Monthly Archives: December 2013

While, in hindsight, some of my columns last year may have been a tad maudlin, I felt that they accurately conveyed the zeitgeist and prevailing mood of the market at the time: uncertainty, a lack of confidence and a semi-bleak outlook for the coming year. However, I’d say that has now changed. Whereas last year there was just a degree of blind hope that momentum would carry us to better things, there is now a palpable feeling of optimism in the air for a number of reasons. There are teasing hints that decent net interest income levels will return sooner than we [...]

No, the headline does not refer to the highly acclaimed album from that master warbler and wordsmith Billy Bragg, but a reminder of some of the dos and don’ts of interview procedure and etiquette. Recently, I’ve uncovered some rather unsettling anecdotal evidence that interviewees for even some very senior roles are failing to follow the established etiquette for before, during and after interviews, so at the risk of being accused of teaching granny to suck eggs, what follows is a brief guide to some elements you should consider. Firstly, the concepts of the ‘six Ps’—and I hope I don’t have to explain [...]

With Christmas yet to arrive, mince pies still to be bought and family discussions yet to boil over into heated arguments, I thought I’d make a couple of early predictions as to what might be in store for all of us in 2014. As with most annual predictions, do feel free to forget them completely by early February... Overall, I’m calling 2014 a positive year in which the current supply/demand mismatch of candidates to jobs will be restored to some semblance of normality. Indices are looking healthy and as soon as interest rates start to rise (a very early 2015 prediction), then [...]

Relationships, as my Darling Wife often reminds me, are funny old things, covering a huge range of formats, from fully monogamous to fully open, and every combination in-between. Depending upon requirements and necessities, they can be one-to-one, one-to-many or even a mix of both at different times. From an asset servicing perspective (which I can assure you is much more interesting than my own), relationships occur at every level—from a bank to its ultimate shareholders, between a firm and the regulators, an entity and its suppliers, and the employees with their customers. At every stage of the corporate relationship spectrum, there are [...]

Fool’s Gold? By Paul Chapman, Managing Director, HornbyChapman Ltd   The general perception of a banker’s life to the man in the street – as long as that street is not in either the Square Mile or Canary Wharf – is one of a charmed existence; an enviable mixture of riches, glamour and excess where success and its trappings come easily. This image is fuelled by the popular media, with Gordon Gekko being the default poster boy for anything even vaguely related to financial services, resulting in ‘banker bashing’ effectively becoming a new national sport. However, as those of you reading this [...]