Some of the things that the state owned Network Banking operation will supply to each bank will be: 1. The basic trading platform for the bank, which means that it will not be necessary for each to develop its own IT to do this independently, so removing the massive inherent problem of economies of scale which have caused concentration in the banking market to date for this reason;
Yup, the people who brought you the NHS Spine are to be put in charge of developing all banking software in Britain.
Well, no one can accuse him of not thinking outside the box, that\’s for sure.
he thinks that the banks merged in order to save money on IT? ….. ? …….? He thinks a single centrally direct massive IT system used by the entire industry is a good idea? ….. ? ….. … .. .
good gracious, that man has cut adrift from reality
directed
In big businesses, this is called “Shared Services”.
It means that the systems don’t really suit anyone’s ways of working, and that those who use them are never consulted before they’re implemented willy-nilly.
It’s a sort of reverse economy of scale.
Ah. As a geeky nerdy type, I have to say that this is possibly the worst idea I have ever, EVER heard from Dick.
And that is quite saying something.
How much is a plane ticket out?
And without their own IT, how does each bank develop any product differentiation?
Typo alert. I think you mean mean the Eddie Murphy way?
the extraordinary thing is that he seems to become madder with every utterance… Like Palin and Polly, he is now beyond satire.
Now be fair to Dicky… His track record as a successful entrepreneur ought to stop you lot scoffing at the sheer brilliance and audacity of the man’s thinking. He’s a genius. Move over Darling… Tricky Dicky is the new Chancellor.
I was trying to think how the country’ financial woes could get any worse… think I’ve just come up with something!
Anyway, great chunks of the banking IT infrastructure is jointly owned and run for the benefit of the banks (think SWIFT, etc.). Friend of mine works in a banks-owned non-profit for forex trading.
Funny how our favourite knows-nothing-of-finance retired accountant turns out to know fuck all about IT as well.
All above seconded (see also VocaLINK, which is a bank-owned company that does nearly all consumer payment stuff). Richard Murphy is genuinely knowledgeable, albeit misguided, on accounting – but he’s a complete and utter moron here.
I’d argue that Richard Murphy is genuinely knowledgable on certain bits of accounting – unfortunately, if you look at his experience, he’s probably had very little practical experience of the bits of tax and accounting he pontificates about. If your client base has mainly been owner-managed UK trading businesses and retired five years ago, you’re not going to have much practical exposure to cross-border issues (which are inordinately complicated), or the strangeness of deferred tax accounting, particularly since IFRS came in.
As Vodafone’s head of tax said recently, the size of their tax exposures is not because they’ve been doing particularly aggressive tax avoidance, it’s just that the size of their business means that any genuine disagreements produce huge absolute amounts of tax at stake.
“Richard Murphy is genuinely knowledgeable, albeit misguided, on accounting”
That’s why I said “finance”. I did originally write “accounting” and I re-worded because I’m sure he can produce a balance sheet. But his understanding of wider finance issues is about as good as Polly’s (conflating of “wealth”, “income” and “capital”).
Words fail me…..
Can’t we abolish Richard Murphy?
Yup, the people who brought you the NHS Spine are to be put in charge of developing all banking software in Britain.
RECENT HISTORY FAIL. The people who brought you the NHS computer project are mostly US specialist health computing contractors like Cerner and iSoft. I’d certainly withdraw all my money and keep it in cash if they were to run the payments infrastructure, but this isn’t a realistic concern, especially as one of the two firms in question went bankrupt some time ago.
As far as other companies involved go, I think you’ll find Accenture, BT Global Services and IBM do very nicely running huge banking IT systems.
Further, can anyone remind me when the Government last developed a financial computer system? Anyone? You’ve not forgotten CREST by any chance, built by the Bank of England and still humming away in the bowels of the London Stock Exchange?
BASIC ARGUMENTATION FAIL: Since when is Richard Murphy’s word law anyway? Nobody “is to be put in charge” of anything, are they?
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Oh dear.
Oh deary deary deary me. And deary deary dear you too. In fact, this will easily turn out to be the dearest proposition possibly of all time. Apart from the bailouts of course. Then again …
No one (of course) is willing to point out that until we change the type of money we use, we change nothing. Interest bearing debt money ensures permanent economic disease.
It’s all over lads n lasses.
Anyone for barter? I’ll swap Gordon Brown’s “spend your way out of recession” policy for R Murphy’s national trading platform.