CFI.co Meets the President & CEO of FreeBalance: Manuel Pietra

FreeBalance is a customer-centric company, globally distributed, with integrated processes. The FreeBalance organisation and management structure is arranged in a matrix. This structure encourages a culture of cross-functional collaboration in support of customers. All internal performance metrics are driven by customer satisfaction.

While many organisations claim to be customer-centric, FreeBalance goes a step further and involves its customers in the company’s functioning and future development. In 2007, the company formed the FreeBalance International Steering Committee (FISC). FISC provides an interactive forum for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experiences amongst FreeBalance customers.

Insights from FISC meetings and discussions provide leadership and vision for FreeBalance solutions for the public sector. These activities, combined with other aspects of the company’s ISO 9001:2008 certified customer-centric processes, ensures FreeBalance products meet changing international needs in a financially sustainable fashion.

“FISC provides us with visibility into current and future customer needs,” says Manuel Pietra, president & CEO of FreeBalance. “Our customers have a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with our team and with their peers to provide an in-depth look in to public financial management trends.” Customers at FISC participate directly in the FreeBalance product development process by voting for roadmap changes over the course of a two-year window.

FreeBalance also engages directly with ministers of finance through its bi-annual Ministers’ Roundtable. This event brings together ministers from customer countries to explore how governments can better plan and execute to achieve sustainable economic growth through digital transformation.

The FreeBalance management team leads a group of professionals committed to making a difference in the world. Social responsibility is core to what FreeBalance does because of the impact its software and services have on country prosperity. FreeBalance is a for-profit enterprise that does good and does well. The FreeBalance team understands that broad and inclusive economic development can overcome the instability and poverty that plagues the modern world. Improving governance, particularly in the public sector, is the most effective enabler of country growth.

Mr Pietra adds: “We believe that people should be at the heart of smart government. Technology plays an important role but our efforts should be focused on how to leverage that technology to improve the lives of citizens through good governance.”

“Our mission is to help governments around the world leverage sustainable and smart solutions to support good governance, accountability and transparency.”
“Smart government requires improved control, transparency and accountability to be effective. FreeBalance provides a unified governance platform that supports smart government through financial, human resources and performance management.”

“Good governance and achieving development goals directly impacts local economies and the lives of each citizen. Social responsibility is integral to what we do. That’s why we operate with a customer-centric approach.”

About Manuel Pietra
Manuel Pietra is a global executive and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of successful management experience in companies based in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa,nd Latin America. He has a proven track record in building and running companies, from start-ups to well-established private and public organisations. He has consistently demonstrated an ability to build and lead successful teams and businesses in the international arena.

As president & CEO of FreeBalance, Mr Pietra leads global growth strategies focused on advancing the company’s objectives and promoting revenue, profitability, and growth. Mr Pietra has transformed the firm into a customer-centric and socially responsible company increasing its footprint to 25 countries worldwide. He is responsible for ensuring that FreeBalance fulfils its mission to help governments across the world leverage robust financial management technology to accelerate country growth.

Mr Pietra has held executive positions on the boards of several international companies and actively participated in the venture capital space. He has participated in several successful IPO’s in North America, Europe, and South Africa.

Mr Pietra has served in several international positions including president of the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management (ICGFM) in Washington, DC. As president, Mr Pietra was also chair of the executive committee providing vision and leadership to support the continued growth of the ICGFM as the world’s foremost community of PFM practitioners.

Mr Pietra is multilingual and often speaks at high profile investment seminars and technology conferences across the world in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.


CFI.co Meets the Founder & CEO of Park West Gallery: Albert Scaglione

Albert Scaglione completely transformed art collecting through his passion and innate sense of ingenuity. By taking it outside of traditional gallery walls, he raised the level of excitement in fine art collecting and made the Park West Gallery experience available to customers around the world.

As a young man, the native of Nutley, New Jersey, found himself at Michigan State University in 1962 working his way from graduate assistant to assistant instructor to instructor with faculty privileges while pursuing his doctorate in mechanical engineering. In 1967, he became an assistant professor of mechanical engineering sciences at Wayne State University doing research and teaching such subjects as thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. Between 1964 and 1969, Mr Scaglione did research for NASA and was focused on the mission of landing a man on Mars. He was bitten by the art bug as a teen while working at a relative’s gallery, and before he knew it, his passion for art overcame his passion for science. In 1969, Mr Scaglione made the decision to leave academia for the art world and opened Park West Gallery that same year.

Early on, Mr Scaglione recognised that he wanted to create meaningful experiences for collectors and the artists the gallery represented. That idea grew into Park West Gallery locations and auctions in prestigious hotels and on more than a hundred cruise ships worldwide, and the gallery’s by-invitation-only VIP land events and exclusive art cruises.

Mr Scaglione met Peter Max in 1971 and very quickly became one of Max’s most important art dealers. Soon after, while in Paris, he established key relationships with Yaacov Agam – considered the father of the kinetic art movement – and Victor Vasarely, one of the developers of Op Art. Mr Scaglione also worked directly with the prime dealers of MC Escher, Marc Chagall, and Joan Miró, giving him the opportunity to make those artists’ work available to a larger segment of American collectors.

In 2006, Mr Scaglione and his wife Mitsie created the Park West Foundation to provide aid to underprivileged youths aging out of the foster care system in South-eastern Michigan. Through hands-on work, the foundation provides a sustainable support system to empower these young adults in developing critical life skills and self-sufficiency. The Park West Foundation quickly evolved and now provides support to a broad variety of organisations committed to strengthening positive values and leadership in local communities. Whether donating clothes and art supplies to those in need, contributing fine art and art books to universities, or supplying free event space to non-profit organisations, Park West Gallery and the Scaglione family are committed to making a difference in the lives of those in their community and across the globe.

In 2015, the Park West Foundation expanded its mission to include environmental conservation, art awareness, and education. To this end, the foundation has supported the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, Best Buddies International, the Forever Wild Foundation, and Turnaround Arts through artist and child prodigy Autumn de Forest. The foundation has also helped sponsor multiple museum exhibitions around the United States.

Extending the foundation’s reach overseas, in 2016 the Park West Foundation and its founders became the first founding US sponsors of Prince’s Trust International, a global charity founded by Prince Charles to empower disadvantaged youths around the world with real-world skills.

Mr Scaglione resides in Farmington Hills, Michigan.


CFI.co Meets the President and CEO of RCBC: Gil A Buenaventura

Mr Gil Buenaventura has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) since July 2016.

With over forty years of professional experience in banking and general management, Mr Buenaventura has overseen the growth in revenues and profits with the various banks he has been associated with through his expertise in strategy formation, business development, and relationship building.

Prior to joining RCBC, Mr Buenaventura was President and CEO of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) from October 2012 to June 2016, which he steered to unprecedented growth, with earnings and total resources reflecting an annual compounded growth rate of 5.11% and 11.1% respectively. He fulfilled the Bank’s role in nation-building by offering financing to infrastructure development, responsible entrepreneurship, and the protection of the environment.

DBP ended 2015 with a net income of P4.7 Billion and P504.1 Billion in total resources. Thus, DBP retained its position amongst the top ten banks in the industry. Aside from his position as President and CEO, Mr Buenaventura was Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee as well as member of the policy-setting trust, IT governance, and human resources committees. He also held key positions in DBP subsidiaries as Chairman of DBP-DAIWA Securities Corporation, DBP Management Corporation, DBP Data Center Inc., Local Government Unit Guarantee Corporation, and Vice-chairman of the Al Amanah Banking Corporation. Additionally, Mr Buenaventura held other key management positions such as Chairman of the credit, management, and asset liability committees.

Mr Buenaventura also held senior management positions at various other banks such as the Bank of the Philippine Islands (November 1996 – September 2012), where, as SEVP & COO, he was in charge of the Corporate Banking Group composed of corporate, middle market, and SME accounts representing more than 75% of BPI’s lending portfolio and the Consumer Banking Group covering all nationwide branches. Additional responsibilities included the supervision and management of special business units such as the BPI Leasing Corporation, BPI Rental Corporation, Card Banking Group, the Japanese Desk, Special Accounts Management Department (managing remedial accounts), and the Special Lending Unit in charge of BPI’s special funding sources from BSP, DBP, LBP, and guarantee/risk sharing facilities with LGUGC, IFC, and USAID. He also held additional direct oversight responsibilities of non-revenue generating areas including the Centralized Operations Group, Information Systems Group, and Human Resources Management Group.

Mr Buenaventura held key board positions at BPI Subsidiaries such as Chairman of the Board of Directors of BPI Leasing Corporation, BPI Rental Corporation, BPI Bancassurance Inc., BPI International Finance Ltd., BPI Express Remittance Corporation, Pilipinas Savings Bank, Prudential Investments Inc., BPI Direct Savings Bank, Ayala Life Assurance Inc., Ayala Plans Inc., FGU Insurance and BPI Foundation Inc.. He also held other key management positions such as Vice-Chairman of the Unibank management, credit risk, and asset liability committee and was a member of the Unibank financial risk management and asset management trust committees.

As head of Institutional Banking and Operations Group, Mr Buenaventura managed the Unibank’s loan portfolio composed of corporate, middle market, SME, and retail banking accounts representing all of BPI’s lending business. He likewise held key board positions as Chairman of Citytrust Realty Corporation, Citytrust Securities Corporation, member of the board of directors of BPI Family Savings Bank, and BPI Leasing Corporation. He was also a member of the Unibank Integration Committee during the bank’s merger with Far East and Trust Co in 2000.

In July 2005, Mr Buenaventura was appointed President and CEO of Prudential bank after its acquisition by the Bank of the Philippine Islands while awaiting regulatory merger approvals. He was also a member of the Unibank integration committee during the merger with Bank of the Philippine Islands.

Seconded from Citibank Manila Branch, he served as Executive Vice-President of Citytrust Banking Corporation (May 1989 – April 1993) where he managed all lending activities except consumer loans, representing more than 70% of the banks’ lending portfolio. He also supervised the Unibank Centralized Operations Group.

Mr Buenaventura likewise held various key senior positions in Citibank North America, Manila Branch and Citicorp International, Philippines (1975 – 1993).

Mr Buenaventura graduated from the University of San Francisco with a BA in Economics and holds a MBA in Finance from the University of Wisconsin. i


Alexei Navalny: Unwilling to Play Along

He is the man Vladimir Putin is said to fear the most. Alexei Navalny (41), a lawyer by trade and an activist by choice, wants to unseat and replace the Russian president. However, a five-year suspended sentence for embezzlement, squashed by the Supreme Court late last year but reinstated after a review by the Leninsky district court of Kirov, can prevent Mr Navalny from running in next year’s presidential election.

Mr Navalny denies the charge – relating to the alleged theft of state-owned timber – and called the case brought against him “a politically motivated farce”. The European Court of Human Rights agreed that Mr Navalny had not received a fair trial and ordered the Russian state to award €56,000 in compensation and damages. Though the 2013 verdict was duly annulled, a retrial in Kirov, an industrial city and trading hub some 800km east of Moscow, again found Mr Navalny guilty and reimposed the suspended sentence.

Mr Navalny has seen the insides of numerous Russian courtrooms. He has also been arrested repeatedly and spent time in jail on charges related to political protests. In March, a Moscow court again slapped a fifteen-day prison sentence on Mr Navalny for resisting arrest during a rally against the endemic corruption amongst the governing elite.

During his trial, the defendant expressed surprise at the high turnout of mainly young people. Earlier, pundits had dismissed Mr Navalny’s protest movement as only a minor irritant, arguing that the Russian public remained politically apathetic. The protests scaled up significantly after Mr Navalny released a 50-minute documentary detailing the complex web of dubious charitable institutions that was reportedly set up by oligarchs to funnel bribes to Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and his extended clan. After its online release, the video attracted more than thirteen million viewers.

Fearful of turning the crusader into a martyr, prosecutors have so far refrained from demanding longer prison sentences for the recalcitrant lawyer, handing out fifteen-day stints instead. During one of his previous stays in jail, Amnesty International recognised Mr Navalny as a prisoner of conscience.

"It takes plenty courage, and a fair bit of gumption, to challenge Russia’s powers-that-be."

Despite repeated attempts, Mr Navalny has been unable to create a political party to bundle opposition forces and provide a platform for his 2018 presidential bid. Regulatory obstacles, bureaucratic non-cooperation, and an unhelpful judiciary have stopped Mr Navalny’s Peoples’ Alliance, later renamed Progress Party, from obtaining official recognition. That party has now joined other fledging opposition groups coalescing around the RPR-PARNAS party which is fully accredited. RPR-PARNAS traditionally favours a “European choice” not dissimilar from what inspired the 2014 Euromaidan protesters in Kiev. Barely one year after the Ukrainian Revolution, RPR-PARNAS co-chair Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on a Moscow street.

Opposing the government of Vladimir Putin is both dangerous and, perhaps, futile. On April 27, unknown assailants sprayed Brilliant Green, a toxic dye used for the colouring of silk and wool, in Mr Navalny’s face causing him to lose 80% of vision in his right eye. Brilliant Green, possibly mixed with other substances, has been used in a number of splash-attacks on politicians and journalists critical of the Putin Administration. Mr Navalny received permission from the Kirov court to travel to Spain for medical treatment.

Upon his return, Mr Navalny intends to resume the fight to secure a place on the 2018 ballot. Kremlin observers generally agree that the suspended sentence is unlikely to prove an impediment, if for no other reason than that Mr Putin’s United Russia – a catch-all party which claims to represent indigenous conservatism – could use some serious opposition.

The swift annexation of Crimea in March 2014 boosted the president’s popularity rating which since has remained remarkably high. As the power party of choice, almost any candidate nominated by United Russia is likely to win the vote. President Putin is constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive six-year term in office.

Mr Navalny possesses both required qualities. He has also shown an impressive ability to rally young professionals to his anti-corruption cause – people who in their lives have known no other leader than President Putin. Between the lines, Mr Navalny is being asked legitimise the political status quo by offering a token threat – one with clearly outlined boundaries. Pushing the envelope by galvanising opposition forces carries with it great peril. However, Mr Navalny seems unimpressed and unwilling to play along.


Thomas Kaplan: Building Bridges with Art

He has more Rembrandts – eleven paintings and two drawings – than any other private art collector. Billionaire investor, philanthropist, and art lover Thomas Kaplan made a veritable killing trading in precious metals and went on to further monetise his keen sense of opportunity as chairman and chief investment officer at The Electrum Group. He is, however, not your average 10-figure moneybags. Mr Kaplan read history at Oxford University where he obtained in rapid succession his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees.

Early on, Thomas Kaplan developed an interest in the commodity drivers of geopolitics. His doctoral dissertation on the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960) and the post-independence counterinsurgency investigated the influence of natural resources on conflict. The research convinced him that commodities can be deployed as hedges against the predictable foolishness of governments. Mr Kaplan has been an avid, and exceptionally successful, trader of commodities ever since.

Now worth an estimated $1.5bn, Mr Kaplan uses the power of art – particularly that produced during the Dutch Golden Age – to build bridges, forge alliances, and create goodwill. Earlier this year, he loaned 68 works from his massive private collection to the Louvre in Paris where they are on display since February – a selection of paintings from Mr Kaplan’s celebrated Masterpieces of the Leiden Collection, named after Rembrandt’s birthplace and containing not just the master’s canvasses but also those of his pupils – fijnschilders (fine manner painters) such as Gerrit Dou, Gabriël Metsu, and Ferdinand Bol – and of his teacher Pieter Lastman and studio assistant Jan Lievens.

The exhibition features the first Rembrandt Mr Kaplan bought – “portrait of a lady aged 62 perhaps Aeltje Pietersdr. Uylenburgh” – and aims to present a comprehensive overview of the Dutch Golden Age that span just five generations but resonated for centuries afterwards and influenced the work of Goya, Picasso, Francis Bacon, and many others. Usually reluctant to deal with private collectors, the Louvre instantly let go of its airs when Mr Kaplan offered the museum an opportunity to showcase parts of his 250-paintings strong collection. However, he kept his lone Vermeer – “a young woman seated at the virginals” – in New York. The work, not to be confused with a similar one from the same painter owned by the National gallery in London, is the only confirmed privately-owned Vermeer.

Mr Kaplan’s love for Rembrandt, his coterie of fijnschilders, and Dutch Baroque came at an early age and was kindled at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, home to the world’s largest collection of Dutch seventeenth-century paintings, where his parents took him repeatedly.

“Even as a little kid, I was floored by the beauty of the old masters and the richness of inner life that they were able to capture.” Tomas Kaplan first visited the Rijksmuseum aged eight and has returned many times since.

True to his investor roots, Mr Kaplan started buying up Dutch masters only about fifteen years ago after receiving a tip from British art historian and independent curator Sir Norman Rosenthal, at the time exhibitions secretary at the Royal Academy in London. Sir Rosenthal revealed that the old masters had fallen on hard times and were quite unfashionable – and cheap. So, the investor went on a buying spree, at one time snapping up almost three quarters of the fijnschilder paintings that came on the market. Most he indeed managed to acquire for a song and a dance, but when faced with stiff competition, Mr Kaplan went straight into war mode, outbidding any comers.

His greatest coup came when he landed The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, widely considered Rembrandt’s most gifted pupil, who left only thirteen paintings. Aged 32, Carel Fabritius lost his life in 1654 when a gunpowder magazine in Delft exploded, levelling a quarter of the city including the artist’s studio where most of his work was kept. Only thirteen Fabritius paintings survived the blast and Mr Kaplan managed to get the only one privately owned – thus claiming the holy grail any well-heeled private art collector craved for. When approached on Mr Kaplan’s behalf by a dealer, the painting’s owner, a Viennese count, only asked a single question: “Will your client pay a Rembrandt price?” Mr Kaplan did.

After the Louvre, The Masterpieces of the Leiden Collection is set to embark on a world tour with exhibitions scheduled in Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, St Petersburg, and Abu Dhabi. It is Thomas Kaplan’s way of question otherwise depressing political realities: “Rather than silently acquiescing to the building of walls or the burning of bridges, my wife and I are using the most powerful tools we have, Rembrandt and our passion, to build the connections that bind people together rather than tear us apart.”


Zero Freitas: All Yesterday’s Parties

Gravity, scientists explain, is a function of mass. The more massive an object, the greater the pull it exerts. The same applies to collections: once a certain volume has been attained, their mass increases almost exponentially. Libraries take over entire homes and record collections balloon until they fill acres of warehouses.

Infected with the vinyl-bug, an unassuming Brazilian businessman is quietly buying up all the world’s records – or at least a fair-sized chunk of them. Waving stacks of dollars, his agents buy up the inventories of iconic music stores, mostly bankrupted by MP3s and online streaming.

The three million or so LPs and 45s amassed by Paul Mawhinney, founder of Pittsburgh’s now defunct Record-Rama music emporium, changed hands and departed for Brazil. It took no less than eight semitrailers to dispatch the haul.

The inventories of Colony Records, a New York landmark for 64 years, and Music Man Murray of Los Angeles also ended up in Brazil with José Roberto “Zero” Alves Freitas (1955). The Brazilian doesn’t quite understand what drives him to buy any record that crosses his path. Even four decades of therapy has failed to unearth an explanation.

A successful entrepreneur, Zero Freitas is happy to indulge. He did lose track of the exact number of records he now owns. A conservative guesstimate runs to eight million. Apart from the around 100,000 LPs he keeps at home, a number originally calculated to fall safely within the wife acceptance factor (WAF – a hard upper limit), the records are kept at a 2,500m2 warehouse in São Paulo where a crew of seventeen workers, mostly interns, processes on average 500 LPs per day – inspecting, cleaning, cataloguing each one, never able to catch up.

Mr Freitas’s frenetic record-buying is hard to keep up with, especially since he divorced his first wife in 1997, just as his bus company took off making him a rich man. As two-metre-high jumbo bins covered by tarps and filled with LPs accumulate at his warehouse, the businessman shows no signs of slowing down. He maintains a network of buying agents across the world who scour faraway markets. Mr Freitas’ Man in Havana recently scored a deal comprising some 110,000 records while his US agent managed to buy the unique collection built by Bob Hope (1903-2003) from the comedian’s daughter.

Prodded by a visiting American music archivist to find a use for his collection, Zero Freitas decided to house his records in a purpose-built facility that will be open to the public and boast an online presence. He is now working with the Archive of Contemporary Music in the US, supported by Columbia University and recording artists such as Keith Richards, donating duplicate copies of records and receiving technical archiving assistance in return. Zero Freitas has also started to digitise part of his record collection in order to preserve – and disseminate – rare music.

Angling for an explanation of Mr Freitas’ compulsive record-buying, the best friends and associates can come up with is the loss to flooding of the almost 200 albums that graced and livened-up his childhood home. As an adult, Zero Freitas replaced each one of them, including more than a hundred copies of the first LP he bought in 1964 – Canta para a Juventude by Roberto Carlos, Brazil’s most-loved crooner. It’s an album that can still bring a tear to his eye. Which, of course, explains the need to keep a few extra copies.


Sallie Krawcheck: The Power of Networking

She has been called The Last Honest Analyst and suffered years of sexual harassment before gaining recognition as one of Wall Street brightest operators. Sallie Krawcheck has paid her dues and shattered a succession of glass ceilings to become one of the most admired thought leaders of the financial world.

Starting her career at Sanford C Bernstein, a sell-side research firm in New York, Mrs Krawcheck moved up the corporate ladder at Citigroup where she was put in charge of the severely troubled private banking division.

Though Mrs Krawcheck managed to restore the division’s tainted corporate culture to acceptable standards of fiduciary decency, she clashed with group CEO Vikram Pandit over the bank’s responsibility to clients for the miss-selling of dubious investments. Whereas Mrs Krawcheck wanted to see duped clients reimbursed for their losses, Mr Pandit argued that Citigroup had no legal obligation to do so. He won.

Hired by Bank of America a few months after her departure from Citigroup, Mrs Krawcheck was again asked to troubleshoot a failing department.

Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch in 2009 – at the height of the banking crisis – proved a less than fortunate affair. Just as Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis had suspected as he tried – and failed – to stop the acquisition from going through, Merrill Lynch appeared in far worse financial condition than previously known. Its wealth management arm in particular was hampered by poor performance. It took Mrs Krawcheck just two years to turn things around and produce a $3.1bn profit.

However, life can be cruel even to the brightest. A major corporate restructuring exercise – street talk for a round of cutbacks – suddenly left Sallie Krawcheck without a position. She did get a $6m severance package just before being shown the exit.

As one door closed, another one opened. In 2013, Mrs Krawcheck set up Ellevate Network, a community of professional women and a platform that encourages its members to reach out invest in career development beyond the now stale diversity agenda. Ellevate also advises private businesses that want to close the gender achievement gap by offering employees access to an enabling community.

Mrs Krawcheck also founded the Ellevest investment platform for women that factors in a range of distinct gender parameters such as longer lifespans, career breaks, pay gaps, and risk adversity. The fight for gender parity does not imply a unisex approach to investing. Noting that 86% of investment advisors are men, Ellevest argues that the industry is tilted towards serving the best interests of male salaries, career development, life objectives, and investments horizons. Though initially small, the differences add up to significant amounts once a three to five year longer lifespan has been factored in.

Interestingly, Ellevest does not try and beat the overall market; rather, it seeks to attain a pre-set goal regardless of market conditions. This approach may dampen returns during boom times but, thanks to build-in resiliency, performs well in bear markets.

Mrs Krawcheck is a passionate advocate for gender-specific investing and has become a regular contributor to online news sites such as The Huffington Post. News and opinion website The Daily Beast gave her the ultimate accolade – “a rare honest voice on Wall Street”. She is frequently invited to dispense thoughts on CNBC and was named a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum which she still attends almost every year in order to network – the single most powerful tool for career development.


Michael Lewis: Explaining Human Foibles

Few writers can match Michael Lewis’ uncanny sense for capturing, and explaining, the zeitgeist. After detailing the inner workings of capital markets and showing how they appear rigged for failure, the US author has turned his attention to behavioural economics – a pursuit as much science as art that rarely grabs headlines yet shapes our world.

The Undoing Project, published late last year to almost universal acclaim, tells the story of the Israeli academic double act Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, two psychologists who worked on heuristics – the simple standardised processes people use to reach decisions and make judgments. Amos Tversky, who passed way in 1996, put it much more succinctly: “We study natural stupidity, not artificial intelligence.”

Obeying the Law of Small Numbers, most people routinely extrapolate conclusions from occurrences that are merely incidental. In its most basic form, this judgmental bias for example assumes that after three successive heads, a coin is most likely to come up tails the next time it is flipped.

Unable and unwilling to live with uncertainty, people since the dawn of time have looked for patterns in random events, trying to detect trends and projecting these into the future. Tversky and Kahneman point out that most of the rules people live by are based on limited experience – the sample pool used is too small to justify firm conclusions. As a result, personal rules often ignore logic and probability. Decisions are then made on the basis of emotions; not a carefully weighed analysis of data. Or, as Daniel Kahneman surmised: “People need a story to reach a decision, not a reason.”

Applied to economics, behavioural psychology offers a welcome explanation for the baffling ups and downs of markets and the apparently counterintuitive actions of its players. Michael Lewis (57) vividly describes Tversky and Kahneman’s most important finding: under conditions of uncertainty, people’s behaviour consistently contradicts the Utility Theory – a fundamental assumption in economics which simply states that decision-makers are motivated to act in their own self-interest.

This seemingly trivial observation constitutes the story behind the story of how markets actually fail and will keep doing so in boom and bust cycles triggered by emotion rather than fact. Michael Lewis shows that whilst the market itself bears little blame, its participants do so all the more.

The Undoing Project complements, and expands on, Freakonomics – the 2005 bestseller by University of Chicago Economics Professor Steven Levitt and New York Times writer Stephen Dubner that demystifies economic and social theory by exposing in an often hilarious way the misuse of statistics and chance. Scientists may scoff at the reductionist approach, but is it indeed mere coincidence that US crime levels dropped sharply precisely seventeen years after abortion was legalised?

What makes Michael Lewis unique amongst economics writers is his ability to distil highly complex issues to their bare essentials, in the process separating fact from spin and uncovering true intent. As the financial universe that underpins modern life becomes ever more complex – and somehow declines to draw lessons from past mistakes – its goings on need constant exposure if “the rest of us” is to understand what “they” – the bankers et al – are up to.

Or, is this all perhaps a self-defeating pursuit, an exercise in futility, since humans seem genetically hard-wired to reject – albeit subconsciously – logic and reason as guiding principles. Financiers may be disliked for causing a crisis every now and again, in the main they perform rather well. It’s just that bankers, much like everyone else, suffer from emotions and judgmental bias which clouds their vision and distorts their decision-making processes. Bankers are human after all.

Algorithms have of course no such qualms and quirks. Then again, machine trading as pioneered by Mr Lewis’ Flash Boys hardly seems the answer, introducing a new set of deplorable ills. Maybe it’s best to learn and live with it – humanity’s inescapable foibles. Why rebel against inevitability.


Catherine Abel: Stretching the Canvas of Art Deco

A young lady from the Australian outback, determined to become part of the famed Paris art scene, Catherine Abel has managed to shape her world into a refined cubist and neoclassical image reminiscent of Polish-born painter Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) whose immediately recognisable work invokes the daring spirit of the 1920s when flappers and swells scandalised civil society and the established order.

In early 2000, Catherine Abel settled in the French capital and promptly became a regular at The Louvre, absorbing its masterworks by day and retreating – inspired and all – to her apartment to paint the night away. Exceptionally talented and largely self-taught, in Paris Ms Abel retraced the footsteps – and relived the life - of her childhood heroine Tamara de Lempicka who arrived in the French capital a refugee of the Russian Revolution.

Just like Matisse and Picasso before her, Tamara de Lempicka became an assiduous visitor of The Louvre – a fountain of inspiration. She enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse and prided herself on being the first woman to produce clear paintings – a technique that sets precisely depicted figures against a likewise sharp background containing cubist traces.

Just as De Lempicka’s work, stripped of banality, is instantly recognisable, so is Catherine Abel’s expanding oeuvre of sensuous art deco portraits and still lifes. Ms Abel has pushed the boundaries of her predecessor’s work. She has not, however, adopted a similarly hedonistic lifestyle. Where Tamara de Lempicka, driven to success and determined to make her own fortune, revelled in upsetting convention and causing scandal, Ms Abel pursued artistic perfection.

The dedication paid off, although not instantly. The owner of a California art gallery convinced her to leave Paris for the West Coast where, it turned out, money was as tight as the living arrangements – a tiny one bedroom condo that barely offered enough room for a bed and an easel. Yet, the trying conditions – and the fainted pastels of the local art deco environment – brought about a burst of creativity. Not able to afford proper canvas and frames, Catherine Abel used wooden boxes, cardboard scraps, and walls instead.
It was thus that she produced one of her now most admired pieces – Cubist Lilies, finished in 2002. Sadly, the black cotton that supports the painting proved an unstable surface, prompting Catherine Abel to redo and recover her signatory work fourteen years after the original came to life. Gilding the Lily has now been completed adding new depth and sensuality with higher definition and warmer tones, thus documenting the evolution of its artist.

Back in Australia, Catherine Abel divested herself from gallery representation after an unfortunate brush with Sydney art dealers who insisted the artist go light on the cubist element, deemed detrimental to sales. Ms Abel opened her own gallery-annex-studio in Trentham, a small village on the edge of the Wombat Forest, 700 metres up in Victoria’s Central Highlands. A hideout for artists, Trentham welcomed its “living cubist” who now lives above her gallery/studio and sells her work worldwide via the internet. Demand is high and a number of art critics concluded that Ms Abel has managed to improve on Tamara de Lempicka, a conclusion she modestly, but resolutely, rejects.

Noting a markedly increased interest in realistic figurative painting, not quite unlike the New Objectivity that blossomed in the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933, Ms Abel is at the leading edge of a nascent art movement that aims to rescue – or resuscitate – the core values of art deco / art nouveau and expand the boundaries of realism.

Visiting the Florence Academy of Art for a six week course last year, Ms Abel a hauntingly beautiful series of still lifes working with natural light only and using the techniques of past masters to transpose nature in a way that is artistically pleasing whilst rigorously maintaining anatomical accuracy. The true master captures the essence and beauty of simplicity to produce an image that, in turn, locks in the viewer. Catherine Abel is such a master.


Marcus du Sautoy: What We’ll Never Know

He poses questions that may never be answered and argues that the field of human knowledge is finite – confined by seven edges beyond which the truly incomprehensible resides: the nature of time, the source of human consciousness, and other phenomena destined to remain shrouded in mystery.

Mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University is not reluctant to display his own apprehension and confusion in the face of pressing questions. Is here a multiverse? Is an infinite row of odd numbers smaller than one that also includes even numbers? Can a lepton be subdivided into an even smaller particle?

Probing the limits of knowledge often brings Professor Du Sautoy into the realm of philosophy where certainty is usually considered contextual – a conclusion based on the acceptance of common knowledge with the possibility of error – yet necessary for human survival. Doubting every piece of data would (undoubtedly) result in paralysis. “Sitting on the fence is not an option. A belief in an answer one way or the other will have an impact on how we lead our lives,” says Prof Du Sautoy.

It also helps to appreciate and hold on to the “knowns” already unearthed and celebrate the progress made – from the sequencing of the human genome to the unravelling of Fermat’s Last Theorem.

Writing in What We Cannot Know: Explorations at the Edge of Knowledge, the professor argues that the limitations of language, brainpower, and reasoning may hamper humanity’s quest for knowledge. Stuck within a system, mankind cannot conceive of what is outside. Drawing a neat circle, Prof Du Sautoy rather depressingly concludes the obvious: we probably cannot know for sure what it is we cannot know.

Then there is the apparent randomness of the universe as pointed out by quantum physics. As it happens, the gods do play dice. Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), given to philosophy, pointedly remarked: “If quantum physics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it.”

Mathematics, Prof Du Sautoy’s own field and long deemed a bastion of unshakable certainties, turns out to be not that different. Mathematicians have shown that some theorems can be proved but only by calculations that would take the lifetime of the universe to complete. That would constitute a waste of energy since it has also been shown – by Austrian logician Kurt Gödel in the 1930s – that any mathematical system is incomplete. Gödel’s own Incompleteness Theorem ended efforts to find a single set of statement (axioms) to describe all of mathematics – including Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.

Approaching the uncertainties of the unknowable with precision and panache allows Prof Du Sautoy to show that, also in science, the journey matters as much as the ultimate destination – and is much more interesting besides. Since his election to the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science in 2008 – successor to Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and militant atheist – Prof Du Sautoy has been a regular guest on television shows detailing the intricacies of mathematics – putting the fun in math – in a way that keeps even lifelong numberphiles enthralled.

Prof Du Sautoy distils deep meaning from every number. In Bhutan he was asked to dissect the number 108 which in Buddhism represents the number of sense categories. The professor promptly pulled the number apart into its prime divisors (2x2x3x3x3) which, as it happens, dovetails nicely with the sensory experience: five primary senses plus conscience which may be good, bad, or indifferent and can play out in the past, the present, or the future – you do the math.

He also tackled the number 42, central in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the answer to the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” calculated by Deep Thought, a planet-sized supercomputer, over the course of 7.5 million years – eons during which the ultimate question was sadly forgotten, rendering the answer irrelevant. No so for Prof Du Sautoy who promptly linked 42 to the Riemann zeta function which is used in advanced statistics and the analysis of dynamical systems.

A true optimist, Prof Du Sautoy is not easily defeated by the unknowable. He keeps searching for patterns in prime numbers. None has been observed yet and, indeed, none may exist. That fact, which the professor hopes to disprove, for now remains the foundational stone of encryption which derives its strength from a failure to understand the nature of prime numbers. A scientist turns hacker.


Jean-Claude Juncker

Dismissed and ridiculed as a failed small-town administrator with a penchant for fine wines and cognacs, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker represents to some all that is wrong with the European Union: a faceless apparatchik given to bullying people and countries in the name of an ideal not sanctioned by the popular vote.

Laying bare his federalist vision for the post-Brexit era in his annual state of the union speech, Mr Juncker painted a detailed picture of a tightly integrated EU with a vastly expanded Eurozone and a reinvigorated Schengen travel free area. He called upon member states to seize the moment and broaden the reach of the European Union, ignoring nay-sayers. Mr Juncker also insisted Poland, Sweden, Hungary, and other holdouts join the Eurozone before 2025 as they are required to do under the terms of their EU accession.

Whilst the European Commission does not set policy, its president is required to present a coherent vision for the bloc. Besieged by grave problems for years on end – low economic growth, the arrival of immigrants by the millions, failing states, rising nationalism, and trouble along its eastern periphery – the EU seems to have shrugged off these troubling issues.
The union, Mr Juncker argues, has found its groove and is moving along nicely, outpacing the US for economic growth and producing massive surpluses on its trade balance and the wider current account. In fact, only two of its 28 members states – Poland and the UK – remain addicted to running outsized c/a deficits.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, weary of handing additional powers to Brussels, called Mr Juncker “a romantic” and good-humouredly advised him to consult a medical professional for his visions. Mr Juncker’s bold integralist proposals speech received a lukewarm welcome in most European capitals and caused almost universal surprise: the EC president has a formidable reputation for reading the political moment and changing tack accordingly.

Most disconcertingly, Mr Juncker suggested scrapping national vetoes on matters relating to foreign policy, taxation, and social policy. He also hinted at an institutional change, combining the presidencies of the council and commission into a single directly elected public office. Danish prime minister Lars Rasmussen immediately came out swinging, wiping the idea off the table. Former Italian prime minister Mario Monti was more charmed and praised Mr Juncker for steering the commission back to its original role as an engine of integration rather than an engine for dousing out assorted fires.

Something of a polyglot, Mr Juncker usually delivers his speeches switching between German, French, and English, sparing his audience a taste of his native Luxembourgish. He served eighteen years as prime minister of Luxemburg, becoming one of Europe’s longest-lasting heads of government in the process. Mr Juncker is known for speaking his mind and not always observing political niceties. It has earned him more than his fair share of enemies.

Unfolding his vision for a closely integrated Europe, Mr Juncker is enough of a realist to know that the EU moves slowly – torn as it is between opposites. His speech did, however, put the unfortunate plan for a multi-speed union to rest: the EU moves slowly together or it moves not at all. Accustomed to criticism for running ahead of the pack, Mr Juncker has grown a thick skin: though periodically hitting back at the eurosceptics, he usually prefers to ignore his detractors and press on cajoling rebels back in line and charming doubters to his side. Jovial and easy-going, the Luxembourger is an ardent believer in the European project – though perhaps not its most effective advocate.


Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tipped as the conservatives’ answer to Jeremy Corbyn, the aristocratic Jacob Rees-Mogg (48) suddenly appears as one of a dwindling field of contenders for Prime Minister Theresa May’s job. Whilst Mrs May has no intention to step down, her inconsistent performance and near-constant flip-flopping is likely to prove politically fatal before long.

It is quite difficult not to like Jacob Rees-Mogg. The perfect embodiment of all things quintessentially British, unfailingly polite and polished, it goes without saying that Mr Rees-Mogg would rather not see the UK continue its membership of the European Union. Now living his “moggmentum”, Mr Rees-Moggis not seen to covet – much less chase – a position of power, proclaiming satisfaction in his role as Tory backbencher. Though his chances of succeeding Prime Minister May are considered slim – for now – he is touted as the Tory’s secret weapon: the man who may yet be able to apply both style and backbone to the UK government as it tries to secure a moderately advantageous Brexit deal in Brussels – a gentleman’s agreement.

Mr Rees-Mogg, the delightfully eccentric son of an editor of The Times, first entered the politics in the 1997 general election, trying – and failing – to secure the Central Fyfe constituency in Scotland – a seat traditionally held by Labour. He experienced some difficulty in deciphering the heavy local accent, was criticised for taking his nanny along whilst canvassing, and ridiculed for touring the area in a Bentley – a claim he denied, helpfully pointing out that it had been a Mercedes. Mr Rees-Mogg received barely 9% of the vote, ending in third place. Reflecting on the defeat, he concluded, dryly, that “whatever I happened to be speaking about, the number of voters in my favour dropped as soon as I opened my mouth.” His peerless command of the King’s English didn’t help.

Succumbing to the charming Tory predilection for the employ of obscure words in public discourse, Mr Rees-Mogg in 2012 stunned fellow members of parliament with “floccinaucinihilipilification”* (the act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant) during a speech in the House of Commons on the alleged conflicts of interests at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Though the accusation was grave, its presentation proved priceless, instantly deflating any anger Europhiles may have experienced. The tongue twister, pronounced impeccably on the first try, earned Mr Rees-Mogg a place of note in the latest edition of Hansard, the official transcript of parliamentary debates for the longest word – at 29 letters – used during the legislative proceedings.
Whilst not given to social media, Rees-Mogg supporters have set up a number of accounts to create a certain momentum – taking a cue from the expertly run internet campaign that recently propelled Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to unexpected heights. A devout Catholic and opposed to abortion under any and all circumstances, Mr Rees-Mogg may, at first glance, appear the most unlikely of politicians to reconnect the Conservative Party to the young voters it lost with Brexit, ballooning tuition fees, and a host of other policies that accentuate and widen the generational divide.

Yet, his oddness and unwillingness to compromise on his many convictions carry a surprising appeal. “Moggism” includes a disapproval of same-sex marriages, support for zero-hours contracts, and a disinterest in climate change. Mr Rees-Mogg is also less than excited about immigration and would much like to see the Human Rights Act repealed.

Coming from any other politician, ideas such as these might easily be discarded as inconsequential, if not retrograde. Not so with Mr Rees-Mogg who wears them with considerable aplomb and – more importantly – a keen sense for the understated. Refreshingly old-fashioned, Mr Rees-Mogg is no longer the odd man out of a political landscape inhabited by mediocrity and assorted grey mice.

* Floccinaucinihilipilification: Floccus (a wisp) + naucum (a trifle) + nihilum (nothing) + pilus (a hair) + English - fication.


Guy Verhofstadt

He is the one European politician almost all Brits love to hate – and he knows it. Guy Verhofstadt, however, gives as good as he gets and visibly enjoys yanking the chains that tie Brexiteers to their grand project. Throwing insults back and forth across the English Channel / La Manche is probably not the best of ways for furthering mutual understanding – it constitutes, in fact, a rather childish pursuit – but that doesn’t deter Europe’s foremost federalist from speaking his mind. If it were up to the former Belgian prime minister, the United States of Europe would be a fact before the clock strikes midnight – in a non-metaphorical way.

Guy Verhofstadt (64), a member of the European Parliament since 2009 and now its point man on Brexit, believes in Europe with a passion and fervour not usually detected in politics. In 2008, as the global financial crisis unfolded, Mr Verhofstadt published a modest didactic tome – The Way Out of the Crisis: How Europe Can Rescue the World – containing a rather big idea: how the setting up of a fiscal transfer union, complete with Eurobonds and other trimmings, can transform a tired old continent into the antechamber of the future. Outside Flanders, the book was not a bestseller.

Guy Verhofstadt does not believe in testing the waters before jumping in – it is all or nothing. Likewise, his approach to the UK’s imminent departure from the European Union is painted in primary colours – simple yet deceptive. Mr Verhofstadt misses no opportunity to remind the British of their “supreme folly” – implying they should best remain in – only to demand the country’s immediate exit in the next breath, of course not before coughing up a hefty exit fee.

Though it is quite refreshing to see a politician so committed to the often uninspiring EU cause, as of late Mr Verhofstadt is not being very helpful by running far ahead of the troops. His frequent lambasting of those who do not fully agree with him convinces few on the need for speed when it comes to forging an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe.

Whilst most continentals fail to understand the British psyche – and are not particularly interested in finding out either – Mr Verhofstadt seems to take Brexit rather personally. Most of his colleagues in the European Parliament just shrug their shoulders – and perhaps roll their eyes – before moving on to matters deemed more pressing.

Not, Mr Verhofstadt however: he won’t let go. That is a problem, of sorts, as the European Parliament must sanction whatever agreement is reached between the UK and the EU27. Without its benediction, no deal can be implemented. Contrary to popular belief, the parliament has considerable bite and no longer rubber stamps whatever the European Commission presents for its consideration.

Three-time prime minister of Belgium – a notoriously difficult country to lead due to its intractable language divisions – Guy Verhofstadt is a magnificently competent political operator: underestimate him at your peril. Whilst vehemently opposed to granting the UK government any sweeteners, Mr Verhofstadt did surprise many with his proposal to grant all UK citizens EU passports upon request to allow them to benefit from the union’s freedom of movement even after their country’s departure. He has repeatedly called on the European Commission to distinguish between the UK government and British citizens, insisting the latter be not deprived of their privilege to live, work, study, and retire anywhere in the union.


David Davis

He had promised “the battle of the summer”, yet the argument-which-never-was ended seven minutes after it had started with a technical knockout. Before heading off to Brussels for the first round of Brexit talks, David Davis (68) had promised to make the European see reason and conduct parallel negotiations on both the UK’s exit from the union and its future relationship with the bloc.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier was having none of this and doggedly stuck to his initial position – first agree on the terms of the divorce and only then talk about custody arrangements. A few hours after his arrival in Brussels, Mr David – secretary of state for Exiting the European Union – was already on his way back to London, leaving his reportedly inexperienced and ill-prepared team to fend for itself.

A hands-off kind of guy with the reputation of a streetfighter – not afraid to employ the political equivalents of knuckledusters and Birmingham-style peaky blinders – David Davis has grown into the job, toning down the rhetoric a few notches, embracing a modicum of reason, and doing his homework.

In the hectic days following his appointment, Mr Davis caused wide consternation by publicly failing to grasp the difference between common market and customs union. He also experienced difficulty in distinguishing the European Council from the European Commission. Mr Davis also didn’t score any points when he stated, rather rashly, that he’d be touring European capitals to negotiate an advantageous deal for his country by negotiating with two individual member states – playing out one against the other – rather than sitting down with the commission – the bloc’s executive organ.

Nothing of the sort came to pass and Mr Davis was quickly brought up to speed on all matters European. However, Mr Davis is still reluctant to stay in Brussels any longer than civility demands. He doesn’t get on particularly well with EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier – the two have clashed frequently – driving the rather stiff and formal Frenchman repeatedly to despair over his ill-disguised disdain for detail and procedure. Though mostly unfolding behind closed doors, this friction has caused significant delays. Mr Barnier, visibly exasperated, accused his British counterpart of not being prepared to deal with the minutiae of the exit proceedings.

Saddled with the near-impossible, and certainly thankless, task of ushering the UK out of the European construct without sustaining too much damage, Mr Davis was brought back from retirement for a last hurray. A former home secretary and chairman of the Conservative Party, David Davis proved a natural fit to the forwards-thinking cabinet Prime Minister Theresa May tried to form as she moved into power last year.

Though that cabinet failed to materialise, Mr Davis has spent his entire political life in the slightly less conservative wing of the Tory party. A libertarian at heart, he vehemently opposed plans to introduce identity cards, though he did voice support for the reintroduction of the death penalty – a big no-no in the European Union which demands that its member states ban capital punishment, no exceptions allowed. More plausibly, Mr Davis has campaigned extensively on civil liberty issues, battling government overreach and praising the European Court of Justice for its hard line stance on the preservation of privacy vis-à-vis big data.

Mr Davis also repeatedly drew attention to the UK’s complicity in the extraordinary renditions programme maintained by the US government at the height of its fight against faith-inspired terror – i.e. the outsourcing of torture – and attempts to silence its victims.

A thoroughly decent and frank politician, and now the UK’s trouble shooter-in-chief, Mr Davis is slowly being side lined as negotiations in Brussels stall and Prime Minister May searches for ways to avoid a total breakdown. Mr Davis’ present troubles are, paradoxically, of his own making – though he is not to blame: gaining a degree of appreciation for the EU and its uses he did not have before, Mr Davis shows signs of backing away from the head-on collision he advocated initially. That makes him a traitor to the increasingly vociferous grouping of hard core Brexit Tories who will not hesitate to pounce at the first sign of reasoned compromise. Displaying common sense does not increase David Davis’ job security.


Michel Barnier

His job requires the patience of a saint – and an ability to repeat the message ad nauseam. Michel Barnier (66), the European Union’s chief negotiator in charge of ushering the UK out of the bloc as per its own request, has the unenviable task of telling – and convincing – his British counterpart that the 27 remaining member states are in no mood to grant additional opt-outs or accommodate special requests.

Burdened by a strictly delineated mandate and not permitted to entertain even the tiniest of deviations, Mr Barnier has precious little wiggle room to offer David Davis, his UK counterpart. Appointed for his formidable skills and long experience in negotiating trade deals, Michel Barnier has so far managed to retain his dignity, only sporadically allowing his frustration to rise to the surface.

The former commissioner for Internal Market and Services (2010-2014) is well-versed in financial regulation. At the European Commission he helped introduce and implement more than forty European laws aimed at tightening up the regulatory framework that governs banks and financial markets in the wake of the 2007-2011 Great Recession. Mr Barnier advocated to cap banker bonuses and limit the short selling of shares.

Mr Barnier landed in Brussels after a career spanning almost three decades in French politics during which he held a number of ministerial posts – Environment, European Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Agriculture. He reportedly possesses the most comprehensive rolodex of any EU top official with high-level contacts in all of Europe’s 28 capital cities.

Mr Barnier is not universally liked, though – in France some of his opponents dubbed him “The Cretin of the Alps” for the single-mindedness unfailingly displayed when in pursuit of an objective. The dig refers to his Savoy roots and the brain damage suffered by the valley’s inhabitants in the 18th century due to a prolonged iodine deficiency.

A self-described anglophile, Michel Barnier has repeatedly deplored the UK’s decision to exit the European Union – an edifice London helped erect. Paradoxically, Mr Barnier’s well-documented love of all things British causes him to severely dislike the Tory Eurosceptics who pushed the country towards Brexit peddling half-truths and outright lies.

Mr Barnier often lets go of his diplomatic skills when confronted with the pick-and-chose approach towards the EU favoured by some. During a 2013 visit to London, he accused the UK government of selectively implementing the new financial rules, issuing a warning that now sounds ominous: “Repatriating powers [from Brussels to the UK] over financial services would mean leaving the single market and de facto the EU.”
Mr Barnier clashed repeatedly with then-Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne over EU-mandated caps on the bonuses paid to bankers, blaming their fast and loose attitude to financial rules for causing the Great Recession. A technocrat with a flair for politics, Mr Barnier knows how to score points by playing his audience.

Though a dealmaker at heart, Mr Barnier time and again insists that the European Union is not interested in pursuing any agreement that enables the UK to enjoy the full benefits of EU membership – unfettered access to its internal market – without also accepting aspects deemed less desirable such as the freedom of movement. Sticking to his guns, the French diplomat insists that the talks in Brussels progress according to the EU’s schedule and remain limited to a few essential topics: the status of EU citizens in the UK, the border between Ireland (a member state) and Northern Ireland (part of the UK), and the financial settlement.

Though Team Britain keeps asking for the EU to deliver the moon, it does raise a valid point when complaining about Mr Barnier’s rather unbendable attitude. What the UK has thus far failed to realise is that the negotiations in Brussels are not at all meant to produce a compromise. Mr Barnier is not looking for the middle ground; he is merely setting down the facts. There is only one Brexit and that sees the UK exiting the European Union and becoming a third country, albeit a friendly one.


Boris Johnson

Former mayor of London Boris Johnson (53), burning with ambition to seize the moment and make Britain great again, still has his eyes set on replacing Theresa May in Number 10. Jockeying for power in the chaotic days following last year’s Brexit vote saw him openly betrayed by fellow conservative Michael Gove who launched his own bid for No 10 at the eleventh hour, adding to the confusion and clearing the way for Mrs May to grab the reins of government. Mr Johnson was given the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) as a consolation prize – a classic example of keeping your enemies closer.

That may have been the last politically astute move by Theresa May. Ever since, the going has been downhill for the prime minister who has proved singularly unable to quell infighting amongst cabinet members and produce a coherent policy for dealing with the referendum outcome other than repeating the hollow Brexit Means Brexit mantra.

Boris Johnson can, however, be counted on to regularly provide a lighter note. The man is many things, dull he is not. At the FCO and to the horror of its many seasoned diplomats, he set the tone of the debate by insisting that Great Britain can have its cake and eat it too, meaning that the country’s policy objective is to exit the European Union without losing access to its good bits such as unfettered access to the single market. Understandably, Brussels was not impressed. Not one to take a hint or be stopped from barging across red lines, Mr Johnson then told the EU to “go whistle” as the bloc asked the UK to honour its financial commitments – a yet-to-be-determined sum anywhere between €30bn to €60bn.

Unsurprisingly, Mr Johnson was gently steered away from any direct dealings with the European Union, dispatched to faraway places where his wisecracks – it was hoped – would do less harm. Positively disliked on the continent, Mr Johnson remains quite popular at home. There is no denying his charisma and wit, misguided though the latter may often be. He is also a cunning politician and, as such, an opportunist at heart – forever ready to latch his wagon to the winning team. In the runup to the 2016 Brexit referendum, and sensing the leavers would have it, he kept the nation in suspense before, at the very last moment, coming out on the Brexit side of the debate.

Invariable described as a toff, clown, narcissist, and habitual liar by those whom he failed to charm, Mr Johnson does not fit any mould – he is a one-off and doesn’t do stereotypes. Former Lib-Dem frontman Nick Clegg described him, rather aptly, as “Donald Trump with a thesaurus”.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, otherwise known as the Torygraph, columnist Daniel Hannan concluded that Mr Johnson’s irrepressible cheerfulness was the single-most important cause of the severe dislike he inspires amongst continentals. Mr Hannan has a point: when Boris Johnson, with his larger-than-life persona and not known for pulling a sour face, excitedly talks and writes about the many joys Brexit will deliver the home front smiles whilst diplomats in Brussels turn blue with repressed anger.

Famous for promising a Brexit windfall of £350m per week, to be delivered to the National health Service, Boris Johnson cannot be bothered to check the facts – he flatly refuses to be bored by details. An early adopter of alt-truths, Mr Johnson in his previous guise as a journalist was sacked from The Times for pulling quotes out of thin air. Moving over to The Daily Telegraph, he was appointed the paper’s correspondent in Brussels where he continued, rather merrily, to make up stories that discredited the EU, prompting The Guardian’s John Palmer to brand him “thoroughly irresponsible journalist.” However, readers couldn’t get enough of it – and continue to do so notwithstanding the twisted truths and distorted realities presented.

Deeply unsatisfied with the government’s pussyfooted approach to Brexit, Mr Johnson in mid-September again struck home, publishing a 4,200-word essay in The Daily Telegraph meant as an opening salvo of a renewed bit to weaken, if not oust, Prime Minister May. Setting himself up as the only viable alternative to Mrs May should she pawn the table silver to Brussels in an attempt to mollify the continentals, Mr Johnson and his “glorious Brexit” stand ready to deliver a remake of Great Britain’s Finest Hour.


Otaviano Canuto, World Bank: The Metamorphosis of Financial Globalisation

[caption id="attachment_11391" align="alignright" width="138"] Author: Otaviano Canuto[/caption]

After a strong rising tide starting in the 1990s, financial globalisation seems to have reached a plateau since the global financial crisis. However, that apparent stability has taken place along a deep reshaping of cross-border financial flows, featuring de-banking and an increasing weight of non-banking financial cross-border transactions. Sources of potential instability and long-term funding challenges have morphed accordingly.

Financial globalisation – as measured by the ratio of the stock of foreign assets to world GDP – seems to have reached a plateau since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) (see figure 1). Post-2007 ratios seem to have been the apparent “peak” of a high wave of financial globalisation rising from the mid-1990s, which likewise saw external financial assets and liabilities soaring and degrees of financial openness reaching levels triple the ones of before World War II.

Along with the deceleration of the pace of rise of stocks relative to world GDP, a change of composition in flows has taken place, as also depicted in figure 1. Whilst total cross-border lending decreased as a proportion of GDP, the stable level of global ratios of foreign liabilities to GDP occurred because of increased flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), equity portfolio and debt securities. Such aggregate figures, however, gloss over some relevant features in detail.

Financial Globalisation Has Mainly Happened Amongst Advanced Economies

Rising cross-border movements of financial assets from the mid-1990s has been remarkable among advanced economies (AEs). Levels of financial openness (the sum of foreign assets and liabilities as a proportion of GDP) relative to trade openness (the sum of exports and imports as a proportion of GDP) were similar on both groups of advanced and emerging market economies (EMEs) until mid-1980s but shifted upward in the former’s case, rising rapidly particularly since mid-1990s (figure 2, left side). According to data presented in the latest annual report of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), cross-border financial assets and liabilities went from 135% to above 570% of GDP since mid-1990s for AEs, whereas they moved from approximately 100% to 180% of GDP on the side of EMEs.

""The transformation of global finance has not suppressed the need for policies to monitor and cope with risks."

In general, two major processes lead to rising cross-border financial transactions. First, there is a mutually reinforcing association with increases in foreign trade and production. Even if foreign trade corresponds simply to movements of commodities and finished goods, basic international financial links – e.g. trade finance and cross-border payments - are pulled on. Such a connection only increases with the emergence of cross-border value chains and foreign investment of corporations abroad, which lead to acquisition of assets and liabilities and corresponding management of exposures.

In addition to financial operations derived from trade and production relations, the active management of balance sheet positions may also lead to cross-border financial transactions as part of the processes of allocation and diversification of savings. As remarked by the BIS, such purely financial processes bring some “decoupling between real and financial openness”.

[caption id="attachment_11907" align="aligncenter" width="591"] Figure 1: Stock of foreign investment liabilities (US$ trillion, annual nominal exchange rates)
Source: McKinsey Global Institute, The New Dynamics of Financial Globalization, August 2017[/caption]

Financial liberalisation and sophisticated banking and financial markets in AEs created conditions for a surge of foreign transactions of assets as illustrated in both figures 1 and 2 (left-side). Financial openness also rose faster than trade openness in EMEs, albeit at a much slower pace.

It is worth highlighting the changes in the composition of EMEs gross liabilities, with declines in foreign debt being more than compensated by portfolio equity and foreign direct investments – FDI (right-side, figure 2). The global rising share of non-lending financial transactions exhibited in figure 1 was particularly accentuated in the case of EMEs.
European banks have been at the core of both surge and pause of the wave of financial globalization since the 1990s.

Figure 3 (left-side) shows the substantial piling up of European banks’ foreign claims in the run up to the GFC, followed by an also substantial retrenchment. The right side illustrates how some banks outside Europe have partially occupied the space left by their European counterparts.

Lending by European banks was behind two of the major contributing factors to the rising wave of financial globalisation. First, the inauguration of the euro, followed by markets initially converging their assessments of risk premiums across the zone downward toward German levels, boosted cross-border transactions. According to the BIS annual report released last July:

“Between 2001 and 2007, 23 percentage points of the increase of the ratio of advanced economies’ external liabilities to GDP was due to intra-euro area financial transactions and another 14 percentage points to non-euro area countries’ financial claims on the area.”

Furthermore, European banks also played an active role in the asset bubble-blowing process in the U.S. financial system. As tackled in studies by Hyun Song Shin, Claudio Borio, and others, European banks used US wholesale funding markets to sustain exposures to US borrowers through the shadow banking system. Despite their small presence in the domestic US commercial banking sector, their weight on overall credit conditions was magnified through the shadow banking system in the United States that relies on capital market-based financial intermediaries which intermediate funds through securitisation of claims.

[caption id="attachment_11908" align="aligncenter" width="596"] Figure 2: Emerging market economies vs. advanced economies. Source: BIS 87th Annual Report, June 2017.
Left: Ratio of financial openness to trade openness. Right: Gross external liabilities of emerging market economies (% of GDP).[/caption]

From the standpoint of the balance of payments between the US and Europe, those transactions netted out. Nonetheless, from an accounting sense they represented short-term borrowing combined with long-term lending by European banks, with a corresponding double counting as cross-border financial transactions.

The retrenchment of European banks’ foreign claims followed both the US asset-bubble burst starting in 2007 and the Eurozone crisis 2009 onward. Besides business-driven reasons – losses, decisions to deleverage balance sheets – tighter banking regulation and the orientation toward domestic assets assumed by post-crisis unconventional monetary policies also weighed. These factors have also led to deleveraging, balance-sheet shrinking, and domestic reorientation by banks in the other crisis-affected AEs. Although some banks from outside the latter have expanded their foreign lending, levels of global financial openness have been maintained thanks to growing flows of non-lending instruments (debt securities, portfolio equity, and FDI).

The apparently higher stability of global finance may conceal other fragilities. As highlighted by a recent report from McKinsey Global Institute, some features of “the new dynamics of financial globalization” may embed in it higher stability. Higher capital buffers and minimum amounts of liquid assets have reduced the weight of bank lending and the intrinsic features of mismatch and volatility of banks’ balance sheets. The higher share of equity and FDI, in turn, may carry longer-term return horizons and closer alignment of risks between asset purchasers and originators. The unwinding of debt-financed huge current-account imbalances characteristic of the global economy in the run-up to the GFC has also contributed to such a view of global finance entering a less unstable phase.

[caption id="attachment_11909" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Figure 3: Changes in foreign claims: European vs. non-European banks.
Left: Foreign claims – US$ trillion (annual nominal exchange rates). Right: Share of foreign assets in total assets (%) – a sample of large banks outside Europe. Source: McKinsey Global Institute, The New Dynamics of Financial Globalization, August 2017.[/caption]

However, flows of FDI partially correspond to disguised debt flows and/or transfers motivated by tax arbitrage or regulatory evasion. Cross-border debt flows – including securities – in turn, are also sensitive to global factors, besides carrying a high sensitivity to and procyclicality with respect to monetary-financial conditions in either source and/or destination countries.

There are also “blind spots” left by de-banking hitherto not pre-empted by non-banking financial transactions. For instance, cross-border de-risking by global banks has entailed closure of correspondent banking relations in many countries in which the paucity of alternatives has led to negative consequences to the local financial dynamics. By the same token, the arms-length distance between asset holders and liability issuers intrinsic to debt securities and portfolio equity, in the absence of the project-finance role played in the past by international investment banks, often constrains the cross-border financing of greenfield investment projects to FDI possibilities.

It is also worth referring to the potential transformative impact – and corresponding need for regulatory adaptation – on cross-border finance brought by digital technologies. We may well be on the brink of an additional metamorphosis of global finance and the instability that may come with it.

Bottom Line

The transformation of global finance has not suppressed the need for policies to monitor and cope with risks. On the side of recipients of net capital inflows, domestic agendas of institutional strengthening to reinforce alignment of risks between investors and countries, together with regulatory vigilance against excess financial euphoria or depression remain necessary. The bar in terms of domestic institutional quality – corporate governance standards, business environment – has been raised in the new phase of global finance.

About the Author

Otaviano Canuto is an executive director at the World Bank.

All opinions expressed here are his own and do not represent those of the World Bank or of those governments Mr Canuto represents at its board.


CFI.co Meets the Managing Director of Herald Land: Bob Clarke

With a long history in successful real estate, and a real passion for working with the Arab countries, Bob Clarke leads the expert team at Herald Land as managing director.

Mr Clarke is responsible for overseeing and planning the future direction and strategies for Herald Land.

Over the course of years, Mr Clarke has thrived in his field of expertise: he likes to think outside the box, find creative solutions, catch hold of opportunities, and develop his skill sets. He believes in working in an atmosphere that is rich in positivity and energy. Such an atmosphere is necessary for a business to develop.

Taking in account calculated risks and bringing into light new opportunities for the company are his strong pursuits. “I feel highly privileged to lead a team of multinational employees at Herald Land with a great skill set and ample experience in the field of real estate. As managing director of Herald Land, I believe the success of the company is all about teamwork. I put a great amount of effort in team building and management, and in meeting or exceeding corporate objectives. Herald Land consistently features high on the leading list of real estate market leads in the GCC. From our early beginnings as a ‘land company’ we have grown into one of the leading suppliers of UK property investment opportunities.”

“The decision to concentrate purely on UK investments means all of our staff are professionally trained to the highest degree. We are proud to be the Middle East’s number one provider of UK real estate investments. Herald Land only acquires projects that are best suited for its clients. The team focuses on providing maximum value and delivering quality services. We definitely are the market leaders in what we do and our loyal customer base proves that.”

Established in 2009, Herald Land Real Estate Brokers is based in Dubai and grounded on several key values. Herald Land is the only British managed and British owned company (part owned) selling UK land in the GCC.

At Herald Land, all staff members are trained in the UK and are specialists in its property market and laws. The firm does not market and sell in other countries – it is a specialist in only in one. Herald Land only sells UK Investments and is, as such, the leading supplier of UK investment land in the GCC.
Herald Land’s main mission lies in making strategic investments around the UK available to individual investors allowing them to gain the rewards whether it is through the natural growth cycle of land in expanding areas or a boom in the hotspots of the UK residential or commercial property sector.


CFI.co Meets the CEO and Chairman of FFA Private Bank: Jean Riachi

[caption id="attachment_11925" align="alignright" width="318"] Jean Riachi[/caption]

How would you describe your upbringing and career path?

I was born and raised in Lebanon but I left the country during the civil war to study in Paris. In 1985, I graduated from HEC (Paris) with an MSc in Management (Major in Finance) and started my career with Vivendi (formerly known as CGE) in Paris as an assistant to the head of Treasury. Later, in 1988, I joined the Duménil-Leblé Bank as head of Money and Bond Markets. From 1990 to 1993, I was part of the small team who started La Banque du Louvre, a private bank eventually acquired by HSBC Group.

In 1993, going back to my home country became an obsession. Moreover, I always dreamed about being an entrepreneur; by founding FFA in Lebanon, I made both dreams come true. The company started with one million US dollars: my own money plus two of the three “Fs” – family and friends. Most people thought I was the third “F”: the fool who had left behind a promising career for a crazy venture in an unstable country.

I founded FFA in 1994 as a brokerage firm and transformed it throughout the years from a financial institution into a leading specialised bank offering a full range of private banking and investment banking services in Lebanon.

How could a small brokerage in Lebanon become a leading regional private bank?

Since it was established, back in 1994, and in spite of years of very highly volatile political and economic environments, locally, regionally, and internationally, FFA Private Bank Group has witnessed continuous growth in its client base and activity. FFA has become a leader in private banking and corporate and investment banking in the MENA region, covering areas such as capital markets, asset management, real estate development management, corporate and investment banking, and online training in addition to a wide range of additional banking and advisory services to cater to all its clients’ needs. All these developments and the bank’s steady growth could not have occurred without strong standards and discipline. In a relatively short number of years, FFA Private Bank pursued a path in which it uses foresight to face challenges and seize opportunities at the right time and with the right skills and resources to ensure long term growth.

This could have been achieved only by investing in cutting edge technology and by recruiting the finest professionals who feel that their role contributes directly to the group’s success. As the group’s CEO, I insist on them sharing my desire to put the client first and realise that the bank’s very reason for being is to serve clients intelligently and professionally. As such, skills and talents are not merely enough. FFA Private Bank is in continuous search for people who are committed to the highest standards, have an understanding of ethics, and a dedication for principles.

What is your approach to corporate governance, risk and compliance?

I am an entrepreneur but I believe that banking is first and foremost about managing all kind of risks. Operating from Dubai (DIFC) as well as from Beirut, FFA Private Bank has achieved this expansion without compromising the bank’s conservative approach to management. As a certified director from INSEAD’s IDP program, I believe in adequate corporate governance practices and that strict compliance with local and international rules and regulations have to be an integral part of the bank’s culture. Moreover, our focus on risk management, control, and compliance gave the bank a cutting edge advantage over its peers, especially during the financial crisis years. They represent key pillars in safeguarding the bank’s assets as well as the interests of its clients.


CFI.co Meets the CEO of Delen Private Bank: Paul De Winter

Delen Private Bank is specialised in asset management for private clients. With over €29 billion in assets under management, the bank is one of the largest independent private banks in Belgium. Paul De Winter, who joined the bank in 1990, is CEO of Delen Private Bank since 2014.

Delen Private Bank has consistently proved its worth during difficult periods. The stability, caution, and the strong risk management measures put in place proved a major draw during the banking crisis. “Our policy of prudence and our long-term view provided our customers with security in turbulent periods, with great results,” said Paul De Winter.

The challenge today – in a more positive market – is to keep pace with market growth. The centralised management model guarantees that the influx of new clients can be accommodated smoothly; it also consistently delivers the best solution, tailor-made to suit the client’s profile.

Advanced IT: Formula for Success

Enhancing the efficiency of processes has always been the main challenge for Paul De Winter and has been one of the keys to Delen Private Bank’s success right from the outset. Performance through automation, in other words. “The IT system we developed in-house is our pride and joy,” according to Paul De Winter: “A powerful system with strong content that can be easily accessed by clients and also enables real-time discussion of the portfolio during client contacts.”

Transparency at the clients’ fingertips. This advanced and fully integrated automation also enables Delen Private Bank to respond swiftly to changing regulations and fluctuating economic conditions. But by no means does it end there: the in-house IT team is hard at work to further expand the platform, with a view to broadening the services the bank provides and maximising security.

Proximity Fosters Growth and Trust

“Delen Private Bank always puts the relationship with the client first, and so investing in the local offices is a strategic priority for us. We use renovation and innovative architecture to create stylish spaces in order to guarantee maximum proximity for all clients. Every regional office exudes that typical Delen feeling – a stylish sense of home. After all, it is our ambition to meet all our clients once a year in comfortable surroundings. Stepping inside Delen Private Bank should in no way be a threshold. We will listen to any question concerning asset management and offer an appropriate solution for every profile.” states Paul De Winter.

Continuity and Rejuvenation

“For Delen Private Bank the future mainly means continuity and steady growth based on a healthy and balanced ambition. This growth will mainly come from the regional offices. The main challenge lies in training new staff and passing on our own family values. And so we are investing heavily in young people who can appreciate the Delen culture and are thus able to grow in the relationship of trust with our clients,” says Paul De Winter. i


CFI.co Meets the CEO of Raiffeisen Centrobank: Wilhelm Celeda

Being part of Raiffeisen Centrobank (RCB) more than twenty years, Wilhelm Celeda knows best what his company stands for: “RCB offers best in class services for the entire spectrum of services and products around equities, derivatives, and equity capital transactions and has yielded an excellent reputation as pioneer and market leader in the field of structured products. In the frame of our high-end and comprehensive approach towards customer-servicing, we are striving towards a sustainable development of our business areas in our core markets Austria, CEE and Turkey.”

Raiffeisen Centrobank is the largest Austrian issuer of certificates and an important player on the CEE markets. “Our Structured Products team holds a pioneering position and is reckoned as innovation leader in its business segment. In the past years we have received numerous awards which we see as acknowledgment but also as an assignment to maintain our high product quality.”

With approximately 8,000 investment and leverage products, Raiffeisen Centrobank provides an interesting and comprehensive product range, with a focus on transparency and product clarity.

“Structured products offer very attractive investment possibilities – especially as the interest rates are currently at a very low level. Particularly guarantee products or bonus certificates can deliver higher yields while you can still benefit from a safety puffer in relation to direct investments,” summarises Wilhelm Celeda: “These are key benefits for investors that are new to this product category.”

Being a 100% subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International AG enables RCB to benefit from a banking network in fourteen countries that acts as a distribution partner for the structured products. It also offers an outstanding placing capability that is relevant for RCB’s second main business area: RCB covers all services along the equity value chain.

“Our customers are large caps, who we assist in financing their growth plans on the capital market, as well as midcaps who wish to take advantage of the opportunities available on the capital market.” explains Mr Celeda.

RCB’s linking function between corporates and potential Investors is manifested in roadshows throughout numerous countries. Mr Celeda knows that especially the regional focus within the CEE markets is appreciated by his clients: “Our employees have a strong relation to our core markets. We know the particularities of the individual markets, speak the local language, and benefit from the presence of our banking group in all relevant financial markets in emerging Europe.”

Equally important to succeed in this business area is a high quality and experienced company research. A total of 25 analysts, both in Vienna and in other countries, cover over 135 stocks, with a particular focus being set on basic materials, banks, utilities, telecom, real estate, consumer goods, and industrials. “During the past years our research team expanded continuously its portfolio and shifted its focus from covering merely Austria to include the entire CEE region. Our analysts are from different nations and provide our customers with local expertise against an international backdrop. Attesting to this expertise, the team won several international awards.”


CFI.co Meets the Chief Commercial Officer of First Names Group: Kevin O’Connell

Aleading independent provider of trust, corporate, fund and real estate services, First Names Group is above all else a people business. Kevin O’Connell, the Group’s chief commercial officer, says that “our belief in the value of our people-centric approach is evident not only in our name but also our vision statement – we believe our people focused Group will deliver superior client service.”

It’s a vision that arose out of the research conducted by a specialist agency prior to the business rebranding to First Names Group following an MBO in July 2012. The research was comprehensive and involved interviews with members of staff, clients, and advisers. The Group subsequently reframed its approach to service delivery around its key strength – people – and it has never looked back.

Five years on, First Names Group has grown from seven to fourteen jurisdictions and from over 250 people to over 800 “First Names”. Along the way, it has expanded into new sectors, such as the fund administration space with its acquisition of Moore Management in 2013; grown its real estate expertise; and branched out into the alternative assets space with senior hires with expertise in superyachts, aviation, and classic cars. It has also garnered significant industry recognition with 36 awards, the latest being the CFI.co’s Best Cross-Border Fiduciary Services Team Channel Islands 2017.

As Kevin explains, “we were delighted to receive the CFI.co award, especially as it recognises the multi-jurisdictional aspect of our service offering”. He goes on to say, “we have a global client base so we ensure that our teams are similarly multi-jurisdictional in nature. We encourage our people to share their experience and pool their knowledge, drawing from an extensive, integrated platform of expertise and processes spread among fourteen key strategic locations. Moreover, our presence in and knowledge of the regulatory landscape in so many of the world’s key financial jurisdictions mean we can respond to the varied and specific needs of our clients, either directly or via their trusted advisers.”

This focus on its people means that the Group invests heavily in the professional and personal development of its First Names. It has always supported a blended learning programme of internal and external training, and in the last twelve months the Group has also introduced a bespoke development programme called Ascent 2020. This experiential programme encourages participants to guide their own development in an innovative, active way. “It’s proved to be an excellent channel for bringing people together from across the Group and enhancing the cross jurisdictional communication that is a vital component in any business that truly offers services and solutions across multiple jurisdictions,” states Kevin.

The Group’s commitment to developing the skills of its people is also key to maintaining a director led approach to client relationships. True to its people focused culture, the Group recognises that the loyalty of its clients is retained primarily by the long term relationships that its experienced professionals forge with clients. According to Kevin, “we pride ourselves on building lasting relationships based on a deep understanding of our clients’ priorities. Our director-led teams are structured around each client, matching expertise with requirements to ensure we’re both responsive and efficient.”

Having hit upon a winning formula, Kevin and his colleagues in the leadership team are in no doubt that the Group will stay true to its belief in the power of its people to propel the business to further success. “After all, when a client recently stated that ‘you’re not just First Names, you’re first class’, we’re clearly doing something right,” concludes Kevin.


CFI.co Meets the Founding CEO & MD of The Access Bank UK: Jamie Simmonds

Jamie Simmonds is the founding CEO and Managing Director of The Access Bank UK. He is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, a Certified Financial Adviser and a member of the Association of Foreign Banks. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School Executive Management Programme. Prior to joining The Access Bank UK Mr Simmonds held a series of Director roles for National Westminster, Coutts, Royal Bank of Scotland, Gerrards and Close Brothers.

The Access Bank UK Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Access Bank Plc, a Nigerian Stock Exchange listed company. The Bank provides Trade Finance, Commercial Banking and Asset Management services for clients of the Access Bank Group in their dealings with OECD markets and support companies exporting to African markets. Since the Bank’s establishment it has broadened its operations into Dubai and achieved full branch status in 2016.

“The reputation of The Access Bank UK in the international marketplace is now well established and continues to strengthen. We are accepted to hold a Bank of England reserve account and we have adequate resources, both financial and non-financial, to respond positively to the requirements of our growing and loyal customer base” says Mr Simmonds.

“Our Trade Finance teams worked diligently through 2016 to support customers in a challenging trading environment. The different elements of our business each contributed to our diverse revenue base and we increased year-on-year trade revenues by 27% to £17.3m”.

With regard to the Bank’s core trade finance markets in Africa, Nigeria remains the key market. Whilst the decline in oil production volumes during the first half of 2016 combined with historically lower prices caused significant economic headwinds in Nigeria in 2016, reducing US Dollar based trade and creating uncertainty for the Naira, leading to a fall in GDP in the year, oil production volumes started to improve in the second half of 2016, together with some improvement in prices. The latest forecasts estimate that Nigeria GDP is expected to return to modest growth of circa 0.8% for 2017. The Bank will therefore continue to have a key role to play in facilitating the flow of trade to and from Nigeria, despite the current challenges being experienced.

“The depth and breadth of our Trade finance activities within the West African region in 2016 illustrate our strong customer relationships and knowledge of local markets which enhances our competiveness, keeps us close to our customers, and enables us to develop solutions that meet their needs”.