May 19th 2012 | | The Economist | Anonymous

the growth of internet usage on smartphones, the rise of “big data” computer processing and the increasing willingness of customers to do complicated things online. These developments have long promised to transform the way banks do business and organise themselves....If this was just a more convenient way of paying, the banks would probably shrug. But it also promises to overturn your existing financial relationships. Instead of reaching for the first card that happens to be in your wallet to pay for a $2 cup of coffee (and risk being charged a $35 penalty by your bank for exceeding your overdraft limit), your phone will choose the best method of payment.

April 4, 2012| WSJ | By DAVID WESSEL.

Over 300 TD Canada Trust branches across Canada will be open from Noon to 4pm. 7 Day banking

28 February 2006 | The Globe and Mail | Sinclair Stewart

By TYLER COWEN
Published: February 11, 2012
....There is a better alternative: expanding the liability for major financial institutions. If a shareholder invests a dollar in a big bank, why not make that shareholder liable for the first $1.50 — or more — of losses as insolvency approaches? In essence, we would be making the shareholders liable for the costs that bank failures impose on society, and making the banks sort out the right mixes of activities and risks. Eugene N. White, an economics professor at Rutgers University, supported a related proposal in a recent paper, “Rethinking the Regulation of Banking: Choices or Incentives?”

This proposal would shrink the financial sector, while avoiding excess regulatory micromanagement of bank activities. But it could still be combined with other regulations, like limits on leverage, if deemed appropriate or necessary.

Unlike the “big is bad” view, this proposal would penalize failing banks rather than safe, successful ones that happen to be large. That’s also more in accord with the American ethos of winning at business. ....
Expanded liability for bank shareholders might satisfy the Occupy Wall Street movement, and could be sold as a market-oriented, not regulatory solution; it’s probably what markets would insist upon if there were no central bank and no F.D.I.C. As recently as the 1980s, the partnership structure, another alternative to limited liability, was common among investment banks — and that hardly seemed a crippling drawback at the time.

We need to resist vengeful or “feel good” options for financial reform and embrace those that will really work.

November 2011 |Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Toronto Region Research Alliance, and the City of Toronto| A report prepared by David A. Wolfe, Charles H. Davis, Nicola Hepburn, Nicholas Mills & Gale Moore

Patrick Wintour, political editor
The Guardian, Thursday 24 November 2011

28 May 2005 | The Guardian | Edmund Fawcett who reviews Medici Money by Tim Parks


Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florenceby Tim Parks

NOVEMBER 5, 2011 | WSJ |By MIKE MAYO.
Why Wall Street Can't Handle the Truth
Longtime bank analyst Mike Mayo tells the inside story of why it's so hard to yell 'sell' in a crowded room—and lays out how Wall Street needs to change to avoid the next financial collapse.

Grimmer, Tom. The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] 29 June 2005: .10.

04 June 2005 | The Globe and Mail|Sinclair Stewart.

PREET BANERJEE | Columnist profile | E-mail
Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Sep. 27, 2011 10:26AM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2011

Jun. 15, 2011 The Globe and Mail GRANT ROBERTSON. Ottawa’s
plan to pay out billions of dollars in land claim settlements to first
nations bands over the next several years, along with changes to the
mortgage market on some reserves, is opening up a lucrative and growing
business for the country’s banking sector. The Canada First Nation Joint
Action Plan, announced last week in Ottawa, extended the government’s
plan to settle outstanding land claims, paying out roughly $1-billion a
year to bands that are owed money. The reserves that are in line to
receive those payouts must line up a bank to manage that injection of
funds. This has spawned a burgeoning niche in Canadian banking, as
financial institutions compete for the right to manage that money
through their wealth management and trust divisions. Bank of Montreal,
Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Peace Hills Trust are
among the financial institutions now focusing on aboriginal banking as a
fast-emerging market.

Mar 9, 2011 | Bloomberg | By Hephzibah Anderson -

By ROGER LOWENSTEIN
Published: December 1, 2010

Nov. 2, 2010 |NYT| Tom FRIEDMAN..."the single most important
trend in the world today: globalization — the distn of cheap tools of
comm. & innovation that are wiring together the world’s citizens,
govts., biz, terrorists — is going to a whole new level."....EKO India
Fin Services' founders, Abhishek & Abhinav Sinha , began with an
insight — that low-wage migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer
states like Bihar had no place to put their savings & no secure way
to remit $ home to their families. India has relatively few bank
branches for a country its size, so many migrants stuff $ in their
mattresses or send $ home through traditional “hawala,” or hand-to-hand
networks...The brothers' idea: In every neighborhood there’s a
mom-and-pop kiosk selling drinks, cigs, candy & groceries. Why not
turn each one into a virtual bank? They created a s/ware prgrm allowing
a migrant in Delhi using his cellphone, & proof of identity, to
open a bank acct. registered on his cellphone txt system.

Sep 7, 2010 | The Globe & Mail pg. B.3 | Grant Robertson

Sep 16th 2010 | The Economist | Anonymous

July 8, 2010,| BusinessWeek | By Ira Boudway. Fed up with
poor service at traditional banks, Josh Reich is building BankSimple—an
alternative with "the agility and mindset of a tech company"

May 17, 2010 | Kim-Mai Cutler. Launching BankSimple, a "social
bank", because millions of people need a better bank. It’s a different
sort of problem than Twitter, and it’s going to be a very different sort
of company. But I feel ready to take on the challenge that BankSimple
presents.”

Saturday 8 August 2009 | The Guardian | by Giles Foden who reviews book by Stephen Green.

By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: February 25, 2010

FEBRUARY 22, 2010 | Wall Street Journal | by PAUL SONNE And SARA SCHAEFER MUñOZ

12/22/2008 | The Weekly Standard Vol. 014, Issue 14 | by
Christopher Caldwell. Financial panics still require what Walter
Bagehot prescribed--that practical men violate their own principles.
Common sense is often not much use in a financial panic. This was the
great discovery of Walter Bagehot, the prolific 19th-century essayist
and journalist, who was editor of the Economist from 1860 to 1877. (His
name rhymes with gadget.) in the so-called Anglo-Saxon world, Bagehot's
book still provides the bedrock of policy thinking during financial
emergencies, including our present one.

FEBRUARY 21, 2009 | Wall Street Journal | Interview of Nouriel
Roubini by TUNKU VARADARAJAN. Roubini believes that "The problem is that
in the bubble years, everyone becomes a cheerleader, including the
media. This is when journalists should be asking tough questions...
there was a failure there. More financial and business journalists, in
the good years, should have asked, 'Wait a moment, if this man, or this
firm, is making a 100% return a year, how do they do it? Is it because
they're smarter than everybody else . . . or because they're taking so
much risk they'll be bankrupt two years down the line?' In the bubble
years, no one asked the hard questions. A good journalist has to be one
who, in good times, challenges the conventional wisdom. If you don't do
that, you fail in one of your duties."