Finance & Money Edge

MARKETS Rate Hikes for Everyone This past week, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised rates 25 basis points, along with the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, which both raised rates by 50 basis points. CRYPTOCURRENCIES Charlie Munger Doesn’t Endorse Crypto Charlie Munger, the other half of Warren Buffett’s brain trust, says the U.S. […]

BANKING Goldman Sachs Posts Worst EPS in a Decade As many major banks are going through large volumes of layoffs, last week, Goldman Sachs posted its worse EPS in a decade. With declines in asset management and investment banking revenue, losses from their consumer business and poor cost management, it has hit their earnings hard.

COMPLIANCE Financial Institutions Lose Over $500K Due to Fraud in 2022 Well, here’s a stat that’s nothing to be proud of: apparently seventy percent of financial institutions lost over $500K due to fraud in 2022. Time to tighten up those anti-fraud measures hmmm? ESG Should Executive Pay Be Linked to ESG Performance? As ESG has

PRIVATE EQUITY Microsoft Looking to Invest in OpenAI If you’re an AI geek, you probably already know about OpenAI and it’s ChatGPT product. (I’ve been playing with it for a couple of weeks now and it’s pretty jaw-dropping). Microsoft is looking to make a splash by investing approximately $10B in OpenAI, which would give Microsoft

ESG How Well Are Companies Doing Regarding ESG? Environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance has been in the spotlight in recent years, but just how well are companies doing to meet performance measures relating to ESG? Turns out…not too well. TAXES Shell to Pay Taxes in UK… …a corporate entity to pay taxes? Why is

BANKING Wells Fargo Hit with Another Fine (Again) Stop me if you’ve seen this before: big bank gets fined. Wells Fargo has been hit with another fine, $1.7B + another $2B in customer settlements due to consumer abuses. The abuses stem from the bank misapplying home and auto loan payments, which in turn led to

BANKING UK Banking Rules Looking to Shake Things Up Post-Brexit era UK is looking to shake things up with a sweeping volume of banking rules reform. The planned reforms are called “The Edinburgh Reforms” and looks to be one of the biggest reform in thirty years. FINTECH FTX Isn’t the Only Disgrace in Finance… With

COMMODITIES Coffee Prices Surge You’ve probably noticed your grocery bill getting more expensive but having less to show for it. In addition to that, the most important food group (at least to us), coffee prices have been surging as well. (The horror!) As the input costs for producing the beloved bean drink have been surging

CRYPTOCURRENCY Starling Bank says, “No Bitcoin for you!” More setbacks for cryptocurrencies, as Starling Bank joins other institutions such as Lloyds, Barclays, and RBS to restrict crypto activity (most likely in the wake of the FTX debacle and another crypto business, BlockFi files for bankruptcy). It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, since cryptocurrencies are currently

COMPLIANCE Corporate Controls? What’s that? [via GritCapital] “New FTX CEO John Ray says “never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here”. “ “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad to the concentration of control in the

CRYPTOCURRENCY Another One Bites the Dust Unless you’ve been living under a big cryptocoin rock, you’ve heard about the demise of one of crypto industry’s “darlings”: FTX. We won’t beat this news item any more than it has already been covered, but we’ll just give you some tidbits below if you want to read more

JOBS Job Cuts Everywhere Looks like a lot of the binge-hiring during the pandemic is being undone now as companies in various sectors are now bing-cutting staff, such as: DIGITAL BANKING HSBC Customers Left Out in the Cold Due to Outage HSBC UK customers were left unable to buy food, pay for meals and pay

BANKING Embattled HSBC Not So Embattled While there’s been talk of HSBC focusing more on profitable regions (e.g. Asia), HSBC reported increase in profits year on year in the previous quarter due to skyrocketing interest rates. BANKING Credit Suisse “Cuts Like a Knife” Those in banking know when banks hire, they hire in massive spurts

DIGITAL BANKING Voice Assistants in Banking Banks are beginning to integrate voice assistants (e.g. Alexa) into the mix of digital banking channels. It’s still early days, so you won’t mistakenly buy the latest meme stock. BANKING Goldman Sachs Restructures (again) Goldman Sachs recently announced they will be restructuring again (second time in last four years).

FINTECH How AI is Changing Finance The SEC’s Gary Gensler talks about how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing finance. Here’s 4 themes from his talk. FINTECH A Look at Real-Time Payments Jared from Fintech & Finance, takes an interesting look at real-time payments (RTP) and how things look going forward in the industry for RTP.

DIGITAL BANKING The Story of Truist’s AI Assistant Truist is a the love-child of the merger between BB&T and Suntrust in 2019. Go behind the scene at Truist for how their team revamped and launched their AI-enhanced virtual assistant while integrating with their human contact centers. SPONSORED Want to learn more about digital banking? Become

COMPLIANCE Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Gets Charged The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced charges against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB) for their failure to protect their customer’s personal identifying information. It’s like something out of a financial crime movie. CURRENCIES The Pound Sterling Hits New Low It’s been a whirlwind month for the UK,

ECONOMY The Fedex Signal Fedex reported declining package deliveries around the world signalling a potential slowdown in the economy => potential global recession coming in hot. M&A Adobe Acquires Figma If you’re a graphic artist/designer, web designer or have any kind of artistic talent, then you’ll know what Figma is (and Adobe), so Adobe announcing

CRYPTO El Salvador’s Bad Bet on Bitcoin So, it’s already been one year since El Salvador made a bet on Bitcoin and promoted Bitcoin to their population as legal tender. Here’s how it’s going upon the anniversary of this event. (tldr: not so good) BANKING Digital Banking: You’re UX Isn’t All That Can you provide

FINTECH Fintech Lenders Feeling the Pinch of Rate Hikes Even though Fintech startups are supposed to be “disruptive”, they’re not immune to the same challenges the more established players encounter. Such as interest rate hikes. BANKING Credit Suisse Mulls 5K Job Cuts Bankers know the highs and lows of working in the banking industry, you

BANKING Enhancing Financial Services Customer Service with AI Customer service and financial services aren’t exactly synonymous with each other, but with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s now possible to improve customer engagement through AI, see how. COMMODITIES Soft Commodities Pulling Back on Recession Fears Inflation isn’t the only factor affecting commodities, record

Here are our hand-picked issues for you to know about in the world of global finance from the past week: FINANCE Hold Back On Those Buybacks With recent bear markets, it’s been attractive for companies to pursue stock buybacks. But the Biden Administration is saying, “hold on there” by signing a 1% excise tax on

Here are our hand-picked issues for you to know about in the world of global finance from the past week: M&A What companies s\ucceeding in M&A are doing this year 2021 was a blistering year for M&A. While 2022 isn’t seeing the same amount of deal flow, it’s still been a good year for M&A.

Here are our hand-picked issues for you to know about in the world of global finance from the past week: Happy Birthday SOX Recently, CFO’s & Finance heads “celebrated” the 20th birthday of Sarbanes-Oxley (lovingly known as SOX). As Finance heads have adapted to life with SOX, they’re seeing it more as a risk exercise

Here are some of the top issues in global finance you want to be aware of: The US economy (GDP) fell for the second consecutive quarter (recession anyone?). The continued global supply chain issues and record high inflation isn’t helping. The U.S. Senate is going after credit card fees. If you run (or have run)

Here are the top hand-picked global financial issues you should know about this week: Why have commodity prices fallen off a cliff? CFO’s: how to implement AI the right way Lloyds bank preparing for economic downturn Want a better understanding of what influences commodity prices and what to do about it? Check this out.

Here’s 3 issues to make you smarter in the world of finance and fintech this week: What will drive crypto adoption? Deutsche Bank announces they’re white-labelling their buy now, pay later (BNPL) service in Germany Commodity prices are dropping Don’t know what to do with volatility in commodities? This helps you get clarity on what

Here’s 3 top financial issues you should know about: The Euro approaches parity with the US dollar for first time in two decades Hey Fintech, who’s data is it anyway? Is this the future of financial services?

Islamic finance was trendy topic for traditional bankers a few years ago (despite it being around for over 1300 years), it’s since quieted down, but it’s still an important area of global finance. Here’s a nicely laid out beginner’s guide to Islamic Finance.

The Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, now has the notorious distinction of being the first domestic bank to ever been found guilty of a corporate crime by Swiss authorities. The crime? The Swiss bank was found guilty of failing to stop money laundering by a Bulgarian crime ring. Many banks have been under scrutiny for failing

Last issue, we talked about how Apple is entering the finance arena with their own buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offering. As BNPL use increases, the need for more rules crops up. So, the UK government has proposed stricter rules for BNPL (via MarketLoop).

The Buy now, pay later trend has taken on new meaning now that Apple has thrown its weight into this part of the finance market. Earlier this month at Apple’s WWDC keynote, Apple announced it was putting part of its cash surplus into its own pay later service.

Just a reminder, in case this news got lost amidst the last two years, the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) will cease to be used for setting interest rates for loans, mortgages and corporate debt by June 2023. Why? Too many scandals and manipulation using LIBOR has finally sealed LIBOR’s fate. LIBOR will be replaced

Mastercard has tipped its hand for plans in the Metaverse by filing 15 trademarks for its brand name, indicating plans for: Processing virtual cards Holding entertainment & education services in the Metaverse Creating a marketplace for digital assets that are authenticated by NFT’s Clearly, Mastercard see’s an opportunity in the Metaverse and are trying to

As SPAC’s continue their tear in popularity for companies looking to go public, Tim Horton’s, the beloved Canadian coffee chain, attempts to break into the China market by merging with local listed company, Silver Crest Acquisition Corp. in a potential $1.8 billion deal. While the deal is not yet finalized we could see a confirmation

NYU Professor Scott Galloway, who has a massive cult following, comments in his latest blog post: “It’s hard to imagine an industry more ripe for disruption than the business of money. Let’s start with this: Twenty-five percent of U.S. households are either unbanked or underbanked. Half of the nation’s unbanked households say they don’t have enough money to meet

The digital account opening space is heating up. Large incumbent banks are having to look over their shoulder for the neobanks and fintech companies popping up everywhere as fintech technnology is lowering barriers to entry in the financial services industry. As acceptance of digital banks (with no physical retail branches) are being accepted in general,

In a recent email, Grit Capital reports the recent surge in commodity prices this year have taken a break in June. Grit reports, that lumber prices have since declined by 40% from its peak. Other commodities in a slump include silver, platinum, iron and corn, just to name a few. China has also announced they

As digital banks continue to disrupt the banking industry, Chime, a digital neobank in the US started in 2013, is currently the no.1 digital bank in the US. Chime’s US account holders has increased by 30.7% over the past year and expected to hit 22.7M account holders by 2025. Chime’s success has largely been attributed

MotoRefi has raised $45 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs just five months after investors poured $10 million into the company to help turbocharge its auto refinancing business. The startup developed a platform that automates the entire auto refinancing process, from finding the best rates to titling your vehicle. MotoRefi enables consumers to

Copper prices have surged to all-time highs (doubling over the past year). One of the drivers of this increase in prices is the surge in demand by automakers as they transition their fleet to all-electric vehicles (EV). To manufacture an EV, it takes four times the amount of copper than a traditional combustible engine vehicle.

People either love or hate Elon Musk, the eccentric CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. He turned heads back in March 2021 when he announced Tesla would start accepting Bitcoin as payment for their electric vehicles. However, they have quickly changed their minds and now has stopped accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for their vehicles.

SPAC’s aren’t new but they’ve been incredibly popular (just like Reddit stocks). Grab Holdings, the Singapore-based largest ride-haling and food delivery business in Asia, secured a SPAC acquisition to lead to a US public listing. They’ve garnered a valuation of US$40B, making it the world’s biggest SPAC merger (so far).

What a start to the first day after Spring Break…waking up to headlines of Archegos Capital having to sell off $20 billion in holdings. What triggered the selloff? Banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley had forced Archegos to sell off their holdings due to their use of highly leveraged bets (e.g. derivatives). It

SPAC’s (special purpose acquisition corporation) are becoming very popular. But why? Simply, SPAC’s are being used to acquire a private company and taking it public without  having to go through the normal IPO process. By the way, SPAC’s are not new. They’ve been around since the 90’s but they’re generating a lot of interest as

According to Oxford Club’s Quantitative Strategist, Nick Vardy, there’s a bull market happening with Agricultural commodities. According to Vardy, these are the drivers of the current bull market: Global Money Printing: monetary stimulus being pumped into global economies is spurring speculative investing in commodities. The Impact of La Niña: La Niña, the cooling of the surface