More on the Systemic Risk of Bank IT Systems
Why financial firm IT is a bigger and more imminent source of systemic risk than you might think.
Read more...Category Archives: Payment system
Greece’s Drachma Drama: Why Planning Is Too Important to be Left to Economists
In conference call with hedgies, Yanis Varoufakis claims to have had approval to plan a parallel banking system using the drachma: Plan B.
Read more...Mario Draghi: The ECB Has No Mandate To Ensure Checks Clear Or Credit Cards Work
By Nathan Tankus, a writer from New York City. Follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus Last week Mario Draghi held a press conference following the decision to raise ELA a paltry 900 million dollars for Greek banks. In that press conference he said many things but I’d like to focus on one passage that has gotten […]
Read more...Once Again on the IT Challenges in Converting to the Drachma
Why the left is not doing itself, or the Greek people, any favors by minimizing the difficulties in converting to the drachma.
Read more...Bank IT, Grexit, and Systemic Risk
Why bank IT is more of a mess than you possibly imagined, and why that matters.
Read more...Greece Should Beware of Merchant Services Providers Bearing DDCs
Solving the mystery of how a hotel guest’s bill in Greece came to be (briefly) denominated in drachmas.
Read more...Perry Mehrling: China’s Rocky Road Ahead, Financial Liberalization versus Financial Stability
Will China’s renminbi transition smoothly to reserve currency status, or not? And should it?
Read more...Grexit: Your Humble Guest Writer Talks to YSI INET
Nathan Tankus talks to YSI INET about a Grexit and Greece
Read more...The Card System, Demystified, and Implications for Re-Introducing Drachma
A detailed explainer on how card systems work and what the impact of a drachma re-introduction would be for them.
Read more...My Big Fat Greek Bank Black Hole: No Deposit Insurance
It’s hard to find an official who is comporting himself very well in the wake of the Tsipras surprise announcement of a referendum on July 5 for a then-defunct bailout offer.
Read more...Scotland: the Moldovan Connection
How modest homes in some of Scotland’s poorest areas became prolific ‘company factories’, and how those companies were used in a giant Moldovan bank fraud
Read more...The Operational Issues of a Grexit Part Two: Organizational Capacity, Capital Controls and Bootstrapping a New Monetary System
Economics, law and politics are all crucial to the story of Greece, but in the moment of default or Grexit they take a back seat to something far more important: organizational capacity.
Read more...Nathan Tankus: The Operational Issues of a Grexit Part One: Understanding the Payments System
The Greek ruling coalition and European politicians and bureaucrats say they want to avoid a Grexit, Nevertheless, it makes sense to examine that scenario. We start with the payment system and Target2 balances.
Read more...Russia to Launch New Payments System to Circumvent SWIFT Network
Many observers have become unduly excited about what they depict as efforts to break the dollar hegeomony, such as the joint effort by the so-called BRICS nations to form a development bank. While having a suite of internationals funding entities, particularly ones focused on activities that in theory increase the collective benefits of relying on a reserve currency, are seen to be important, it does not follow that launching useful new funding institutions will break dollar dominance. As much as US abuse of its position as issuer of the reserve currency is correctly resented, there isn’t a competitor waiting in the wings. The Eurozone has blown it with its failure to clean up even sicker banks than the US has, and by compounding a bad situation with its adherence to destructive austerity policies. China clearly has the potential to displace the US longer-term, but it is unwilling to run the requisite trade deficits, since that means exporting demand and hence jobs. And no country had made the transition from being a major exporter to being consumer-driven smoothly; a crisis or protracted malaise would also delay China displacing the US as currency top dog.
But not being able to get rid of the dollar any time soon does not mean that countries that the US is trying to punish by using its influence over international payments system won’t find nearer-term escape routes.
Read more...Has Apple Pay Just Put Apple in the CFPB’s Crosshairs?
I strongly suggest you read Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin’s new post on why he believes Apple’s newly announced Apple Pay service puts Apple under the CFPB’s jurisdiction but virtue of having made itself a regulated financial institution. And Levitin means all of Apple’s consumer services, not just Apple Pay. He believes that Apple is […]
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