The FS Club Podcast

The thirteenth edition of the Global Green Finance Index provides the world’s most authoritative measure of the performance of financial centres in delivering green finance services.The report, assembled by combining the views of financial professionals from around the world, with quantitative data commissioned and curated from over 130 sources, uses advanced statistical techniques to map the global spread of green finance

Jarkko Hämäläinen will discuss where businesses stand in the current ESG environment, as well as the impact of and successful engagement with ESG.The critical role of infrastructure in achieving sustainability goals and reducing emissions will be examined in depth. With infrastructure responsible for around 79% of total greenhouse gas emissions, it represents the area with the highest potential for impactful change. Proven strategies and concrete actions that have successfully improved environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance within infrastructure projects will be highlighted. Attendees can expect to learn about quantifiable methods to enhance sustainability and emissions reduction specifically within the infrastructure sector. To illustrate best practices, case studies demonstrating how an emphasis on effectiveness has been seamlessly integrated with sustainable practices will be used. Additionally, Jarkko will explore the interconnection between sustainable infrastructure development and positive climate impacts.

Extreme weather disasters, such as floods, tropical storms and wildfires, are becoming more frequent and more intense. These disasters threaten both life and livelihood, causing the loss of homes and jobs that can scar the lives of those affected. Disaster insurance, by providing funds for reconstruction, plays an essential role in limiting these consequences of disaster. Yet, disaster insurance is under threat in many contexts, becoming unaffordable or being withdrawn entirely. In response, many countries have established ‘protection gap entities’ (PGEs); public-private schemes to keep disaster insurance available. PGEs rebalance the tensions (paradoxes) at the heart of insurance about who controls the insurance market, how much is known about disaster risk, and who should pay for protection. Drawing from our new book examining 17 PGEs operating in 49 countries around the world, I will explain why PGEs are vital in adapting to an increasingly disaster-prone world.

WHO cares about the money of the future? WHY should I care about the money of the future? These questions, and more, are addressed in depth in Intelligent Money. As money becomes digital, it will revolutionise everything. By 2030, digital money will make money personal, individualise currency and its usage, make it secure, enable it to grow automatically to meet our personal goals, manage risk automatically and make life simpler and easier for all. The most critical aspect of this book is HOW money will become intelligent, both digitally and artificially.The bottom line is that money will soon be embedded, intelligent, invisible and everywhere. It’s a whole new world.

Global and domestic economies depend upon trade and related trade finance. For centuries, trade and trade finance transactions have been recorded in paper documents. Cross-border trade transactions (totalling more than US$18 trillion annually) involve vast numbers of these paper documents that must pass through the hands of many parties. This process is slow, inefficient, costly, error and fraud prone, environmentally unsound and contributes to a trade finance gap of up to US$2.5 trillion affecting mainly SMEs, prompting the ICCUK-C4DTI to observe: “[T]he trading system suffers from antiquated laws and a lack of standardisation.”Recent decades have witnessed a remarkable digital transformation in the conduct of commerce, with a phenomenal shift from paper-based to electronic processes. That shift is now accelerating in trade and trade finance, supported by law reform. Our two expert presenters will illustrate the immense benefits that proven digital technologies, like blockchain DLT, offer trade and trade finance. They will highlight recent developments in industry, and in legal reforms, as key trade and finance participants - and government entities - hasten to implement simpler, more efficient, secure, sustainable and inclusive digital trade and trade finance processes.

Financial crime is a global threat, costing businesses and consumers trillions annually. But what if we could leverage the very technology that fuels these crimes – Artificial Intelligence – to fight back?Join us for a webinar exploring the power of AI for Good in fraud and financial crime prevention. We'll delve into Featurespace's decade-long journey as an industry leader in AI-native fraud detection solutions for banks and financial institutions.Martina will unpack topics including:

The built environment, be it in the form of town halls, schools, shops, pubs, pavements, bridges, makes up the background to our lives and our most tangible experience of our cultural heritage. This talk will discuss the importance of preserving the best examples of our built heritage , and will suggest an alternative to over scale, mono cultural development.Mixed use, human scale development has an important place in our management of property. As has ownership and balanced vision.

The Global Financial Centres Index has been tracking the development of the world’s financial centres since 2007 and is the authoritative guide to financial centre success.In this webinar, Z/Yen will formally launch the 35th edition of the index.

Concrete production and steelmaking currently account for a staggering 8% and 11% of global annual carbon emissions, respectively. Having been overlooked for far too long, attention on how to swiftly and equitably decarbonise both sectors is growing.There are enabling technologies to clean up production. Demand from businesses for net zero steel and concrete grows ever louder. Yet, volumes are not coming to market at the speed or scale we need. We’re at a critical juncture where decisions on purchasing, investment and policy must be laser focused on driving decarbonisation.In this session, Climate Group will present their global ConcreteZero and SteelZero initiatives, which are bringing together leading businesses to signal their demand for net zero steel and concrete by 2050 or earlier, and will highlight the critical role of finance in diverting capital flows toward clean steel and concrete production.

Z/Yen's "Focus On" series highlights key business and financial centres from around the world. Here, we look at Busan, South Korea's second largest city at 3.4 million and a burgeoning centre for maritime industry, finance, and digital finance. Busan's ambitious plans for expanding their digital finance ecosystem include the creation of a urban blockchain and digital asset exchange, unifying services offered by the likes of Ethereum and Cosmos onto one platform. Moreover, we'll look at the work of Busan International Finance Centre, the incentives being offered to the international business community as well as the prospective ecosystem.