Posted on January 22nd, 2009 by tom groenfeldt
SAS, the Cary, NC-based analytics company, has developed a sophisticated replacement for credit scoring which promises greater accuracy, process transparency, and a single number from 1 to 432 which will describe a borrower’s financial position. The score can be tied to a mortgage and remain with it through securitization, providing a quick, in-depth way to [...]
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Posted on January 19th, 2009 by tom groenfeldt
“What keeps you awake at night?” In interviews with more than 1,000 C-level executives at firms around the globe – including 54 financial institutions – IBM researchers trotted out that standard question. Quite a number of deep issues, it turns out. “A very high number of financial services executives, 80%, is figuring out what their [...]
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Posted on November 24th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
In Sunday’s New York Times, Eric Dash and Julie Creswell take apart the failed risk management practices at Citigroup in a detailed article that draws on extensive comments from bank insiders. Much of the cause will be no surprise – traders overpowered the risk managers, a senior risk manager was good friends with the guy [...]
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Posted on October 31st, 2008 by fabien buliard
Less than a year after Jérôme Kerviel’s exploits at SocGen made the headlines, it is now another French banking group, Caisse d’Epargne, that is reporting a violation of its internal rules leading to a €751-million loss related to derivatives trading. Traders allegedly exceeded their limits, internal controls have failed, and charges have been pressed. Sound [...]
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Posted on October 31st, 2008 by fabien buliard
As many of you probably know by now, French president Nicolas Sarkozy has had money siphoned from his bank account and pressed charges in September, leading to the arrest of three people. Two of them have reportedly used his account number to buy mobile phone contracts. The third suspect is a shop employee, although it [...]
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Posted on October 14th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
The list of local councils and charities and the amounts they had deposited in Iceland is astounding. But it does raise a big question — where were the sales reps from Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays, et. al. Cheltenham Borough Council: £11 million in Iceland banks … Dorset County Council: £28.1 million … the list goes on [...]
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Posted on September 30th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
Amazing how fast this has been moving. The Wall Street Journal has provided excellent coverage with in-depth reporting including the corporate politics that mostly occur well out of sight. (The Journal’s editorial page remains, as it has been historically, mostly a source of comic relief.) Pity the poor weeklies – the news keeps coming over [...]
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Posted on August 19th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
With banks having lost half a dozen years’ profits since last August you might believe headlines which suggest that they are prepared to scale back business. Ah, but that does miss a key point. The banks may have lost, but the bankers didn’t lose past salary and bonus pay. So while it is inspiring to [...]
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Posted on August 4th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
Chicago is definitely the Second City for most people working on Wall Street, as suggested by that famous New Yorker cover showing a native’s view of the world west of the Hudson as an alien wasteland. But the Chicago Tribune says that the city’s futures markets have flourished, in part because they don’t do OTC [...]
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Posted on July 11th, 2008 by tom groenfeldt
It’s a lot to be proud of, this independent capitalist system that tells the government to get lost. Except when it doesn’t. Headlines yesterday were Fed Chair Ben Bernanke saying the bank will extend its lending facility for investment banks for another couple of months if needed. The Fed is also working with the SEC [...]
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