Better Banking

'Svenska Handelsbanken' takes a fresh look at the financial crisis. It sets out to answer specifically what the mistakes were that banks made and how this could have been avoided. What is unique about this book is a detailed description of a large bank that operates very differently from its peers and that has, as a result, steered well clear of areas that have brought many other banks into trouble. This provides a number of insights into how a more resilient, post-credit crunch banking system should look like. The first section starts with an overview of existing explanations of the credit crunch and why they remain partly unsatisfactory. It then sets out an alternative framework around seven behavioural patterns of financial institutions of imprudent banking. They have caused most banking crises, including the current one, and while they come in different shapes and forms they remain essentially the same. This book examines why the Seven Deadly Sins remain extremely tempting to bankers, often with the enthusiastic support of their shareholders and no meaningful objection by their regulators. The second and main part of the book is a new and extensive description of the management practices at Svenska Handelsbanken, a universal bank operating in a number of countries in Northern Europe. Handelsbanken is one of the top 25 banks in Europe. It was not just the only bank that survived the Swedish banking crisis in the 1990s without asking for government support - it has also done very well in the 2008/2009 crisis. Handelsbanken did not have to raise capital or ask for government support and its shares have been the best performing European bank stock by a wide margin. Despite its large size Handelsbanken has, in many ways, acted as a shock absorber, not a shock amplifier, to the financial system.

Why did the financial crisis happen? Why did no one see it coming? And how did our banks lose so much of our money? What's being done to sort out the banking industry? And will it work? These are the questions that industry experts Adrian Docherty and Franck Viort cover in Better Banking: Understanding and Addressing the Failures in Risk Management, Governance and Regulation. They give a clear and thorough run-through of some of the key concepts and developments in banking, to enable the reader to understand better this vital yet perilous industry. Without excessive detail or jargon, they explain the most important issues in risk management, regulation and governance and build a comprehensive description of how failings in these areas resulted in the current financial crisis. In order to make the diagnosis clear, the authors illustrate their descriptions with a series of informative case studies. The book revolves around a critique of the current regulatory developments, which the authors feel will be ineffective in fixing the structural flaws in banking. Crucially, and as the title of the book suggests, they set out their own series of proposals to contribute to the development of a better, safer and more effective banking industry. Docherty and Viort's book fills an important gap in the literature on banking and its role in the current financial crisis. It is at once a history, a primer, a critique and a manifesto. It does not take sides but works through a constructive diagnosis towards ideas that could lead to major improvements in the quality and stability of the financial world. Better Banking: Understanding and Addressing the Failures in Risk Management, Governance and Regulation is a technical yet accessible book that seeks to engage interested readers of all kinds -- students, professionals, bankers and regulators but also politicians and the broader audience of citizens outside the banking industry, who are keen to inform themselves and understand what needs to be done to avoid a repeat of this crisis.

"This new book on retail banking is both readable and innovative. Its analysis is unusually accessible in its style, and the book's conclusions and predictions will be rightly thought provoking. The customer is gaining real power and this new book's insights on the importance of leadership, the need to unleash creativity and to make a bank's IT and people resource work together more effectively for customer satisfaction are important pointers to the shape of future competitive differentiation." --Sir Mervyn Pedelty, Recently retired Chief Executive, The Co-operative Bank plc, smile, CIS and Co-operative Financial Services "A stimulating read. A readable and lively book that is always informative, sometimes controversial and invariably challenging. The authors don't expect readers to agree with it all, but the readers will undoubtedly gain some fresh insights and perspectives on the multiple issues facing management in a rapidly changing industry." --Chris Lendrum CBE, Recently retired Vice Chairman, Barclays Bank "This book is clear enough for the layman and thorough enough for any banker to obtain an excellent sense of the options for successful strategies for their retail businesses. The challenges of technology introduction, cost of production and scope of service are driving banks into responses increasingly similar to other industry sectors. These forces have been apparent for some years but are so evident now they can no longer be ignored. This book provides an excellent guide to mapping that future." --Joseph DeFeo, CEO, CLS Bank. "This is a useful guide to retail banking that provides a thought-provoking view on the state of The Art (of Better Retail Banking). Clearly retail banking can get better, and must! To steal an analogy from the conclusion, there is a sea change going on - consumers are looking more and more for greater simplicity and value, and so many banks are still making such heavy weather of it. This book does a good job of charting the current developments." -- Lindsay Sinclair, CEO, ING Direct UK. "A whistle-stop tour of all aspects of retail banking. This is a very readable and insightful real world mix of theory, strategy, tactics and practice. They have even managed to make banking sound exciting. But mostly they have been able to cut through the complexity to remind us all that success in retail banking is not just about finance and efficiency - it is about customers and staff, who are all too often forgotten about." --Craig Shannon, Executive Director - Marketing, Co-operative Financial Services. "The authors live up to their promise of providing managers and students with a clear exposition of the retail banking sector and how banks can confront the challenging future they face. This book is a practical manual with lots of useful advice. I was looking for new insights in this book - and I found them!" --Professor Adrian Payne, Professor of Services Marketing, Director, Centre for Services Management, Cranfield School of Management. "A key determinant of any organisation's success will be an enhanced understanding of 'value' as defined by customers, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. Value can mean different things to these different groups, and this book has set itself the objective of identifying the approaches that will improve the value proposition for all of these interested parties. It achieves this objective." --Professor Steve Worthington, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University. "An enjoyable and useful read. It provides a good perspective on the role of IT and how IT suppliers and professionals need to contribute to future developments in retail banking strategy and implementation. It helps provide guidance for the significant challenges ahead for both suppl

Taking financial risks is an essential part of what banks do, but there’s no clear sense of what constitutes responsible risk. Taking legal risks seems to have become part of what banks do as well. Since the financial crisis, Congress has passed copious amounts of legislation aimed at curbing banks’ risky behavior. Lawsuits against large banks have cost them billions. Yet bad behavior continues to plague the industry. Why isn’t there more change? In Better Bankers, Better Banks, Claire A. Hill and Richard W. Painter look back at the history of banking and show how the current culture of bad behavior—dramatized by the corrupt, cocaine-snorting bankers of The Wolf of Wall Street—came to be. In the early 1980s, banks went from partnerships whose partners had personal liability to corporations whose managers had no such liability and could take risks with other people’s money. A major reason bankers remain resistant to change, Hill and Painter argue, is that while banks have been faced with large fines, penalties, and legal fees—which have exceeded one hundred billion dollars since the onset of the crisis—the banks (which really means the banks’shareholders) have paid them, not the bankers themselves. The problem also extends well beyond the pursuit of profit to the issue of how success is defined within the banking industry, where highly paid bankers clamor for status and clients may regard as inevitable bankers who prioritize their own self-interest. While many solutions have been proposed, Hill and Painter show that a successful transformation of banker behavior must begin with the bankers themselves. Bankers must be personally liable from their own assets for some portion of the bank’s losses from excessive risk-taking and illegal behavior. This would instill a culture that discourages such behavior and in turn influence the sorts of behavior society celebrates or condemns. Despite many sensible proposals seeking to reign in excessive risk-taking, the continuing trajectory of scandals suggests that we’re far from ready to avert the next crisis. Better Bankers, Better Banks is a refreshing call for bankers to return to the idea that theirs is a noble profession.

From Canada’s leading expert on consumer banking, this easy-to-read, indispensable book will help you keep your hard-earned money working for you. Canadians are savvy consumers of everything – except financial products. We comparison shop for new cars and new clothes, but when it comes to our money, most of us passively hand it over to banks and other institutions. The result? Our earnings languish in bank accounts that pay out zero interest while raining down fees, or in mutual funds that make more money for the people running them than for investors. This book is the remedy: written especially for Canadians, it is the definitive guide to getting the best possible deal on everything from savings accounts to mortgages to RRSPs. Rob Carrick puts the key information in the reader’s hands through comparison charts, rankings and easy-to-follow tables, as well as good old-fashioned advice. He explains how to construct a banking profile, where to find the best bargains in financial services, how online banking and investing is changing everything, and much more. This book shows how to get the best while paying the least, so you can use your money for the things you really want and need.

The book on Modern B@nking Technology is a systematic and comprehensive insight into technology-led banking. It is an encyclopaedia of Banking Technology. The book covers the rich experience of the author in the field of banking and finance. The book will be found useful by banks, researchers, Executives / Directors, IT professionals, pursuers of courses on IT by IIBF, viz., JAIIB / CAIIB / Diploma in Banking Technology / MBA / Certificate Examinations as also by IGNOU / ICAI / ICFAI / ICSI / ICWA / Management Institutions/Universities for practical exposure and professional orientation. The book contains in detail the following ¿Impact on and explosion of Banking Technology in new millennium ¿Innovations in 'Paperless¿ banking¿Payment and Settlement Systems (RTGS) & Cheque Truncations, etc¿Role of IDRBT in development of Protocols and Standards¿Role of IBA and Report on Banking Industry VISON-2010