Risk & Compliance: Are we Walking toward Real Credit Ratings in a Growing Virtual Economy

With the big buzz around Credit rating and cost of borrowing increase fear, it is legitimate to wonder:

Why is EU relying on US agencies for these credit ratings?

Why does EU rely on US Credit Rating Agencies at all? Why is the assessment of credit worthiness of EU countries and EU Companies, which as far as I am aware of is made upon “history” of borrowing and repayment, availability of assets and extent of liabilities…why is this assessment done by US agencies? US Agencies which obviously do not have the visibility that EU banks have on their customers credit worthiness.

Facts:

In the US: 94 percent of the S&P500 firms are assessed

In EU: Credit ratings are not as widely spread – only half of all German DAX-30 firms have a credit rating

Then I realized that EU is taking action, signs are there of European financial institutions creating the operational infrastructure to ensure credit & compliance, as well as AML activities. Infrastructure which potentialy could lead the said EU financial Institutions to reach a point where they would have the ability to take up the “Credit Rating” job currently done by US agencies.

Institution infrastructure monitoring with on the other side an EU strengthening of policies on risk and compliance in various areas, as per Lisbon goals on legal consolidation. Would seem to indicate that EU is in the process of consolidating operational processes to secure EU markets stability putting in place efficient compliance monitoring policies which go behind single countries reminders on need for budgetary controls.

Compliance and EU: Tightening of Controls Not only for Financial Markets. The “Cookies” Directive

The international landscape and interaction among laws, regulations and professional standards is the daily headache for many managers. SOXO, probably the most notorious act when it comes to compliance, impacts many US quoted European companies, but more often than not even non US quoted companies will have their own internal compliance requirements to deal with US corporates. The European homologue of the SOXO Act being  a EU Directive on Statutory Accounts and Audits.

EU on the other side, does have his own legislation, to regulate EU markets and entities dealing with the European Regulated markets. Specifically the 2009 EU Directive, known as the “Cookie Directive”  states :”Third parties may wish to store information on the equipment of a user, or gain access to information already stored, for a number of purposes, ranging from the legitimate (such as certain types of cookies) to those involving unwarranted intrusion into the private sphere (such as spyware or viruses). It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access.”

So be aware marketing managers from the 25th of May 2011 the use of cookies to track customer behaviour online, is subject to customers opting for cookies to be installed on their pc, it is basically the same “opt in” option that apply  to SMS, MMS, e-mails communications.

Lost in Computing…Cloud Computing

I love to work in different roles and business settings to understand how technologies do impact the way a business is run. Looking at IT departments and the way IT infrastructure are managed, one question naturally comes to mind…how could Cloud Computing impacting the way we run businesses. In Voyages-SNCF.com, cloud computing technologies are used for testing. The core of the online business IT infrastructure it is managed in house. At least for now. I assume it is kind of logical when you consider the SNCF group and IT organization. Still, the potential in terms of elastic scalability is an important and overseen point in e-commerce deployments and Voyages-SNCF.com is no exception. I would like to quote Russ Daniels at HP “Cloud Services enable business to create richer, deeper relationship with customers, to treat each one as individual…” as far as IT allows.

Mobile Market: Iphone and Androids 2009 OS leaders. But what are the 10 Mobile Technologies to watch out for in 2010 and 2011?

Well, if any doubt was there it’s time to clear it. According to Gartner market research, in 2009 there was an overall 23.8% smartphones sales increase. “In 2009, smartphone-focused vendors like Apple and Research In Motion successfully captured market share from other larger device producers, controlling 14.4 and 19.9 per cent of the worldwide smartphone market, respectively,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi in a statement.

The 2009 OS favourites for smarthphone? Iphone and Androids, according to Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya who downgraded Palm from buy to underperform in a recent research note:

“Palm’s superior platform features have not translated into sufficient carrier support and consumer demand, and we are concerned the window of opportunity may be closing as Google’s Android ecosystem gains ground, [Research In Motion] revitalizes its portfolio, iPhone increases its presence, and as Microsoft reboots its efforts with Windows Phone 7. With only $130 million of net cash in an opex intensive space, Palm’s options may be limited in our view.”

At the same time the variety of technology available renders to predict trends more challenging.
“People are being a little less careful than at the end of last year, and there is a bigger variety of phones on the market to tempt them” said Carolina Milanesi, an Analyst at Gartner.

So let’s give a glance to what are the 10 Mobile Technologies to watch in 2010 and 2011.

Top of the list …
Ø Bluethoot (3 and 4)
“Two new Bluetooth versions will emerge by 2011: Bluetooth 3 will introduce 802.11 as a bearer for faster data transmission, and Bluetooth 4 will introduce a new low-energy (LE) mode that will enable communication with external peripherals and sensors.”

Ø Mobile Web
By 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser

Ø Mobile Widgets
This software system for launching applets on mobile phone is supported by many handset which runs widgets on their home screens, where they are easily visible and accessible. This software system for launching applets on mobile phone is

Ø Platform-Independent Mobile AD Tools
Considering the variety of platforms available, tools which can reduce the burden of delivering applications to several platforms, will gain grounds

Ø App Stores
There to distribute applications to smarthphone and provide support to a range of business support functions. Gartner believes that app stores will play many roles in an organization’s. Location-aware handsets will ease more contextual applications in the future

Ø Enhanced Location Awareness
By the end of 2011, over 75 percent of devices shipped in mature markets will include a GPS.

Ø Cellular Broadband
During 2010 and 2011, the availability of multimegabit wireless broadband performance will continue to grow as mobile networks enhance their broadband performance.

Ø Touchscreens
Touchscreens are emerging as the dominant user interface for large-screen handsets, and will be included in over 60 percent of mobile devices shipped in Western Europe and North America in 2011.

Ø M2M
Many network service providers increased their commitment to machine to machine (M2M) in 2009, so a good range of both national and multinational M2M service options will be available in mature markets during 2010 and 2011.

Ø Device-Independent Security
This isn’t strictly a single technology, but refers to a collection of security technologies, application technologies and sourcing options that enable the provisioning of applications that are secure

E-Financialcareers, after a catastrophic 2009 high bonus are back in Mayfair

Mayfair is the ultra chic London finance quarter. Is the place where the most important hedge funds groups have their headquarter. Is the place where after a catastrophic 2009 high bonus are back for the Golden Boys. So analysis says.

For the year 2009, the total of bonus paid in the City has been estimated ranging between the staggering amounts of 5,7 to 6,9 billions euros, this according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). Less than in 2007, record year for amount of bonus paid (some 12 billions euros), but still better than 2008 (4,6 billions).

According to a study of the site Efinancialcareers.com, in Great Britain 58% of the professionals benefited in 2009 of more important bonus than in 2008.

And here is where it gets juicy for the golden boys.

Goldman Sachs is the bank that better pays his employees (an average of 500 000 dollars annually before taxes, equals to 367 000 euros), second best Deutsche bank (351 000€), in third place Credit Suisse (308 000€).

Amongst the golden boys Antonio Polverino and Bruce Van Saun, both hired by the Royal Bank of Scotland with the help of a persuasive 11 billions euros bonus, guaranteed by the bank.

So despite the media low profile Golden Boys bonuses are definetly back.

No Cookies No WebAnalysis ?

The 13th of November

NEW EU cookie Law Approuved

The European Union has approved a package of new telecoms reforms, including a law requiring internet users to provide consent to online advertisers and publishers to allow the use of cookies on their computers. The new legislation could have huge implications for online advertisers, many of which use cookies for targeting ads and audience segmentation.
The current EU telecom law allows the use of cookies if web users are notified of them and are able to opt-out. In the UK, the information commissioner’s office issued a directive stating that web sites should clearly direct web users to a page where they can opt out of the use of cookies. However, when the new law is introduced internet users will have to provide consent to cookies being stored on their computers. This could result in them being bombarded with pop-ups seeking their permission to accept the cookies.
The text of the amendment to article 5 (3) of the 2002 European Communities Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications states, in part, that “member states shall ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent”.

The new legislation is part of a draft telecom law that will come into effect within the next 18 months. The EU said the main purpose of the new legislation is to strike a balance between clamping down on illegal downloads and broad rights to internet use.

It sure is a news which will change the current status of the Advertising industry. How and when…will be an interesting topic for discussion over the next months…

PHP versus Java? … Yes for dinner :)

A dear friend of mine, an Oracle Java Guru, had a though time to admit that PHP is the most suitable scripting language for producing dynamic web pages.

Now, I am not a technical person, so of the whole story what I found really fascinating was the history of this scripting language … over the evening we discovered that the PHP development has an interesting multicultural flavour  ”creator” of the PHP code is Rasmus Lerdof a Danish/Greenlandic which started to work on this code in 1994 (he wrote the original Common Gateway Interfaces), later in 1997 the Israelis Andy Gutmans and Zeev Suraski  worked on the PHP 3 version of the code and in 1999  Andy and Zeev founded …  Zend Technologies.

I heard somewhere of the company but was not familiar with their products … then thanks to this after dinner chat and my friend playful approach to the topic the conversation became a technical update powered by internet …  and Pinot Blanc 

Pay Per Click, is it Effective?

It is difficult to predict you return on marketing activities. If we knew the results, no time would be wasted in attempts. The right balance between organic and search results has to be reached for an online marketing campaigns to bring the best possible results. Whatever this best possible results might be.

Paying campaigns or not paying campaigns.

It is known that online searchers prefer to click on the natural listings, although a significant number (one third or slightly more) of these searchers do click on sponsored listings as well.

So what to choose?

The answer lies in following the right strategies according to the targeted audience. Even better chose to retain profitable customers from just “specials grabbing” ones, In terms of marketing euros these customers often cost as much, without the adding benefit of being “loyal” to your company.

WebAnalytics as Software As A Service: do they help?

Well, interesting question to start this post with. After all aren’t we all aware of the numerous advantages of a Software As A Service (SAAS) type of  Solution:

- No Vendor Lock In (of course we all know that employees love to change the software they just learned to use after 6months of learning to use it … if of course…they ever learned it!)

- No Large Upfront Investment (medium term more expensive though!)

- No Maintenance Headaches (…just security ones!)

- No Outodated Solutions (just teeny weeny but pricey upgrades and more expensive new releases and bundles!)

As They say it:

“Salesforce for Google AdWords gives us a clearer picture of where leads are coming
from and which words are tied to actual sales… We can see the highest revenue-generating
ad words”

As I see it:

Not the most secure solution

why?

Simply put let me ask: Can you Monitor information leaks trough the WebApplications you are using ?

Having been working for some web apps company I can tell you that for web apps employees it is really easy to track customers private information, for fun they could get hold of your personal communications…for fun… imagine if with any malevolent intention what could happen!

Most SMB companies cannot afford the appropriate network security measures. Most network administrators are too busy with routers, switch and LANs issues to undergo the appropriate security checks.

So think twice before to choose a small web application provider, take the appropriate network security measure if you really have to … and dear Lord! DO NOT buy Software As A Service (or free hosted) WebAnalytics tools from companies which provide advertising services as well!!

Your online customers profile is golden dust for advertisers didn’t your mama tell you ? 

OME – Mobile Marketing

The OME once more proved to be the marketing event in Europe. 

A recession proof event which has been up to the participants expectations.

 

Pics above is me presenting our company, Trackset Digital Solutions. I must admit the opportunity to be a speaker at this event and give the audience insight on Digital Solutions Return on Marketing. Has been as a great enabler to network with peers and exchange know how. I definetly recommend the experience, well worthed to start the talk on biz opps.

As Rocío Lopez Piñero, Marketing and Communications Manager Iberia at Exalead, puts it: the event “was in good shape, taking into account that all major online/IT related events have been cancelled in Spain due to the crisis…”

Loads of interesting new applications from various vendors, with customers wondering from stand to stand in search of an answer to their quest…

Mobile or Not Mobile, that is the question?

Salvador Carrillo, Presidente del la MMA en  España, says that “la experiencia me dice que esto no sera el año del marketing móvil”…but …”la cifra acumulada del sector del marketing y la publicidad móvil superará los 28 milliones de euros que la MMA y Accenture calcularon el pasado año…”

In other words, the mobile advertising might or might not hit the euro amount many advertisers hope for this year.

However, according to the Marketing Mobile Association and Accenture, in 2009 the mobile advertisement space will  hit over 28Millions Euro…interesting numbers in interesting times …