What are warm banks, and why are so many opening in the UK?

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Ian Shine, Senior Writer, Formative Content “I hate the cold. I can handle being hungry but not being cold. I just hate the thought of people sitting freezing.” Those are the words of Kenneth Gibson, who recently told […]

Why decentralized finance is a leapfrog technology for the 1.1 billion people who are unbanked

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Anna Stone, Corporate Social Responsibility, eToro; co-founder, GoodDollar Protocol, eToro No technology better exemplifies the “leapfrog technology” phenomenon than the mobile phone, whose adoption allowed even the most underserved communities to entirely forego the need to implement traditional […]

Banks can achieve net-zero pledge by 2050. Here’s how

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: John Colas, Partner; Vice-Chairman, Financial Services, Americas, Oliver Wyman Group (MMC) The UN group, Net-Zero Banking Alliance, have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions across their lending portfolios by 2050. Banks can influence corporate behaviour by offering loans […]

Cambodia’s digital currency can show other central banks the way

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Makoto Takemiya, Co-founder and CEO, Soramitsu The National Bank of Cambodia launched its digital currency, Bakong, in October 2020. Almost 200,000 people use its digital wallet, and almost 6 million have benefited through the use of connected banking […]

How central banks are tackling climate change risks

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Silvia Anna Ainio, Policy Officer, European Commission Central banks have an increasingly critical role in tackling climate change policy objectives. Incorporating climate-related risks into regulatory frameworks remains challenging but central banks are starting to lead the way. The […]

How banks can help companies restructure for growth

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Michael Spellacy, Senior Managing Director, Global Capital Markets Lead, Accenture & Alan McIntyre, Senior Managing Director, Global Banking Lead, Accenture & Derek Baraldi, Head of the Banking Industry, World Economic Forum The banking industry has to walk the […]

COVID-19: Revised rules to encourage banks to lend to companies and households

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee MEPs approve more flexibility in EU banks prudential rulebook to focus on lending to the COVID-19 stricken economy. On Tuesday, MEPs approved new rules to temporarily ensure favourable conditions for banks in order to support credit flows to companies […]

Why enterprise risk management is the future for banks

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Jeffrey Brown, Partner, Oliver Wyman’s Risk and Organizational Effectiveness practices, Washington DC & Michael Duane, Partner, Oliver Wyman’s Financial Services practice & Til Schuermann, Partner and Co-Head, Oliver Wyman’s Risk and Public Policy practice Regulators and risk managers have […]

The new crisis is already creeping into the financial system

Unquestionably, everything is wrong in the international financial system, even though the major central banks have actually donated trillions to the banking ‘community’. The US central bank, the Fed, has lent almost free of charge $4.5 trillion to the American banking hub. On this side of the Atlantic Ocean, the European Central Bank has done […]

Banking Union: Non-performing loans in the EU continue to decline

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. Efforts to reduce risks in the EU banking sector are bearing fruit, according to new figures released by the European Commission today. In its fourth progress report on the reduction of non-performing loans (NPLs), the Commission today confirms that NPL levels are continuing their […]

10 ways central banks are experimenting with blockchain

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Ashley Lannquist, Project Lead, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology, World Economic Forum While research and experimentation with blockchain technology across sectors has been underway for several years, few organizations have deployed it. Although central banks are among the most […]

Non-performing loans: banks need to mitigate the risk of potential losses

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Parliament has adopted, on Thursday, new EU rules for standard minimum coverage of bad loans. Measures to mitigate the risk of possible, future, non-performing loans (NPLs) accumulating due to the recessions brought about by the 2008 financial crisis were approved by the Parliament, with […]

A multipolar world brings back the national champions

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Nannette Hechler Fayd’herbe, Global Head of Investment Strategy & Research, Credit Suisse In 2018, we moved closer to the multipolar world that looks set to replace the bipolar US-Russian geopolitical regime that emerged from the Cold War. China’s ascent […]

Trade war or not New York bankers will have it their way

The US and China agreed to hold talks on 7-8 January in Beijing to settle their trade differences, which have already eaten into both economies and disturb the global financial universe. If they fail to agree this week, the impact will be worse. It seems things are so bad, that the US Federal Reserve Chairman […]

Banks can fight financial crime. But we can’t do it alone

This article is brought to you thanks to the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Erik Barnett Head of Financial Crime Threat Mitigation, Europe, HSBC A young woman walks into a bank branch in London. She is soon noticed by a teller, who sees that she is closely followed by a man, who […]

How banks should prepare for robots going rogue

This article is brought to you thanks to the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Elizabeth St-Onge, Partner, Financial Services, Oliver Wyman & Ege Gürdeniz, Principal, Digital, Technology, and Analytics, Oliver Wyman Banks are rolling out machine-learning applications to handle all manner of tasks once reserved for humans, from customer service to automated […]

US-China trade war at point of no return: Washington’s demands go beyond tariffs

It seems the US-China trade conflict, if not full scale trade war, is entering the phase of no return. Nothing will be as before in the economic and otherwise relations between the two largest economies of the world. Washington appears ready to push its cause to the end, while Beijing still pretends not to understand […]

IMF: How To Deal With Failed Banks

This article is brought to you in association with the International Monetary Fund Written by Deniz Igan, July 3, 2018 During the global financial crisis, policymakers faced a steep trade-off in handling bank failures. Using public funds to rescue failing banks (bail-outs) could weaken market discipline and lead to excessive risk taking—the moral hazard effect. […]

Why Italy will not follow the Greek road; Eurozone to change or unravel

the next Italian election is, very probably, to take place within the next few months or even weeks. Then, Berlin, the rest of Eurozone capitals and probably the entire western financial world will learn, if it’s still politically possible to ask just one country’s taxpayers to save an obviously faltering global financial system. The test […]

Banks must take bold action to fight climate change. This is how they can do it

This article is brought to you based on the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Sonia Hierzig, Project Manager – Banking, ShareAction Banks are exposed to a number of climate-related risks through the diverse range of sectors they finance. Across the world, they continue to fund high-carbon industries, thus enabling a range of […]

Mainland Europe adopts Germanic cartel business patterns

As in VW’s diesel engines emissions scandal, in the case of Estonia’s half banking system working as mafia’s financiers, it was the Americans to unveil the wrongdoings. Is it by chance or the Europeans are looking the other way, when it comes to their own dirty laundry? Those calculated frame ups are not only meant […]

Draghi strives to control the unruly exploitation of financial markets by banking leviathans

During the past few weeks, financial markets sharks have been sending stock and bond prices and money parities wildly up and down, while busy securing for themselves hefty short term gains. Obviously, this is to the detriment of the real economy, where values are produced by technology and sweat. In Europe and, partly, in the […]

‘Safe Eurobonds’: a new trick to betray the south euro area countries

All along the years after the 2008-2010 financial crisis, which in the European Union took the form banking/government debt breakdowns starting with Greece, there were cries for the creation of a solid Eurozone. In every respect, these calls amounted to demands that super prosperous Germany accepts some degree of risk-sharing with the rest of the […]

Draghi keeps the euro cheap, helps debt refinancing, recapitalization of banks and growth

Last Thursday, the European Central Bank decided to keep flooding the Eurozone with hundreds of billions, despite strong objections coming from the frugal German-Dutch duo. Mario Draghi was adamant about that. It’s interesting to follow his response to a journalist’s remark, who reminded him that the “Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot said in a […]

Hazy ‘breakthrough’ saves PM May, leaves Ireland in limbo: Brexit

With only a couple of hours sleep in the very early hours of last Friday, the British PM Theresa May boarded a RAF aircraft and landed in Brussels before dawn. Weary as she was, she rushed to Berlaymont building, the EU Commission headquarters. There she met Jean-Claude Juncker the President of the European Commission and […]

Britain offers more money for an orderly Brexit but the Irish question resurges

If last Friday’s Reuters report from Brussels is correct and Theresa May and Donald Tusk agreed to solve the Brexit dead-end in ten days, then the wild Brexiteers must have retreated  and the orderly exit side has won the first round. Tusk, the President of the European Council said in a tweet that he told […]

Do the giant banks ‘tell’ Britain to choose a good soft Brexit and ‘remain’ or else…?

It may be true that the world is tired watching Britain being completely confused about choosing the way to exit from the European Union. Yet, the almost schizo division plaguing the Brits and their political elites alike still paralyzes to this date the divorce negotiations. Countries to be most affected by Brexit like Holland are […]

Banks, insurance giants are free again to abuse the real economy

Not many years after the financial meltdown of 2008-2010, the main culpable parties for that global catastrophe, the big banks and the gigantic insurance companies are now commandingly asking the world to forget that. They demand to be again left completely unchecked, free to repeat what they did then; inflate all and every market to […]

Fed, ECB take positions to face the next global financial crisis; the Brits uncovered

The appointment of Jerome Powell as the next head of the US central bank, the famous Fed, is a reassurance to the financial world that the giant lenders will continue being favored by ample and very cheap money. Last Thursday, Donald Trump, the American President didn’t dare to change the cautious approach to monetary policy. […]

Czech Babis, Austrian Kurz and others threaten Europe with nationalist populism

Andrej Babis, a media magnate and second wealthier Czech leading his anti-immigration, nationalist and populist ANO party, won last Sunday’s election, with around 30% of the vote. He is to become the next Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Babis did that on an anti-systemic Trump-like ticket. He was recently implicated in a tax fraud […]

Chauvinism and xenophobia will lead to global assertiveness and more wars

The immigration crisis of 2015 in Europe exposed the hollowness of the political system of the new millennium in the Old Continent, anguishing to cover the huge social cavities the economic neo-liberalism has created. Unfortunately, economic neo-liberalism didn’t lead to political liberalism, but instead to chauvinism, xenophobia and the insurgence of the extreme right wing […]

Yellen and Draghi tell Trump and markets not to expedite the next crisis

The disappointment of financial markets with the lack of hints about monetary policy from the Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers is understandable. Both Janet Yellen, US Federal Reserve System Chair and Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank President while keeping their policy guidelines unchanged, choose to forcibly attack the demands of bankers – supported […]

The ECB accuses the politicians of inaction, continues injecting billions to banks

Last Saturday 8 July the Belgian newspaper De Standaard published an interview with Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank. Praet said it plainly “We do say that we still need a long period of accommodative policy before we are ready”. What he means by ‘being ready’ […]