New York Times (September 24)
Germany is attempting to woo “Indian workers spooked by U.S. visa changes,” as the European nation confronts a growing labor shortage. “Every fifth citizen…is now older than 67, and the country’s baby boomers…are beginning to retire.” Currently, there are an estimated 387,000 unfilled jobs, mainly in technology, and “that number is expected to more than double in the next two years.” The unfilled jobs also mean “there are not enough young workers making payments into the social system to support it.”
Tags: Baby boomers, Confronts, Germany, Indian, Labor shortage, Payments, Retire, Social system, Spooked, Technology, U.S., Unfilled jobs, Visa changes, Woo, Workers
SFGate (June 6)
“A billion dollar company that owned two substantial San Francisco hotels announced June 5 that it’s defaulting on its loan and releasing the hotels from its portfolio.” Park Hotels & Resorts “will immediately stop making payments toward a $725 million loan, slated to mature November 2023.” The REIT cited the “best interest” of its unitholders given “concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027.”
Tags: $725 million loan, Defaulting, Hotels, Loan, Park Hotels & Resorts, Payments, Portfolio, REIT, Return to office, San Francisco, Street conditions, Unitholders
American Banker (December 9)
“Fintechs turned cross-border payments into a hotbed of innovation over the last five years. Now the card networks and banks are responding with disruptions of their own. It’s not just the competitive threat from fintechs developing faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payment options. The changing economy is now adding urgency for legacy cross-border providers to modernize their services.”
Tags: Banks, Card networks, Cheaper, Competitive threat, Cross-border, Disruptions, Economy, Faster, Fintechs, Hotbed, Innovation, Legacy, Modernize, Payments, Services, Transparent
Reuters (August 7)
If EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger gets his way, “Britain will have to keep making payments for long-term programmes to the European Union until at least 2020, even after it leaves the bloc in 2019.”
Financial Times (May 25)
News that the cross-border payment system Swift “has at least woken up to the challenge facing its business” is encouraging. “But this is not just a problem involving cross-border deals. Cyber crime is increasingly a threat to the whole financial industry. This is one digital challenge that banks cannot duck.”
Tags: Banks, Cross-border, Cyber crime, Digital challenge, Financial industry, Payments, Swift, Threat
Euromoney (April 4)
“After a record year for fund raising, large fintech companies are now emerging in marketplace lending and payments, with many more newcomers deploying venture capital money raised in $25 million to $50 million chunks to transform capital markets and traditional banking mainstays such as mortgage lending.” Fintech could prove highly disruptive. “Fintech start-ups are building revolutionary applications for blockchain, attacking every specialist niche in the financial world and keeping the image of fintech clean with business ventures aimed at inclusion.”
Tags: Applications, Banking mainstays, Blockchain, Fintech, Fund raising, Mortgage lending, Niche, Payments, Revolutionary, Venture-capital
