Industry Advocates Insights

Time is running out to submit entries for the 2019 bobsguide Partnership Awards. With the deadline for submissions just five weeks away, nominations are building up, and the judging team is encouraging market participants to file entries soon to avoid disappointment in what is shaping up to be a hotly contested competition. The awards are... read more

Metro bank’s full year results were hotly anticipated by investors and the industry alike following early scares brought on by an accounting error. The results, published on February 26, came nearly a month after the challenger’s share price plummeted by as much as 40%. The results confirmed reports of a miscategorisation of the... read more

The second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II) presented a huge and ongoing task for firms with European exposures.  The volume of data reported along with transactions, as expected, have been staggering. Five months into implementation in mid-2018, the FCA noted in a markets forum presentation that it had received over... read more

There is a growing number of women moving into the fintech sector, but is this happening quickly enough? The ratio of female to males in senior positions, such as CEOs, remains low. In a male-dominated sector, is enough being done to encourage women into fintech? Do women see the opportunities a role in fintech could provide? Bobsguide is... read more

A strong digital customer experience, relationship management and increased growth in small and medium sized enterprise (SME) banking are among the top priorities of a number of the UK’s retail banks, according to the recent CMA rankings. “It is telling that the UK bank that customers would be most likely to recommend to a friend... read more

Non-cash transactions grew by 10.1% globally 2015-2016, according to the 2018 World Payments Report. In the US, the growth rate reported was much lower than the majority of markets - at just 5.7% - however, in terms of the number of non-cash transactions, it dominated with 148.5 billion non-cash transactions made. Despite the sheer volume of... read more

Company leverage hit a ten-year high in January, with 48% of fund managers who took part in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s market survey believing balance sheets are overleveraged. Normally bullish wealth managers remind investors that doing nothing can often be an effective strategy. At the beginning of February, the US Federal Reserve... read more

“If you look at the leverage market let’s say ‘correction’, margins are higher now than they were six months ago,” says Dafydd Joyner, director of syndicated finance at ING bank. “There is not a huge amount of deals out there, you’ve got three or four deals out there. Whether they are a new issuer or an... read more

European Union attempts to unite the continent’s anti-money laundering (AML) approach is unlikely, says Andrew Simpson, chief operation officer at CaseWare Analytics, as is the setting up of a centralised European AML regulatory body. “Within the EU there is a possibility that you will have some jurisdictions that will co-operate... read more