Financial services is a term used to refer to the services provided by the finance industry. Financial services is also the term used to describe organizations that deal with the management of money. Banks, investment banks, insurance companies, credit card companies and stock brokerages, are examples of the types of firms comprising the industry, which provides a variety of money and investment related services. Financial services is the largest industry (or industry category) in the world, in terms of earnings; as of 2004, the industry represents 20% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500.^*

History of financial services

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United States: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

The term financial services became more prevalent in the United States partly as a result of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of the late 1990s, which enabled different types of companies in the US financial services industry to merge. Critics of this act say the term financial services attempts to make the unison of these operations sound natural, ignoring the history of problems that have arisen from combining them, such as conflicts of interest and monopolization. Others, noting that many of the restrictions abolished by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had never existed in other countries or had been abolished earlier than in the US, say the term financial services is a natural one, in long term use, which means nothing more than its constituent words.

In the USA almost every company now which previously described themselves as a bank, insurance company, or brokerage house, now describes themselves in some way as a financial services institution. Allstate Insurance, for example, now provides CDs and investment brokerage services. Bank of America offers full featured brokerage products, while E*TRADE has expanded into offering bank accounts and loans. Companies usually have two distinct approaches to this new type of business. One approach would be a bank which simply buys an insurance company or an investment bank, keeps the original brands of the acquired firm, and adds the acquisition to its holding company simply to diversify its earnings. Outside the US, e.g., in Japan, non-financial services companies are permitted within the holding company. In this scenario, each company still looks independent, and has its own customers, etc. This is essentially the style of Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.

More on [ Financial services ]

TechCrunch

Amazon Applying For In-Book Advertisement Patent
Devin Coldewey Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:33:13 -0000
Before everyone gets in a huff, let's consider Amazon's intentions with these patent applications. Surely they would never allow advertisements to be placed in books which you have purchased legitimately at full price, so let's put that out of our heads. But what if you could take a few bucks off the cover price at the cost of a few contextual ads relating (if possible) to the book's content? Personally, I wouldn't mind — partially because I don't use a Kindle or intend to any time soon, but more because it's a no-lose situation. Amazon wouldn't risk alienating its loyal Kindle base with dirty tricks like this, so it's safe to assume it'll be at least somewhat opt-in. An abundance of free or reduced-price content would widen the appeal of the reader — I imagine many people are put off e-books by the idea that they are not getting their money's worth. As offensive as the idea of inserting ads into a book is to me (and surely to the average reader), it's almost certainly part of a value proposition which increases the utility of these expensive little buggers.
Interview: Karen Dyer, video game actor
Nicholas Deleon Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:51:31 -0000
Dearest CrunchGear readers: I recently had the honor and privilege of speaking to Karen Dyer, who is not only the voice of Sheva Alomar, from Resident Evil 5, but who also did said character's motion capture. I hope you enjoy it on this day, our day of freedom. Obviously, “K” is for Karen, and “N” is for Nicholas. With that... N: Well, first off congratulations. Resident Evil 5 was a big hit. It sold something like 4 million copies. K: That's what I hear! N: Excellent. But before we get into the game, I just wanted to bring up something I saw on your bio. It says here you're known for your circus skills, and I just wanted to say how that awesome that is. And I wanted to ask, where do you study that? Because I don't know if your average community college offers that type of training.
PollDaddy Traffic Soars, Releases Ratings Widget With Possible Digg Competitor On The Horizon
Jason Kincaid Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:04:00 -0000
It's no secret that bloggers love their polls — they're a great way to increase user engagement, and sometimes you can even get some useful data from them. But most people probably don't realize just how popular these polls really can be. PollDaddy has just released some of its latest stats, and they don't fail to impress: the company is now serving 430 million poll impressions per month, with a reach of over 74 million people worldwide, giving it a Quantcast rank equivialent as the 22nd most visited online service in the world. That success is due in no small part to PollDaddy's acquisition by WordPress's parent company Automattic last fall. Bloggers could embed PollDaddy into the WordPress blogs (as well as other popular blogging platforms) long before the acquisition, but now PollDaddy is also being included as a feature on WordPress.com, Automattic's premium hosted blogging platform — and home to over 8 million blogs — that appeals to users who don't want to deal with having to set up their own blog install. In other words, PollDaddy is now accessible to a much broader audience.
Short Is Sweet: Postcards Begat SMS Begat Twitter
MG Siegler Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:30:34 -0000
Recently, I've noticed something. If you send me an email, the likelihood that I'm going to respond is pretty small. But if you send me a message on Twitter, the likelihood that I'll respond is much higher. Certainly, part of it is that I get fewer messages on Twitter. But you might be surprised at how close it's getting in volume when you add @replies to direct messages. The bigger factor for me, is the length of the messages. If I open up an email and see it filled with paragraphs of information, guaranteed my eyes are going to glaze over. Certainly sometimes it's an important message that I do need to read, but most of the time it's just a core message filled with paragraphs of bloat. I don't want or need the bloat, I need the core message. And that's why I love Twitter. You simply cannot go over 140 characters. And more often than you may imagine, that's enough. Now, on the face of it, plenty of people will disagree with me on that point. But think about it. In an age where we're bombarded by tons of information, from multiple angles, all day long, there is something beautiful about brevity.
What’s Right and Wrong with Media Now
Sarah Lacy Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:02:21 -0000
Like most things on the Internet, there’s a good side and a dark side to where the media business is headed. The good side is very good: thousands of layers of mostly needless middlemen and processes are being eliminated as journalists get a direct channel to their readers. And, because it’s a two way medium, readers get that channel right back. And in the cases where the subject of an article has been wronged, the Web gives them powerful megaphones to fight back. In short, the more everyone has a voice, the more reporters are challenged to make sure they are right, because they will be called out. Look at what happened with the plagiarism scandal around Chris Anderson’s new book. Anderson says it was a mistake around a change in how they were going to use citations, and I take him at his word. But it’s safe to say any author who’d considered borrowing heavily from Wikipedia won’t now. We like to think that we act virtuously because of personal or professional pride, but nothing enforces those ethics like the real possibility of getting caught and hugely embarrassed. But the bad side is also very bad. The elimination of those layers – typically fact checkers, editors, lawyers and just time to make sure a work is fully baked—also allows mistakes, lazy reporting, a dependence on rumors, and hot-headed, unfair treatment to subjects. Worse: The metrics around the Web make it crystal clear which kinds of stories drive the most traffic. That leads to salacious reporting for the sake of clicks and comments. It’s easy to point the finger at blogs, especially by certain members of old media losing money quarter-after-quarter. (Cough, cough.) But this is not just a technology change as most corners of media are fighting for survival, it’s become a cultural change. And this week, I’ve been struck by two non-blog examples that reflect the tension. Right about now most people reading this probably have guessed the example of salacious reporting and unfair treatment I’m driving at is Ben Mezrich’s new book on Facebook. I’ll say upfront I haven’t read it. Galleys have been very closely guarded. Once I do read it, if everything everyone who has read it has told me is wrong, I’ll apologize for what I’m about to say. But, on a professional level, I find the ethics behind this project disgusting.
Dotcom Crash-era Startup Reanimates By Trending On Twitter
Mike Butcher Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:01:17 -0000
It's not often that Internet companies last 10 years, but Moonfruit in the UK has proved pretty resilient. It survived the dotcom boom the first time round, launching with VC-backing, growing to 65 staff and cutting back to two staff in the space of a couple of years. It's a wonder why they didn't exit in the most recent boom, but here they are still, plugging away. And their resilience is proving to be an asset as their 10-years old web site building business comes back into fashion, even as more recent competitors like Weebly, Yola, MyDragnDrop and Webnode, and many others, try to capture the market for people who want to build simple web sites. So what's the best way to re-invigorate an internet brand after 10 long years? Get trending on Twitter, that's how. So Moonfruit has been giving away 10 Macbooks for every year of their operation, beginning this week. The result is that it has become the top trending term on Twitter three days in a row, as all people need to do is add the hashtag #moonfruit to their tweet. An algorithm is randomly choosing a winner. There are five days left. By the second day this week it had reached 2.5% of all twitter traffic. But could the stunt backfire as fast as it worked?

Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability News - ENN

Swine Flu: Just the Latest Chapter in a 91-Year Pandemic Era
dotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdot Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:43:00 -0500
The current strain of H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, has people scared because it’s a novel virus that most of the population has never been exposed to. But as a group, H1N1 viruses aren’t new. They’ve been circulating since 1918, when a new strain appeared simultaneously in pigs and humans and killed 40 to 50 million people in a single year. Over the past 91 years, the virus has jumped back and forth between humans, pigs and birds – and possibly even been resurrected from a laboratory freezer. Taking a historical view of the swine flu is critical to understanding the current pandemic, and future outbreaks, argue scientists in two perspectives published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
New Household Cleaners Reduces Packaging
dotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdot Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:05:00 -0500
A new line of household cleaners by Bumgartens will be sold in tablet form, requiring 75 percent less packaging and reducing the impact of shipping because the products have 85 percent less "water weight."
Dams Are Thwarting Louisiana Marsh Restoration, Study Says
dotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdotdot Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:12:00 -0500
Desperate to halt the erosion of Louisiana’s coast, officials there are talking about breaking Mississippi River levees south of New Orleans to restore the nourishing flow of muddy water into the state’s marshes. But in a new analysis, scientists at Louisiana State University say inland dams trap so much sediment that the river no longer carries enough to halt marsh loss, especially now that global warming is speeding a rise in sea levels.

The Financial Page

James Surowiecki: Caveat Mortgagor
James Surowiecki Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:00:00 -0000
In 1937, the Massengill Company began selling a health product called Elixir Sulfanilamide, which contained one of the antibiotic sulfa drugs. Unfortunately, it also contained diethylene glycol, a solvent that happens to be deadly to humans. In a matter of months, the elixir killed more than a hundred consumers. The . . .
Will gas prices pump up inflation?
James Surowiecki Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:00:00 -0000
How fast the world turns. Only a few months ago, as consumer spending evaporated and commodity prices collapsed, investors and policymakers were haunted by the spectre of deflation. Today, with the economy showing some signs of bottoming and commodity prices back on the rise, the worry du jour has suddenly . . .
James Surowiecki: Argentina's great coin shortage.
James Surowiecki Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 -0000
As you walk into the Retiro train station in downtown Buenos Aires these days, you pass a long line of people snaking their way from the station’s entrance to a single window. At first glance, this is unsurprising: what’s more common than a queue in a train station? But there . . .

NYT > Your Money

Your Money: A Day to Tackle the Financial To-Do List
By RON LIEBER Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:35:38 -0000
Taking time, 10 or 12 hours, to tackle ever-postponed money tasks and clear the books can be lucrative.
Patient Money: For a Frugal Dieter, Weight Loss on a Sliding Scale
By LESLEY ALDERMAN Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:42:07 -0000
A dieter’s commitment to weight loss can sometimes be linked to how much money he or she is willing to spend.
Shortcuts: Raising Children Who Care in Times That Need It
By ALINA TUGEND Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:42:34 -0000
Philanthropy is not only for the wealthy. You can bring children into the fold by letting them figure out how they would like to contribute.

The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF

The World Bank and the environment: When the learning curve is long
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:45:57 -0000
After an abrupt about-face, an agency frets about its footprint IF ANYONE suggested the World Bank did not take global warming seriously, its bosses would bristle: only last October, they would point out, the institution issued a “strategic framework” laying out its thinking on development and climate change. This promised more emphasis on noble things like energy efficiency and renewable power; and more bank support for “sustainable forest management, including reduced deforestation.” Those words intrigued green campaigners, who were up in arms over a $90m loan by the bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to the Bertin group, Brazil’s leading beef exporter. As the greens observed, cattle farming is widely seen as the biggest threat to the Amazon’s trees. ...
The IMF's search for funds: Promises, promises
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:29:47 -0000
Politics influences fulfilment of the G20’s funding pledgesMUCH has changed for the IMF as a result of the financial crisis. The G20 summit in London in April promised a tripling of its lending capacity. Long known for championing fiscal stringency, the fund has recommended that Tanzania and Mozambique consider countercyclical fiscal expansions. Mexico, Colombia and Poland have been enticed to sign up for its new precautionary lines of credit. Another first is now well on the way, as the IMF prepares to issue its own bonds.The bonds have aroused a flurry of interest from emerging markets. The fund announced on June 9th that the Chinese authorities had signalled their intention to invest up to $50 billion in its notes. On June 10th Brazil’s finance minister said the country was interested in bonds worth $10 billion. Russia had previously said that it was eyeing a similar amount. According to the fund, the bonds will give emerging economies access to “a safe investment instrument with reasonable return”. ...
Africa's economies in the downturn : Prudence can win
Thu, 28 May 2009 11:44:11 -0000
The IMF says some African countries can spend their way out of recessionWHEN demand collapses in an economy, the governments of rich countries can try to compensate by spending more of their own money. But poor countries have rarely risked such counter-cyclical fiscal expansion. Limited cash, and worries about debt, usually mean they must cut spending rather than increase it when times are tough and revenues dip. This could change if the IMF has anything to do with it. Recent missions of the Fund to Tanzania and Mozambique have explicitly advocated fiscal stimuli. This is rather new for the IMF, which has rarely advocated loosening purse strings in poor countries. But its economists believe that some sub-Saharan Africa countries are better placed to implement fiscal expansion in this crisis than in previous ones. ...

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