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Lehman Bros has filed a lawsuit against Marubeni Corp., the Japanese trading giant, responsible for defrauding the New York-based investment bank out of US$352 million through a scam carried out by two rogue employees.

Mobile applications and the people in charge of them are gaining more Street cred, according to Todd Christy, chief technology officer at Pyxis Mobile, a provider of wireless applications for the financial industry that counts Blackstone Group, Deutsche Asset Management and OppenheimerFunds among its customers. "Mobility is becoming a first class citizen in corporate America," he says. "We're seeing more chief wireless officers on Wall Street -- at least a half dozen firms have appointed someone to be a mobility leader." A high-profile case in point is Joseph Ferra, Fidelity's chief wireless officer, but several others have that responsibility if not the title itself, Christy says. This reflects an overall increase in demand for application access on the fly, he says.

For the first time in many years, Wall Street & Technology has completely redesigned its Website. The new site makes searching for content much easier, with customized Google Search and easy to navigate content catagories.

Joining the ranks of a growing number of banks increasingly focusing on Web 2.0, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is targeting Facebook users by launching a financial advice blog that can be accessed through its fan page on the popular social networking site.

What was the one fatal blow that caused Bear Stearns' suddden demise? Its inability to properly price collateralized debt obligations, according to a report issued by Financial Insights today.

Although a full autopsy has yet to be performed on Bear Stearns, reason and common sense suggest that state-of-the art technology might have helped the firm circumvent some of its troubles. Here are a few examples.

The Principal Financial Group, a provider of retirement and investment services, life and health insurance and banking with $311.1 billion in assets under management, has turned to print on demand software to streamline and reduce costs in generating and printing 401(k) statements and marketing collateral.

Apple's announcement that it is now targeting its iPhone to business customers too with improved security and integration of e-mail, calendars and contact lists, has generally received positive reviews in the press. But is Wall Street ready to trade in their BlackBerrys and Treos for a more colorful iPhone?

SocGen confirmed that police just searched its trading floor and held another trader and former colleague of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, for questioning. Some records were also taken away by officers.

The last time I met with Sybase, it was back when the big three database vendors were Informix, Oracle and Sybase — remember the 90s? This week, Gavin Quinn, FSI business development manager at Sybase, says the company is seeing a resurgence of interest in its high-speed, column-based databases among hedge funds and financial institutions.

"We need to provide portfolio managers with the tools to make better investments -- not just market data or research repositories, but actual technology, such as artificial intelligence," says Evergreen Investments CIO George Batejan. To learn more about Evergreen's technology plans, listen to WS&T's exclusive interview with Batejan.

In news accounts about Societe Generale's recent trading fiasco, there were mentions of how the operations department was called "the mine" and all Jerome Kerviel wanted was to get out of there and become a trader. The International Herald Tribune reported that in 2006, a man working in Societe Generale's back office operations killed himself on a suburban train. This made me wonder -- is it time for a change in the way operations is viewed? Maybe the people responsible for settling billions of dollars worth of trades shouldn't be abused or treated like peons.

A new survey has found that IT vendor management is becoming increasingly important for banks, who now consider it an enterprise-wide issue that can help significantly reduce costs, as well as reduce corporate reputation risk.

Brokerage MF Global has hired external risk consultants to review its order entry systems, after a rogue trader lost $141.5 million when he was able to exceed his limit order and place unauthorized trades.

The incident comes just weeks after Soc Gen revealed that a rogue trader lost more than $7 billion by placing unauthorized bets on European stock indexes.

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