March 22, 2015
Bill paying. A monthly chore. One that is increasingly online and digital, well at least outside the continental USA where the local Luddites are still wedded to their cheques. A story in a Johannesburg paper inspired this week’s thought. “On guard after typo transfer” was the headline in the Jo’burg times. A local resident made […]
March 16, 2015
LinkedIn has many good things. Having your contacts confirm your skill has some value. I was musing with a colleague on what skills would be endorsed if we were able to “label” those who really make life harder than it has to be. Three came to mind immediately. Perhaps you have other valid uses of […]
March 8, 2015
In 15 years, the Swiss Federal Government’s budget has ballooned from CHF 47 billion to some 67 billion. Since 2000 times have been good and the government has grown like topsy. The same is true at banks; revenues are down and costs are out of whack. Similarities between government bureaucracy and banks. That is this […]
February 28, 2015
The Swiss are to rules what Anastasia Steele is to Christian Grey in Fifty Shades; obedient and slavish. One national obsession in the business world is the proper written reference, the “Zeugnis”. Hours of costly time go into feeding this local fetish. Time to put it and the HR departments who perpetuate it to the […]
February 1, 2015
Banks are under pressure from all sides. From regulators to shareholders. Margin are down and costs are up. The banks need to do something, but what? This week, a few thoughts on where improvement might be possible. Industrialisation! This was the rallying cry at the largest Swiss bank, UBS, several years ago. In an attempt […]
January 19, 2015
Change in the banking business is a tricky art; finding a viable slot for your project on the schedule is seldom an easy task. This week I am hoping some readers will share some views on a challenge. Please read on and reply. There are a lot of fixed dates on the banking calendar: SWIFT […]
January 11, 2015
A sweet topic to start 2015. This post might be titled: “How to win friends and influence people”. It does not matter which industry you are in and how you work, you will always be working with others. This week’s post is about how you nurture those relationships and inspired by recent evidence of how […]
December 14, 2014
This week’s post is inspired by a comment on inter-company trades; last week’s topics. Inside banks, in all the automated processing, it is the humble “account” that owns the transactions that are booked. The history of banks is filled with sudden discoveries of accounts that were not reconciled and had loss making positions or were […]
December 10, 2014
There are three great career wreckers in the Financial Services industry: interest claims, inter-company trades and FX hedging. Inter-company trades, trades between two different legal entities within a group, are the topic for this week’s thoughts. I picked the term “career wreckers” with good reason. There are no happy endings in inter-company trade stories. Well […]
December 1, 2014
What the banks need to learn from Uber. Irony, frustration and a suggestion are the ingredients for this week’s post. Uber, the upstart disrupter of taxi and limousine services, is the inspiration. Irony, because I recently read how a Goldman Sachs executive had moved over to Uber and worked out a whole new way to […]