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It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

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Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#231
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless something changed recently, I believe that $95bn of advertising revenue makes them the biggest advertising company in the world :)

They are the medium, not the advertising company, the same way a tv channel is the medium, not the advertising company. WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, those are advertising companies. You are conflating here two different things.

they are distribution, just like the agencies. Only Google drives distribution costs down

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#232
post #120

I'm of the opinion that all banks should be technology companies, in that pretty much all of their operations rely on computing, so the better they are at developing and operating computer systems they better they'll be able to do business. Unfortunately, many banks (at least in the UK market) seem to see IT as some kind of overhead, to be minimized in cost and/or outsourced (e.g. Lloyds outsourcing to IBM https://ww…

I worked for a bank in the UK that's a US bank that has no retail presence in the UK (that probably narrows it down a lot) but much of the IT operations were being run and managed from the UK. The headcount in the global IT organisation was about the same as the headcount of Apple at the time. I've always known banks has been relying on computers for decades and probably longer than most industries and from my experi…

JPMC always seemed quite progressive - for instance they embraced open source and open standards, with AMPQ and the Apache Qpid message broker which was part of their tech stack and I worked on for a while there, commiting the code I wrote at the bank to the ASF repository. this is very different from a decade or so ago, when any hint of open source was seen as a possible risk...!

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#233
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I say the same about largest media company in the world. Indeed. I was just reading about the local broadcast rules (specifically: Sinclair broadcasting wants to buy Tribune media, and the FCC appears to be saying 'go ahead".) . Some people are concerned that this violates rules against concentration of ownership in broadcast stations. But doesn't Facebook operate in essentially 100% of US markets? Should we even c…

The rule was made because radio waves (broadcast) is a finite resource, and so there are a limited number of players who can compete. The internet can, theoretically, have an unlimited number of competitors, so it's not regulated the same way.

Sure, that mattered in the 1930s but does it really matter any more?

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#234
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists wi…

This makes me both sad and happy. Sad, because that’s such a shortsighted view; happy, because I run a small financial services company and we compete with them. We’re prudent, we don’t like to waste money, and we analyze investments from every angle we can think of. But we look at Tech (we don’t call it IT) as a profit center. We don’t invest in anything unless it can drive down costs, increase revenues, or is neede…

THIS. This is the kind of company we should strive to work for.

Appreciating something just because it's novel is bullshit. Appreciating something that solves an actual problem effectively.. that's where I want to be.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#236

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

Come work at MUFG, largest bank in free world, $2.7T, which decided we have to be a tech company.

Our head of technology strategy for Americas is on hacker news at quarter to midnight. And hiring, not just for blockchain. (See my “about” text.)

Worth a chat if you’re in NYC or San Diego.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

Come work at MUFG, largest bank in free world, $2.7T, which decided we have to be a tech company. Our head of technology strategy for Americas is on hacker news at quarter to midnight. And hiring, not just for blockchain. (See my “about” text.) Worth a chat if you’re in NYC or San Diego.

I find this statement funny, if only because in the context of Silicon Valley culture, the statement "[x] is on hacker news at quarter to midnight" normally just means "[x] isn't doing any work at quarter to midnight."

(I understand what you're going for and appreciate it, it's just interesting how social signals are interpreted given different industries / contexts.)

(... and yes, me posting this comment does, in fact, mean that I'm not doing any work while I post it.)

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists wi…

It's a common concept that many managements see IT/infrastructure as cost center, even their tech to be used to generate revenue. It boils down to minimize the systems to maximize shareholders value but requires high uptime.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

Come work at MUFG, largest bank in free world, $2.7T, which decided we have to be a tech company. Our head of technology strategy for Americas is on hacker news at quarter to midnight. And hiring, not just for blockchain. (See my “about” text.) Worth a chat if you’re in NYC or San Diego.

If you don't mind me hijacking your comment, I'm actually currently trying to solve a problem through which I am trying to connect to people such as you. Essentially, Kiva has served the world's unbanked and underbanked through crowd-funding to some success, but ultimately to reach all the underserved we need to get the data we and our partners have to large regional and global banks so they can price the risk of these potential borrowers and bring in larger amounts of capital.

It would seem if we can get the data to banks such as MUFG in a usable format, then it presents a large opportunity, however how would one even begin to interact with such a large entity to explore it?

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