New Mobile Recording Regulations from FSA

The banking industry has been scrambling to comply with the Financial Services Authority's new mobile recording regulation, which started on 14 November, but merely ‘ticking the box' now could mean firms losing out on long-term efficiencies, says Neil Ainger.

The requirement to record conversations between traders, brokers, investment managers and other market participants has long been established so that regulators can check the correct procedures are being followed and investigate any misconduct. Up until now it has only applied to fixed line conversations but all that changed on 14 November when the FSA's new mobile recording regulation came into effect.
 
All participants in the UK's capital markets must record all mobile communication between traders from now on, covering voice, SMS text and Instant Messaging. Other jurisdictions are likely to follow suit - indeed Norway has already introduced the rule - so lots of vendors were expecting a bonanza of business. It hasn't necessarily turned out that way, however, says Ian Philip, the managing director of Anvil, a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, who says that many firms, especially smaller ones, "have gone for a ‘tick box' approach initially so they can prove compliance".

According to Paul Metcalfe, head of voice trading solutions at Orange Business Services' Trading Solutions, "mobile recording has been on the agenda for some time now, admittedly with some false starts, yet some financial institutions have still left things to the eleventh hour. In some cases it's almost as if they are playing a game of ‘chicken' with the FSA.

"My suspicion is that everyone will be ready in the minimal sense of the word on 14 November, with firms doing what is necessary but no more," says Rik Turner, a senior FS analyst at Ovum, who has produced his own report in conjunction with recording vendor Compliant Phones and the enterprise search specialist HP-Autonomy, entitled Mobile Communications Recording in the Financial Markets: An Update.

This outlines the requirements that firms need to comply with, principally that:

■ Recording must start when a mobile device is switched on, be continuous, and not be reliant on the user. It must also be tamper-proof to avoid data being spoiled.  
■ The recording solution must work on all forms of mobile communication to and from the device(s) that a regulated firm allows traders to use for their job. Interestingly, the FSA also says all ‘personal mobiles' used for work must be covered, recognising a potential problem here and shifting responsibility on to firms.
■ The solution must work wherever the regulated employee is (i.e. a recording must be made even if a trader is in Hong Kong on a UK registered phone).
■ The recordings must be stored in an ‘easily retrievable fashion' (the FSA does not specify if this means in the cloud or on premise; leaving this up to the discretion of the firm. Various strategies have been adopted so far).

The technological considerations are substantial, especially as there weren't any off-the-shelf solutions available to start with. Delivering seamless voice as traders roam across networks and countries, consistent browser access without interference, integration with existing landline recording systems if so desired, and delivering easy retrieval on vast call volumes, is a challenge for anyone. With BlackBerry, iPhones and other types of handsets/networks there are multiple points of entry so you cannot just record calls coming in or out via the PBX switch anymore.

Then there are the business continuity concerns - theoretically if the recording function stops then all trading must cease as no record is available. Needless to say this isn't acceptable, especially with demanding traders who are used to always-on service. Getting busy traders to buy-in to training programmes and migration policies has been another challenge.

Extract taken from:

http://tiny.cc/9jnte

Steve Jobs - Stanford Commencement Address 2005

Here's a very inspiring video of Steve Jobs delivering a commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.

In the video, Steve urges students to pursue their dreams and see opportunities in setbacks...

Cameron backs young British 'Dot Com' Boom

The Prime Minister yesterday praised eight groups of students for inventions that send people useful information straight to their mobile phones - using new government data.

At a reception in Downing Street, the entrepreneurs received prizes for bright ideas that bring “significant social and economic benefits” to the UK.

One winning invention, called SchoolHunt, allows parents to compare the difference between the quality of local schools. Another technology is A&Express, which helps people to find the nearest hospital with the shortest waiting time for emergency problems.

The 32 prize-winning students will now embark on a tour of California’s famous technology belt, known as Silicon Valley.

Among the other winners, SafeTrip shows mobile phone users the safest routes home at night, while EyeSore lets people send reports of flytipping or vandalism to their local councils.

Mr Cameron is placing his hopes on the technology industry as a sector that will create private sector jobs.
The Government is currently hoping to transform the east end of London into one of the “world’s great technology centres”.
“I am committed to making the UK the best place in the world to start, run and grow a high tech company,” the Prime Minister said yesterday.
“This type of innovation can produce new applications and services that generate significant social and economic benefits across our society.”

The data used in the projects was released by Government departments as part of a new drive to open up the inner workings of Whitehall.
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said: “These applications prove the potential power of public data to drive entrepreneurial growth, choice and competition in public services.

“Since we came to office, we have begun to publish more government data, in a useable format, than any other country but we need entrepreneurs to start developing it.”
The young entrepreneurs are being funded by Silicon Valley Comes to the UK, a project set up by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, the business social networking website.
Sherry Coutu, co-chairman of the group, said the point of the project was to put students in touch with leading “entrepreneurs, angels, investors and scientists from around the world”.

Extract taken from:

http://tiny.cc/wc08b

Widespread Enthusiasm For Flexible Working

New figures released by Opportunity Now back up recent research by Elan showing that, regardless of whether they work in permanent or contract positions, UK workers value flexibility in their roles.

In a poll carried out by YouGov, a remarkable 83% of UK employees said they would like more flexible working, believing that this would increase their productivity and decrease stress levels.

This figure is backed up by Elan's research, which revealed “flexibility about working hours” was the second highest priority for permanent workers (68%) and contract workers (60%) alike.  Only "the stability of a permanent role" was ranked higher.

Thousands of UK workers took part in the poll, and a third suggested flexible working would increase productivity, and almost half that it would reduce stress – good for both the business and employees.

Friends Life Signs £1.37Bn Deal with TCS Subsidiary

Insurance company Friends Life has signed a deal worth £1.37bn over 15 years with pension and insurance industry service provider Diligenta, a subsidiary of Indian IT outsourcing company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The deal, which will be effective as of 1 March 2012, will see Diligenta provide customer service and IT functions for the company.

All Friends Life's 3.2 million policies will be migrated from the company's legacy mainframe systems and onto Diligenta's in-house and proprietary database and content management system, Bancs.

Friends Life chose Diligent to consolidate three key platforms and 140 systems surrounding those platforms that it inherited when it acquired Friends Provident, Axa Life UK and the BHA business from BUPA.
Running the separate platforms and systems was very costly, and one motivator for the deal was the opportunity is presented to reduce system maintenance costs, according to David Hynam, chief operating officer for Friends Life.

"We chose Diligenta for two reasons: the Bancs platform is good, reliable and well proven, and the company has a strong track record of making policy migrations work – it had migrated something like 3.4 million policies for the Phoenix Group [the UK's largest closed life and pension fund consolidator].
Hynam said Friends Life needed a technology specialist to help it with its IT overhaul. "We needed a partner. After all, we're a pensions and insurance company not a technology company. And we decided that to derisk the consolidation process we would take on a partner to do the the admin and technology involved in the migration," he said.
Hynam explained that costs reduction is built into the contract, so as closed book policies fall away – these are policies that are no longer sold but are still on the books – the costs are reduced.
Many of the inherited policies of Friends Life were closed. Traditionally, hardware and application maintenance costs for systems that hold closed policies are high because they run on older legacy systems that have seen little investment.
Hynam explained that the Bancs system is a modular system that can handle a wide range of very different products including bonds, individual and corporate pensions, and individual protection products.
"These very different product types all feed through onto the one ledger," said Hynam.
As part of the deal, about 1,900 Friends Life roles will transfer to Diligenta. Friends Life is currently in consultation with a union and the staff will be transferred according to TUPE guidelines.
The companies were in discussions for a year before the deal was signed.
The deal is the fourth big UK insurance deal for Diligenta since it was set up in 2005, the others being with Phoenix, Pearl Group and Sun Life Financial Canada.

Extract taken:

http://tiny.cc/yza8x

Yesterday Influences Your Success Today In Surprising Ways...

It probably won’t surprise you if I tell you that thinking about your past successes and failures can influence your performance in the here and now.  There’s nothing like a winning season to give a player confidence going into that last game, and nothing like a string of awkward dates to make you nervous about how the next one is going to turn out.  But thanks to new research, it’s become clear that the relationship between our past and present isn’t as obvious as you might think.

Imagine you are about to take a difficult test, or undergo a grueling interview.  Before you begin, you take a few moments to reflect on some of your past successes – moments where you really shined.  This turns out to be a really good idea, because when you think about the many times in the past when you reached your goals, you start feeling like you’ve really got something that makes you a successful person.

In other words, reflecting on past successes (plural) leads your brain to unconsciously, and quite naturally, assume that since you are the common denominator in all of those successes, your traits (e.g. your intelligence, creativity, charm) are the reason for your success.
Believing that you’ve got it, whatever it is, makes you more confident, and provides a very real boost to your performance.

Of course the same kind of process occurs when you reflect on many past failures before embarking on a new task – you unconsciously assume that something about you is to blame for your bad track record, and as a consequence your performance in the here and now suffers.
No real surprises there, right?  But what if instead of reflecting on your past successes and failures plural, you just thought about a single success or failure?  What does your brain do with just one particular memory?  The answer:  it unconsciously draws the opposite conclusion!  That’s right – remembering a single episode of success can make you doubt yourself, just as the memory of a single instance of failure can leave you feeling more confident.  But why?

General memories, or memories about a group of similar behaviors (like many games won, or many dates gone wrong) lead you to make unconscious inferences about your own traits, because they seem to reflect what you typically do.

Specific memories, on the other hand, are about a single event (e.g., that one win against the opposition, that one bad date).  When you focus on a single event, you are less likely to see yourself as responsible for whatever happened, and more likely to unconsciously conclude that it was all due to the situation you were in.  (You beat the opposition because their team isn’t that strong.  Your date was awkward because he / she isn’t really your type.)
In other words, memories of a single occurrence in our lives can easily feel like the exception, rather than the rule.
This was nicely illustrated in a set of recent studies.  Some of the participants were asked to reflect on a number of their past successes or failures by completing the sentence: “In general, I’m successful (I fail) when….”
The other participants were focused instead on a single episode of success or failure, by completing the sentence: “I succeeded (failed) once when I had to….”
The results were remarkable.  People who were asked to reflect on their many past successes or a specific failure scored roughly 10% better on tests of mathematical ability, as well as verbal, spatial, and abstract reasoning, than those who reflected on either many past failures or a single specific success.

Let that sink in for a second.  You get the same boost of confidence from thinking about a single time you screwed up that you do from reflecting on the many times you really shined.  And you fall victim to the same nagging self-doubt from thinking about that one time you did something right, that you do from dwelling on all the times you did everything wrong.

So if you’re looking to bolster your confidence and really motivate yourself before tackling your next project, or your next blind date, or maybe the next meeting you have to run, remember that it’s a good idea to draw on your memories of success, so long as you have a string of successes in mind.  That way, your unconscious mind (which is so often the maker or breaker of a great performance) will clearly understand that your awesomeness is not the exception – it’s the rule.

Extract taken from:

http://tiny.cc/1was2

Diamond Warns of Fresh Job Cuts Despite Rise in Profits

BARCLAYS gave warning this week of further sizeable job cuts despite revealing a better than expected performance and a sharp cut in its exposure to eurozone debts.


Bob Diamond, the bank’s chief executive, said that about 3,500 staff had been made redundant as he announced a 5 per cent rise in third-quarter figures and 19 per cent in the nine months figure.

Diamond, the former head of Barclays’ investment bank BarCap, would not specify future job cuts but he added: “The kinds of trends you have seen this year this year, you should expect them to continue.”

At the six‑month stage, the bank had said about half the redundancies were in BarCap and it is believed the same applies to the latest figures due to tough financial markets.

Barclays made a pre‑tax profit of just over £5 billion for the nine months to September, up from £4.3bn. Underlying group Q3 profits rose 5 per cent to £1.34bn against £1.27bn last time. But profits at the investment bank halved to £388m. Income at BarCap, which provides the bulk of the group’s profit, fell 22 per cent to £2.25bn from the second quarter as trading conditions in financial markets worsened over the summer with the gathering eurozone banking and sovereign debt crisis.

Revenue in BarCap’s fixed income, currencies and commodities fell 16 per cent from the second quarter. Equities income slumped 40 per cent, and advisory income was down by a quarter.

Diamond said the overall performance by Barclays was “reassuring in a period of considerable challenge and uncertainty”. The high street arm more than doubled profits to £494 million on a one‑fifth rise in revenues. Barclaycard’s profits lifted 54 per cent to £378m. Meanwhile, bad debt charges fell a third to £2.8bn.

Barclays revealed it cut its exposure to sovereign debt in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy by 31 per cent to £8bn in the last quarter, but warned that liquidity in wholesale financial markets remained tight.

Extract taken from:

http://tiny.cc/xgm4d

Fresh Thinkers Seminar - Manchester

Yesterday we attended the #FRESHTHINKERS mobile seminar hosted by Jobsite with guest speakers Tomi Ahonen and Tony Fish, international commentators, authors and speakers on all things mobile and digital.

Mobile is to the digital age what the wheel was to the stone age, by its very nature, Mobile puts an interface with the digital world into the hands and pockets of the masses globally.

Mobile is THE widest-reaching technology in the world today. And as such has enabled a plethora of situations, context and opportunities for digital engagement and interactions.

But do we truly understand what we’re getting ourselves into?

Today’s reality is that you leave tiny digital traces of where you have been, when and how often, using what device, and who with, each and every time you interact with technology.

So what are you doing to manage your footprints in this digital age?

We are all digital citizens of the world which means we all have rights and responsibilities. There is a great emphasis on the protective rights we want – such as new and updated law and regulations that define privacy, security and protection. However, it is how we each define and act on our responsibilities that will shape our personal engagement with digital services and technologies.

Let’s think about current digital services, such as social media, as a game. For example, if Twitter is about getting the best quip of the day or providing some useful info, and LinkedIn is about proving “my network is bigger than yours”, then Facebook is about showing that “I have a more interesting life than you”.   With every new game, there are new rules and responsibilities, but do we know what these are? Before looking into any new rules it is worth confirming that all of the old social rules are still valid, relevant and have not been washed away by mobile.  

A few examples of old rules that are timeless include:

§  Don’t gossip, make things up, slander, steal, pinch or lie

§  Have evidence and be professional, factual, accurate, honest, and transparent

§  Engage and treat others how you want to be treated yourself

§  Opinions are personal. Be gracious, open, respectful and accepting of differences

Without a doubt, some modernising of law is needed to reflect the advances in democracy, understanding and technology.  Examples of rules and regulation that would appreciate some new impetus include: Privacy, Identity, Liberty, Harm, Consequences, Ownership, Access and Rights.

New rules for the digital age

While waiting for the law to catch up here’s Tony Fish’s top 10, an eclectic list of guidelines around managing and protecting your digital footprint and personal data:

1.    Digital Footprints are what you say about yourself, what others say about you and what data says about you

2.    Appreciate that your digital footprint is worth more than your salary

3.    Everything you do can be recorded (stored). Sensors will be in all digital devices soon – ask yourself why and what use will the data be and to whom

4.    Reputation is all you have and your name is a good identity – so don’t abuse or lose either

5.    Change your password to Facebook, Twitter and bank accounts etc before you change your boy/girl friend/ partner

6.    Have several personas. This is not a sign of madness and you don’t need to justify them to anyone

7.    Branding is now personal and it is the new black

8.    Don’t sack/release/ make redundant the person, and then be held hostage, by the person who has the login/password for your corporate fan page, group, twitter account until many people have control/access

9.    Provide someone (you trust) with the knowledge of how to access your accounts/ data after you die and what you want done with your data/ digital footprint. Be aware – doing so will go against every term and condition you have signed

10. Levels of damage and harm from digital engagement are currently lower that you may think”

The team at Elan are becoming more and more social media savvy every day, learning to apply the things we do now in a different way – let’s face it we can’t hide behind the fact that times are changing, a new generation is upon us and we must embrace the technology that is available to be successful.

We have evolved as an organization and have a lot to be proud of.  We now must accelerate our performance to take advantage of the opportunities the Human Age presents as well as the hard work we have done to prepare for it.

Some extract taken from Jobsite.co.uk