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Bank Systems & Technology: The Blog« November 2005 | Main | January 2006 » Model RiskDecember 14, 2005 @ 11:10 AM | By Ivan Schneider Does your bank rely too much on financial modeling in risk management? For more, read the FDIC's article. Tip of the hat to Goodwin Proctor LLP's "Financial Services Alert" newsletter.
Heroes and Villains December 13, 2005 @ 12:18 PM | By Ivan Schneider It's celebration time -- today's the day of CMP's annual holiday party. As such, upon arriving to the office this morning, each employee at CMP received a gift from our new CEO, Steve Weitzner. He's already made a real impact on the company as a communicative leader who knows what has to be done, as someone who's come up through the ranks. Since I make it my business to know about all sorts of things before they happen, the gift was not exactly a surprise. But I certainly didn't expect two gifts: a small blue box with a "Celebrate CMP" sticker, plus a red-gift-wrapped book. Had someone in corporate headquarters upped the gift stakes from simply a tchotchke, to a tchotche and a book? What could it be? A desk calendar? An inspirational tome? A guide to the world's telephone exchanges? I had to know! I ran my thumb along the top of the book and gently tore open the wrapper to reveal: "How to Be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans And More!" by Neil Zawacki (Chronicle Books, 2003). "Wow," I thought. It would certainly be a groundbreaking approach for a company to encourage each employee to embrace his or her inner malevolence. If so, we'd have no problem scooping the competition and beating forecasts for 2006. Or maybe it was a test. Would we see through the irony, and strive to become better people as a result? Tempted with the powers of evil, would we become heroes? As an HR strategy, it's pure brilliance. But then I read the card. The book was from one of my co-workers. She stopped by to say, "I saw this book and thought of you." The real gift was a squeeze toy and a gourmet cookie. No death traps, no doomsday devices, no demented clowns. Well, it's probably better that way. MasterCard-Powered Banks? December 02, 2005 @ 10:37 AM | By Ivan Schneider There has been some speculation MasterCard might expand into information technology services — taking it farther away from its financial services roots. My bet is that they start offering full-service bank operations outsourcing. With their warchest from the IPO, they could buy one or more of the major core systems vendors and lock up some real business. Comment on this blog entryBye-bye BAI? December 01, 2005 @ 03:26 PM | By Ivan Schneider From the Financial Insights report: "BAI RDS: R.I.P.?" RDS has been in decline since the shows of 1999 and 2000. Institution attendance continues to spiral downward. Participants are by and large not technology decision makers. There are no 'hot' technologies to spike interest. In short, "No buzz—No bodies". Competing with RDS (and winning) are vendor client conferences that attract senior executives and have recently shown signs of becoming collaborative efforts of non-competitive, partner vendors. However this business shakes out, I, for one, would miss the bazaar-like industry conference, which levels the metaphorical playing field for anyone with enough money left in the business plan to pay for a booth and a business card. At the same time, the decline of the bazaar happens to make Bank Systems & Technology that much more important as an intermediary between technology providers and industry decision-makers. So I'm not complaining all that loudly. |
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