Much like medical doctors and notaries, Dutch bankers will soon be made to take an oath, promising to uphold a certain moral and ethical standard. Amongst others, they must act with integrity and in the best interest of their client. Additionally, executives will have to take a yearly exam that will test their knowledge of all their latest financial services and products.

The oath is part of a larger set of measures called the Banker’s Code. The Netherlands Bankers’ Association (NVB) together with its members drew up the Code and presented it earlier this week.

The Code will take effect on January 1st, 2010, and applies to all Dutch banks, both to their operations in the Netherlands and in the rest of Europe. It is the first time the banking sector takes such an initiative, and is currently unique in the world.

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With the mortgage securities market in shambles, bankers are frantically searching for new things to deal in. And it looks like they may have found a new money cow: life settlements.

When a person with a life insurance policy is expected to die in the foreseeable future, for instance because they are old or sick, they can sell their policy. Firms package thousands of these policies together, and resell those bundles to investors.

Selling life insurance policies is not new. When a person is unable to pay their monthly premium, or they no longer have kids or a spouse that depends on the proceeds, they can cancel the insurance. The insurance company then offers a cash surrender value, which is often only a fraction of the original sum. Alternatively, they can sell the life insurance policy to another party. The other party pays, for instance, 200.000 euros for a half-million life insurance policy, and pays the remainder of the monthly premiums. When the insuree dies as swiftly as expected, they can make a good buck.

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In these days of economic turmoil, banks are hesitant to offer credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – even healthy businesses are denied. This is a problem and is hurting the economy, says the Dutch socialist party the SP.

What to do? Establish a National Investment Bank (NIB) that offers enterprises credit which is backed up by government guarantees.

Sharon Gesthuizen, member of the Dutch House of Representatives, posted a bill last saturday suggesting such a bank. According to her, the economy won’t be able to recover if the credit flow to small and medium enterprises isn’t restored.

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Luring in new customers with high interest rates on savings accounts or by offering freebies is a well known and often used strategy for banks. It seems to make sense, but does it really? Perhaps banks would be better off rewarding their existing customers for staying loyal in these difficult times.

Take for instance the special offer from Credit Europe, a small Dutch bank that provides online savings accounts. Credit Europe, for a short period at the beginning of this year, offered higher interest rates to existing customers than it did for new customers.

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Would it be wise for banks to stop charging money for paper statements, or at least lower the fees? We ask because, according to the largest consumer organization in the Netherlands, the Consumentenbond, these fees are one of the biggest gripes of bank customers.

As much as 600 consumers contacted the Consumentenbond over the past two years with complaints about their bank.

One of the biggest annoyances were the fees charged for the privilege of receiving paper bank statements. The five largest banks in the Netherlands send bank statements with intervals varying from one to four weeks. If you want to get one more often, you’ll have to pay.

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This week, Finland based mobile technology manufacturer Nokia introduced a new mobile payment service called Nokia Money. The new service allows financial management and payments from a mobile phone.

“In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage,” explains Mary McDowell, EVP and Chief Development Officer at Nokia. “With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services.”

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People’s desire for personal interaction with a bank clerk still proves to be strong. Financial advisors offering advice that is specific to the customer’s situation will help re-establish the faith people have in banks.

These are the conclusions of a survey performed by Deloitte, the globally operating service provider for accountants, tax advisors, consultants and financial planners.

According to Deloitte, an improvement in cross selling – an important source of profit in a satiated market – will lead to an improvement in trust.

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The idea of offering microcredit to entrepreneurs in 3rd world countries may be ideological in its basis, many of todays investors seem to have lost sight of this original intention.

At least, that is one of the conclusions drawn in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

In a quest for high yield and maximum profit, countries like India are bombarded with microcredits. The people living in these countries are tempted by the easy credit but often get into financial trouble as a result. They spend the money on luxury items instead of investing it in their enterprise and when they find themselves unable to repay, they might take out a new loan to cover the old one. This way, the concept misses its original point and the inhabitants of 3rd world countries are back at square one.

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28 year old Albert Gonzalez has recently been charged with stealing 130 million credit and debit card numbers.

This is on top of the 100 million credit card numbers he stole before. Gonzalez acquired the numbers by breaking into the computers of, amongst others, payment processor Heartland Payment Systems. Add this to the rising number of skimming attacks and other forms of identity theft and it seems that no bank account is safe from crooks.

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A new service makes it possible for bank customers to deposit checks immediately through their mobile phones. How it works? Simple. Using a special application they can take a picture of both sides of the check with the phone’s camera and electronically deposit it to their account.

USSA – an American privately held bank and insurance company – presents this new service called USAA Deposit@Mobile which is available for the iPhone only.

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