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Imperialism and Bullying. The Americans are not playing cricket

Standard Chartered. They are the whipping boy du jour suffering at what I term “long hand of American imperialism”. This week they stand accused of all sorts of wrongdoing connected to Iran. Before them Credit Suisse, Lloyds, ABN and Barclays have been pressured in to handing over fistfuls of green backs to Uncle Sam for […]

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Reconciliation. Not doing it properly is suicide and it is not painless

Suicide, or at least attempted suicide, is the inspiration for this week’s Blog post. Iowa in the mid-West of the USA is a long way from the financial capitals of the world, but a local tragedy provides a lesson for everybody who works in financial services. The Story PFGBest aka Pergrine is a small brokerage […]

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The Canons of Cost Allocation. What is that charge for? Be Transparent.

“What gets measured gets managed.” That saying is as well known in banking as it is in any other industry. Less well articulated is the obvious first derivative of that: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Sometimes in banking we do that well; we are pretty good at differentiating between what is […]

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The Cannons of Cost Allocations. Effort Based.

Last week, the Blog introduced the idea of there being four cannons of taxation. Four rules, or rather guidelines you should observe when sharing out costs. This week we take a closer look at the first of them; Effort based. People & systems. Those are the two big cost blocks. Rent matters too, however invariably […]

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Cost Allocations. The Gordian Knot of Operations.

Who should pay? What is my allocation and why? This is a really difficult topic. Firstly, because although it is about numbers it is not about math, there is not an absolutely right answer. Secondly, because it is pretty much unheard of to have a situation of harmony and contentment around this. Banking generally and […]

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