Automation saves time, cuts cost and carries out routine tasks with unmatched efficiency, so who wouldn’t welcome it? Possibly the people whose income currently depends on carrying out those tasks. Digitalization is guaranteed to strip out much routine work in banking, but it will not necessary mean fewer bank jobs. Roles will be reinvented so that technology frees human staff to provide customers with excellent advice and service.
Infrastructure that is up to code is vitally important to sustaining a country’s economy, but even developed countries are falling behind in their infrastructure investment. Effective infrastructure investment needs to be a combined effort of governments, multilateral development banks and private investors, but it lags behind in its appeal to private investors. What measures can be taken to draw more private-sector financing into this crucial foundation of economic growth?
Global growth is strong, but policymakers need to navigate uncharted waters and enact complex policy changes to keep the world economy on an even keel. The main risk lies not in economic conditions, but in economic policy debates too often distorted by partisanship. We have a chance to leverage new technologies to lift living standards on a sustainable basis—but we need a more level-headed discussion to chart the path forward.
Israel, one of the 35 members of the OECD, is leading the pack in terms of economic growth, according to a recent OECD survey. And not only currently but consistently over the course of recent years. What are the reasons for the Middle Eastern country’s outstanding economic performance, and what are the factors that may hinder it
World Heritage Sites ultimately belong to all of us, so it is in everyone’s interest to sustain them. Banks have an important part to play toward protecting the most valuable but also vulnerable places on the planet, ensuring that their investments are employed with the twin goals of promoting economic growth—through, for example, energy projects—but also of safeguarding the natural resources affected.
The UK’s new Criminal Finances Act covers a broad range of issues relevant to UK financial institutions; but one area, failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, is of particular concern. The fines for offenses, both domestic and foreign, are steep, with the potential for additional punishing ancillary orders; implementing effective preventive procedures is crucial.
Chile has been one of South America’s mainstays, lauded as possibly the continent’s wealthiest and most stable country. But the Chilean economy, the health of which is heavily dependent on copper exports, has suffered greatly since the decline of the commodity super-cycle in 2014-15, and credit-rating agencies are showing no mercy—making life even more difficult for the country’s incumbent government.
Since taking office in 2015, Argentina President Mauricio Macri has subjected the country to an economic “shock” therapy to try and jumpstart the economy. At first, the economic policy seemed as if it would result in a prompt change in government
Anemic economic growth in advanced economies has led central banks to prescribe loose monetary policy that has not produced the cure. The problem may lie more on the supply than demand side; digital innovation in industrial operations if properly implemented could lead to the transformative revolution that will boost productivity and revive economic performance.
There is much rhetoric around the opportunities provided by emerging markets. And there is plenty of discourse around the fact that banks are de-risking and retreating from such areas. The fact of the matter is that some regions of the world are riskier to operate in.