Few of us don’t enjoy a good game, and the more competitive, the better, which is why numerous firms are enlisting the gamification strategy to draw users in. But is the practice always justified, let alone ethical, especially in activities such as trading through which finances can be compromised? The controversial method has pros and cons, but it is sure to be more readily adopted as consumers increasingly embrace it.
Today’s professional accountant is expected to do more than juggle numbers; he or she increasingly participates in achieving sustainability objectives, which aim to ensure that a company’s resources are used to create not only monetary value but sustainable value today and into the future. To achieve this requires concerted multidisciplinary effort toward enhanced corporate reporting that addresses financial and sustainability concerns, guided by international accounting standards that incorporate sustainable value creation.
For the world’s economy, 2021 hasn’t yet brought a break from 2020; COVID-19 remains dominant. Although all banking systems are vulnerable to upheaval, the situations for those in emerging markets are more tenuous for several reasons. S&P Global Ratings examined the three major risks facing a sample of 15 EM countries, including likely deterioration in asset quality, geopolitical and domestic policy uncertainty and vulnerability to abrupt changes in investor sentiment.
As calamitous as the pandemic’s effect has been on economies worldwide, in many cases, it has only fueled concerning issues that pre-dated it. COVID-19 will eventually be consigned to our past, but its effects will linger on for decades. What are the four questions we need to ask ourselves now to shape the best plan of action toward economic healing, sustained recovery, innovation, cooperation and prosperity while avoiding potential landmines?
2021 is fraught with questions about banking’s future in the strange, perplexing COVID-19 world, but there are key technological trends for industry participants to explore and exploit. Open banking, embedded finance, time and money, personalization, cybersecurity, digital currencies, payments without intermediaries will be principal factors in reshaping banking in Russia and worldwide. Staying in the game will hinge on a bank’s determination to make digital transformation its key strategical goal.
Throughout their long history, banks have sustained the smooth functioning of economies, but their effectiveness depends on the quality of their leadership. So, what makes a dependable chief executive or board member? The right attitude is a good start, as are applicable skills, foresight, ideas and a determination to cooperate with other key players. Now more than ever, strong and visionary leaders are the fuel that ignites profitable banking practice.
The pandemic has had far-reaching consequences on the US construction industry, not only on volumes but also types of construction, introducing a slew of unprecedented challenges. The Associated General Contractors of America’s latest annual hiring and business outlook survey, an indicator of contractor sentiment, revealed different levels of optimism and shifts in project categories, as COVID-19 changes the land of the free, rendering some construction activities promising and others not.
The UK’s economy showed promising signs of recovery during the fourth quarter of 2020 but not enough to compensate for a dismal year, which, with its annual 9.9-percent contraction, broke a 300-year record and clocked in among the G7’s worst economic performances. Although 2021 is getting off to a slow start with new lockdown measures, increased vaccination and more consumer spending may fuel a vigorous rebound later in the year.
2020 wasn’t a good year for shareholders scheduled to receive bank dividends. Regulators swiftly put a halt to dividend payments from banks to ward off a pandemic-induced crisis, requiring lenders to conserve capital and distribute it as needed to consumers and businesses. The dividend pipeline is slowly reopening as confidence grows in the banks’ stability, but it may be a while before shareholders receive their fair shares of the profits.
Regarded as one of the world’s safest countries from the coronavirus, Taiwan is also one of the few that registered positive economic growth in 2020 with bright prospects for 2021. Its clever handling of the pandemic isn’t the only reason for its resounding success. The country is also benefitting from US-China trade tensions. But one thing is certain, Taiwan is indeed Formosa, a “beautiful island”, within a bleak world environment.