banking. HBOS fancied itself as racy and exciting but, when it blew up in 2008, needed a rescuer. Waiving the usual competition rules, the government steered HBOS into the arms of Lloyds. An initial bail-out of £17 billion ($31 billion) left the government holding a 43.4% stake in the combined company. It also held £4 billion of preference shares and tried to charge Lloyds a £16-billion fee for insuring its balance-sheet. The newly renamed Lloyds Banking Group subsequently issued £13.5 billion in new shares to buy its way out of the latter two entanglements.
A lawsuit working its way through the High Court has shone new light upon the events of 2008. By gobbling up HBOS, Lloyds TSB’s management created Britain’s largest banking …