Fortune (January 4)
“As the artificial intelligence trade continues to push the stock market to new highs, investors are increasingly asking if we’re living through another financial bubble that’s destined to burst. The answer isn’t so simple” and the increased scrutiny AI is coming under may actually help prevent a crash.
Tags: Artificial intelligence, Crash, Financial bubble, Highs, Investors, Scrutiny, Stock market, Trade
Investment Week (August 15)
“In the wake of political pushback and shifting corporate priorities, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in financial services has found itself at a crossroads…. Public commitments have dampened, budgets are under scrutiny, and sceptics question whether the industry’s progress is unravelling.” Especially in the United States, a growing number of firms are “scaling back or abandoning DEI initiatives altogether.” However, UK industry leaders believe “the narrative of decline does not tell the full story. While some organisations are quieter in their public statements, there remains evidence that internal commitment remains firm.”
Tags: Abandoning, Budgets, Commitment, Corporate priorities, Crossroads, Dampened, DEI initiatives, Financial services, Political pushback, Public commitments, Scaling back, Sceptics, Scrutiny, U.S., UK, Unravelling
Traders Magazine (June 5)
“Financial institutions don’t need more systems or more people. They need better structure, better visibility and better processes that reflect the complexity of today’s data environment. The firms that recognize this – and act – will be in a far stronger position as scrutiny grows and costs continue to climb.”
Tags: Complexity, Costs, Data environment, Financial institutions, People, Processes, Scrutiny, Structure, Systems, Visibility
Financial Times (May 3)
“The trio of bank failures since March has cast a pall over KPMG’s lucrative business as the largest auditor of the US banking sector.” SVB, Signature and First Republic all “had one thing in common: KPMG” and the auditor will be facing “scrutiny in aftermath of their collapses.”
Tags: Aftermath, Auditor, Bank failures, Banking sector, Collapses, First Republic, KPMG, Lucrative, Pall, Scrutiny, Signature, SVB, U.S.
Financial Times (December 9)
“The Big Four accounting firms have recorded their strongest financial performance since the collapse of Enron as corporate clients rushed to transform their businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.” Revenues soared to over $167 billion, collectively, in spite of “continued criticism of the structure and performance of the firms, especially in audits, including scrutiny of EY’s failure to identify fraud at Wirecard.”
Tags: Accounting firms, Audits, Big Four, Clients, Collapse, Coronavirus, Criticism, Enron, EY, Failure, Financial performance, Fraud, Pandemic, Revenues, Scrutiny, Transform
The Diplomat (June 19)
“Comparisons–both fair and unfair–will likely be drawn between this government’s response to the Osaka earthquake and the 3.11 triple disaster or the 1995 Hanshin earthquake to score political points. Abe will be under pressure to centralize command without micromanaging, to foster cooperation at the municipal level without overreaching. Though this natural disaster is not on the scale of either the 3.11 or Hanshin earthquakes, given Abe’s grim political outlook, he cannot afford any misstep under this kind of scrutiny.”
Tags: 3.11, Abe, Centralize, Cooperation, Government, Hanshin earthquake, Micromanaging, Misstep, Natural disaster, Osaka earthquake, Overreaching, Pressure, Response, Scale, Scrutiny
New York Times (October 25)
“The Chinese government plans to introduce codes for some 3,000 Chinese characters as part of a grand project, known as the China Font Bank, to digitize 500,000 characters previously unavailable in electronic form.” Admirable in many respects, this massive expansion of the 80,000 or so current Unicode characters will also bring a downside. “Netizens who have been using obscure characters for secret or playful language to avoid government scrutiny can expect to have fewer words to hide behind.”
Tags: Characters, China, Font, Government, Netizens, Scrutiny, Unicode
Reuters (August 18)
“Short-sellers who made their names and fortunes wiping billions off Chinese and Southeast Asian companies are setting their sights on Japan after a series of accounting scandals amplified concerns about weak corporate governance there. Until recently, corporate managers in Japan have enjoyed relatively limited scrutiny of their governance standards and accounting rigor.”
Tags: China, Corporate governance, Fortunes, Japan Accounting scandals, Scrutiny, Short sellers, Southeast Asia, Standards, Weak
Institutional Investor (September Issue)
“The combination of collapsing crude oil prices, wild currency swings and heightened governance scrutiny has created a challenging environment for many of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds”.
The Economist (October 11)
Bosses today are under more scrutiny than ever. They still need to worry about the press, but they also run “the risk of being pecked by Twitter’s swarm of angry birds. Thanks to the digital revolution, chief executives now live in glass houses. An ill-judged remark can be broadcast to the world in an instant.”
Tags: Bosses, Digital revolution, Executives, Press, Remark, Risk, Scrutiny, Twitter
