December 15, 2016
Christmas is coming and the goose is getting sized up. In Financial Institutions the world over, the planning for the 2017 budget is in full swing. For the last post of the year, a few thoughts on the perennial battle to do more than just mandatory projects. Budget planning is always based on the same […]
November 28, 2016
PSD2. Not a new Sony game console, but a European directive aimed at setting standards requiring banks to open up their systems. Essentially this has things FinTech at its core. Regulation will do something for clients. The Blockchain could help do more. About PSD2 One of the requirements is for banks to open up their […]
November 7, 2016
Great minds think alike. So the saying goes. For a long time I have preached that in Financial Services for those who work in Operations a key skill is to understand what is ‘normal for their business”. The earliest posts to the 3C Advisory Blog covered just these cases. Last week, somewhere on LinkedIn I […]
October 31, 2016
So said Big Gates, as long ago as 1994. With all things digital, do we even need banks? This week’s post is inspired by a couple of articles circulating on the web today and have me thinking about what banks should and should not be doing. Bobsguide: “The future of banking is invisibility” Bloomberg: “Asset […]
October 24, 2016
The Swiss are world leaders in many things: watches, chocolate, Swiss Army knives and wealth management. Although the world of Swiss private banking has had more downs than up lately, wealth management is in the national DNA. There is good reason to see the Swiss coming out on top as private banking reinvents itself as […]
October 11, 2016
This week: news on two things Blockchain and payments, one a real life proof of concept, the other of good intentions. Lastly a thought about how regulation in Europe will force some change in the payments space though not as much as we think. First, news of a successful proof of concept in the correspondent […]
October 3, 2016
SIBOS, probably the largest global gathering of the FS profession, took place in Geneva last week. Not surprisingly, this was a catalyst for many announcements on matters FinTech. FinTech is a tricky subject to keep up with and that effort has something in common with trying to stay on top of things clearing, Dodd Frank […]
September 21, 2016
Mea culpa. I missed something in last week’s post. Culture. The Wells Fargo misdeeds involved over 5’000 people; yes that means some processes failed, yes that means many people did not do their job properly. It also means that the organisation has a very serious outbreak of rotten culture. As the storm breaks out of […]
September 12, 2016
Bad process with no happy ending. 5’300 sackings and $185mm in fines. That is what resulted at Wells Fargo last week in a series of events that even managed to surprise me. This is a tale of poor leadership and widespread, systemic wrongdoing, as well as bad process. I think it will pique your interest […]
September 5, 2016
This week’s post is inspired by the taxman and the work of a Goldman Sachs alum. Even if the words inspiration and taxman are not words you expect to see in the same sentence, please read on, if only for your own inspiration. My consulting activity is run though my limited company. I am already […]