Equal pay and equal opportunity make sense, but gender inequalities persist in financial services. However, progress is being made, with more women being installed in senior management and board positions in financial firms. There is much room for more progress, though. Chief executive positions, for example, remain largely filled by men.
Occasionally, an anomaly becomes the new normal, and this seems to be true of negative interest rates in many regions of the world. Used as a tool of expansionary monetary policy in the aftermath of the global recession, negative rates may be wearing out their welcome, especially in some countries in Europe. But can they be scrapped entirely, or are they a natural part of the global economy’s cyclical trends?