BankThink

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including ideas about how to improve disclosure requirements and ways to encourage banks and young tech firms to join forces.

Receiving Wide Coverage...

Calling Off the 'Whale' Hunt: At least in the U.K., the London Whale is off the hook. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority said it will drop its investigation of Bruno Iksil, the Frenchman at the center of the fiasco in which JPMorgan Chase lost $6.2 billion on bad bets on derivatives. The Authority's internal panel of independent experts decided that it didn't have enough evidence to pursue a strong case. So, the Authority...

Requiring brokers to come clean with customers about conflicts of interest sounds like an easy way to address biases. But disclosures are only effective if recipients understand how the conflict has influenced the advisor and have a way to correct that influence.

As technological problems forced the New York Stock Exchange to grind to a halt Wednesday, financial services insiders and observers weighed in on the vulnerabilities of increasingly electronic financial systems.

While some predict that fintech startups will soon overthrow banks, a boom in partnerships between the two industries is far more likely. Startups will benefit from access to new markets and infrastructure, while banks will stay on the cutting edge of innovation.