The Great Financial Plumbing

22 October 2015

The financial and economic crises have led to an enormous plumbing exercise, involving a fundamental re-design of the global and European regulatory and supervisory system. This book systematically assesses the big items on the G-20 and EU agendas and the effectiveness with which they have been implemented in the EU. Its publication coincides with the demand by European Commissioner Jonathan Hill, in the context of the Capital Markets Union, for a ‘comprehensive review’ of the impact and coherence of EU legislation in the area of financial services.
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Payment Statistics for 2014

15 October 2015

The European Central Bank (ECB) has today published the 2014 statistics on non-cash payments, which comprise indicators on access to and use of payment services and terminals by the public, as well as volumes and values of transactions processed through payment systems. Statistics are published for each EU Member State, in addition to EU and euro area aggregates and comparative data. Several enhancements were brought to the data thanks to an enhanced methodology, also taking into account the effect of the fuller implementation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
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Tony de Bree

Tony de Bree

Senior Management Consultant

About the USPs of new companies like Netflix, Uber and Airbnb

13 October 2015

Recently I was giving some workshops to students at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) on ‘How to create your own startup as ‘plan b”. One assignment from the ‘5-step Startup Blueprint’ we use was about the earnings models/digital revenue models and business models of companies like Netflix, Uber and Airbnb. After the students had looked at these companies, they saw a number of interesting characteristics. Continue reading…

Why fighting fraud without analytics is no longer an option

09 October 2015
Knowledge Base

By Andy Scherpenberg

Still too few organisations realize just how much recent evolutions in the digital world have changed the spectrum, efficacy, depth and invisibility of fraud. The far-reaching automation and sophistication of the systems of cybercriminals allow them to do a huge amount of damage with a very small team and very little effort. But with terrifying results, if you realize that fraud in 2014 is estimated to cost roughly around 3 trillion euros (yes, that’s a 3 with 12 zeros after it). Continue reading…

New rules in relation to whistleblowing

06 October 2015
Knowledge Base

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), alongside the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), has today published new rules in relation to whistleblowing. These changes follow recommendations in 2013 by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) that banks put in place mechanisms to allow their employees to raise concerns internally (i.e. to ‘blow the whistle’) and that they appoint a senior person to take responsibility for the effectiveness of these arrangements.

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