Spreadsheets: a ticking time bomb

From Bobs Guide –

“The main competitor to Hedgebook’s treasury management system (“TMS”) is excel spreadsheets. They are cheap (can’t get much cheaper than free!), flexible and easy to use. So why do companies choose to replace their spreadsheets with a TMS?Despite the positives of spreadsheets they also represent a significant risk to businesses when relied on as the sole mechanism to record and report treasury derivatives such as FX forwards, FX options and interest rate swaps. Importers and exporters are naturally heavy users of foreign exchange derivatives and often have many outstanding transactions at any given point of time. There are also pre-deliveries and extensions to manage, too.”

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ReEnterprization of IT

Delloite CIO Journal –

Deloitte predicts that in 2015 the impetus for IT adoption will swing back to the enterprise market following a decade of consumer-led technological change.

Royal Bank of Scotland’s payments problem

From Bob’s Guide –

“RBS recently experienced a banking glitch meaning that 600,000 delayed banking payments did not show up in customer accounts. The outage affected customers across all four of its brands: NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank and Coutts. This isn’t the first time RBS has fallen foul of technical problems; it’s actually the fifth time in three years. The IT glitch continues to have repercussions with customers now claiming they can’t switch their accounts away from RBS as a result.

Spokespeople for the bank urged concerned customers to get in touch via their local branch or through a call centre, but it was Twitter that was bombarded with angry tweets from customers:

• @KrisScally1: 2 days in a row that money has not went into my account @RBS_Help should give everyone affected a good will gesture #skint
• @NickiDaldry: @RBS_Help can't wait to tell my kids when they get home from school, we can't spend any money at the school fair because We've not been paid.”

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