The Great Debate UK
from The Great Debate:
How to do PR for banks
Big banks -- at least in Europe -- are putting on a new, highly branded, and more contrite face. Barclays is embarking on something it calls “Project Transform”’; Deutsche Bank has announced its “2015+” strategy and is pushing for what its CEO has called “deliberate” “uncomfortable change”. UBS has its own 2015 strategy, and the head of its investment banking unit publicly proclaimed that the industry has become “too arrogant, too self-convinced”.
Should we buy any of this? William Cohan, for one, isn’t a fan of Barclays CEO Anthony Jenkins’s “new morality”. Cohan’s right to point out that all of this hat-in-hand talk comes after a long period of transgression at Barclays:
Among other indiscretions, the good folks at Barclays manipulated the London interbank offered rate, shredded unflattering reports about the U.S. wealth-management division and, according to British authorities, may have fraudulently loaned money to Qatar to invest back in the bank to help Barclays avoid a government bailout in 2008.
Cohan’s definitely not thrilled by Barclays naming Hugh “Skip” McGee, a former Lehman exec, as the head of its corporate and investment banking division in the Americas. Changing banking, Cohan argues, means holding bankers “financially accountable, up to their entire net worth, when things go wrong.”
Hypocrisy piled on humbug
The row over bankers‘ pay and honours has presented the depressing spectacle of British public life at its nadir, with hypocrisy piled on humbug.
On the one hand, we hear bankers and their apologists arguing that their rewards are required to keep them from running off to sunnier climes, which prompts a number of questions. First, when bankers claim that they have to be paid a fortune in recognition of the size of the organizations they run, we may well ask: how many banks of this scale are there in the world today? How many are so hungry for skills like those of Britain’s bank bosses that they are willing and able to offer these sorts of rewards?
Hungary: The Greece of Eastern Europe
By Kathleen Brooks. The opinions expressed are her own.
It used to be Greece that was the canary in the coal mine, these days it’s Hungary. The new year got off to a bad start for the Eastern European nation after it experienced a failed bond auction, causing its bond yields to surge.
This caused major jitters across global financial markets and once again a small, relatively unknown economy is dominating the headlines and causing a massive headache for the European authorities.
from Breakingviews:
RBS shows watchdogs need power to stop M&A
By Peter Thal Larsen
The author is a Retuers Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The failure of Royal Bank of Scotland shows bank reform still has some way to go.
Mansion House Hangover
Last night’s two big Mansion House speeches were impressive when they dealt with the macroeconomy, but depressing (if unsurprising) on the subject of reforming the banks, representing final confirmation of the gloomy conclusion of a blog I posted here in September 2009: It’s All Over – the Banks Have Won.
Of course the banks will squeal – why wouldn’t they? After all, they daren’t be seen cracking open the bubbly.
How will banks respond to a new world?
-Jeremy Edwards is Head of Banking & Financial Services at Firstsource Solutions. The opinions expressed are his own.-
The recent publication of Sir John Vickers’ International Commission on Banking (ICB) finally gave the banking industry a glimpse of the long-promised change in regulatory regimes following the global financial crisis. The report comes at the same time as a torrent of new regulations and legal changes: the recent High Court ruling on the misselling of payment protection insurance (which is estimated to cost the banks £8 billion), the Treasury report on financial regulation, and the Basel III regulations that will force banks to hold greater liquidity. If adopted, many of these recommendations will create unprecedented change for the banking industry.
Matthew Elderfield on re-shaping Ireland’s regulatory system
‘Ireland: Re-shaping the Regulatory and Banking System’ will be hosted by Reuters’ Jodie Ginsberg, UK and Ireland Editor, and will be streamed live to the Reuters UK website as part of our rolling coverage from 0830 BST.
The budget must help SMEs to survive and grow
By Bobby Lane, Partner at Shelley Stock Hutter LLP. The opinions expressed are his own.
Everyone in my practice, and no doubt anyone advising the five million UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), welcomed the Prime Minister’s latest show of support for them at the recent Conservative Party conference.
from Breakingviews:
Bank CEO pay creeping back to bad old days
By Antony Currie and Margaret Doyle
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.
NEW YORK/LONDON -- Compensation for bank chief executives is creeping back to the bad old days. Sure, virtually all of them now pocket a smaller amount each year than they did before the financial crisis. But after a year or two of relative restraint, their boards are starting to favor them over shareholders again.
Offshoring remains, it is just less visible
Today we are all used to an international trade in services. When you call up the bank, a contact centre agent in India probably answers the call. When you crash your car and file a claim, the claim form you painstakingly complete is scanned and sent thousands of kilometres away for processing. When you call to find out the next train to Cardiff, it’s not someone in Wales giving you the information you need.
This change in how services are delivered has become a part of everyday life. For many companies – such as banks – it went too far in the past decade. Many banks found that their customers were uncomfortable dealing with an agent in a far-flung location and it soon became a source of competitive advantage to answer calls locally. But those same banks advertising that ‘we answer your calls in the UK’ are all sending their IT systems offshore. The ‘offshoring’ continues, it is just less visible.
