Why would anyone choose to work for a bank in the Digital Age? For several reasons. According to one chief innovation officer, if you enjoy challenge, energy, innovation, agility then the right bank is the right place for you. As banks face a pivotal moment, warding off inventive challengers on every side, the secret to their longevity resides in customer-centricity. Product value is still important, but so is consumer gratification.
There are enough new terms floating around banking to make one’s head spin, and along comes greenfield bank. This refers to the growing trend among incumbent banks to create standalone digital banks that are as agile and innovative as the fintechs and neobanks. After considering how difficult and expensive it is proving to be for banks to break out of their legacy-infrastructure moulds, this approach makes a lot of sense.
Most banks have processed the message that they need to change if they plan to stay competitive in today’s financial world, increasingly infiltrated by fintech and bigtech disruptors. But the change that is required goes beyond changing strategy; it involves transforming the entire culture of a bank, from the top down. What are the practical steps banks must take to change their internal cultures and use technology most effectively?
Sustainability is popular in so many ways today, including in investment. It’s not surprising that banks are going all out to link their brands with such a trendy concept. But Lundquist has dived beneath the surface to determine where European banks really stand on sustainability, how it is molding their corporate strategies and communications. The results prove that most banks still have a way to go to be fully credible.
The death knell for the global benchmark interest rate LIBOR has rung, and the impact of its demise will be widely felt. The time to prepare for the switch to alternative risk-free rates has arrived; the back book will need to be transitioned, and products based on the new rates will need to be launched. What are the three main risks during this period, and what is the major opportunity?
The word revolution isn’t used lightly, so when we are told that we are in the midst of Industrial Revolution 4.0, we can expect to see major changes—especially in that most fundamental of industries, banking. Providing guidance to their 33,000 strong membership, in the midst of the upheaval, is the UK’s Chartered Banker Institute, which through multiple avenues is preparing bank professionals, current and future, to serve their customers well during the transformation.
When we think of tax fraud in banking, we often don’t consider its far-reaching consequences, including its impact on the human rights of the residents of the states in which it occurs and beyond. By diverting public funds away from where they are needed most, sophisticated tax-avoidance schemes facilitated by banks make the quality of life of affected people that much worse. What must banks do to meet their obligations to the general public?
UK banks have achieved success in many areas, but when it comes to earning and retaining customer trust, they have fallen short. In an era of big bank failures, scandals and outright greed, public trust in the banking sector has been one of the main casualties. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way; banks can turn the tables and win back that crucial trust. But how?
The London Inter-bank Offered Rate, LIBOR, has for 50 years served as one of the most widely used benchmark interest-rate indexes. But its reputation has been tarnished by concerns that it has been manipulated by banks, and the United Kingdom’s FCA has pulled the plug on LIBOR submissions after 2021. Its successors—risk-free rates—are lining up to take over, but the transition is definitely not guaranteed to be smooth.
Given the prevailing financial infrastructure that exists today, international transfers continue to remain costly, time-consuming and risky—and even more so when there is a need to exchange currency. Such transactions normally undergo a series of stages that invariably include the involvement of intermediary parties and the foreign-exchange market