Over the past decade, regulators in the UK and elsewhere have sought to avoid a repetition of the global financial crisis by turning to bank culture. New culture teams have emerged, statements of purpose have been drafted, and self-regulatory initiatives have arisen to administer annual culture surveys to industry participants. Yet these attempts to influence employee behaviour by intervening on their values and beliefs has inevitably been hampered by the parallel use of technologies of control such as risk management metrics (whether it is Value at Risk, AI analytics, stress-testing, or ever-larger compliance teams, etc) that often displace employees’ norms and values in shaping decisions. In his talk, Beunza explores the challenges entailed in enhancing cultural standards in an industry dominated by technologies of control, as laid out in his award-winning book Taking the Floor. Based on extensive, fly-on-the-wall observations at a Wall Street trading room over the span of sixteen years, Beunza considers the case of a bank executive who sought to remedy the ethical shortcomings he observed in derivatives trading by reorganizing his trading floor and challenging the bank’s use of risk management models. Beunza analyses this unique experiment and considers what lessons it offers for financial organizations today: what worked? What didn't? What do we learn from it? Providing a unique perspective on a complex subject, the talk outlines what a contemporary managerial intervention on culture should entail in an age of extensive risk management constraints on decision-making.

Darek Bates interviews Professor Michael Mainelli on his experiences living and working in the City of London.

Trying to make the best decisions for your customers and your company? Want to lead the way with AI and Gen-AI in your industry? Investing heavily in dedicated data teams, BI tools and data warehouses? Then you’ll want to know more about creating and optimising a data led culture. Only by encouraging a data led culture can organisations truly capitalise on their investments and emerging tech.

There are some foundational and fairly obvious criteria to creating a data culture, such as: ‘improve data literacy’, ‘provide training’, ‘build KPIs/metrics’. What is less obvious to most organisations is the power of ‘softer’ factors such as ways of working, incentivisation, democratisation of data and sharing of success stories.

In this webinar, Gate One, a change and transformation consultancy, outline the factors that FS organisations with a leading data culture have in common. Using our latest findings from a survey and interviews with leading FS firms, we provide a series of ‘must haves’ for organisations looking to improve their data culture.

The fourth introductory webclave to the forthcoming Cityforum ‘Reimagining Security and Resilience’ programme is scheduled for September 2023, entitled 'Managing Critical Events'.

Chaired by Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli of Z/Yen with whom Cityforum is working on this series, the excellent panel of discussants comprises Professor Sir David Omand, former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator; Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Chairman of the Advisory Panel of Thales (UK); and Zhanna L. Malekos Smith Visiting Fellow Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs & Senior Associate Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). The panel has much experience on what to do in response to managing critical events. One of the themes Michael Mainelli wishes to include is problems in the space domain and in particular with how debris could wreck both movement and communication, a subject for which Zhanna has particular expertise.

The whole thrust of this Cityforum project, which extends until Christmas, is how to deliver improved security and resilient recovery in a period of global stress, fragmentation and polycrisis.

In a world of increasingly activist states, government decisions matter.  What insights do we have into apex decision-making in government – the level one decisions that can be consequential for business and society? Join Professor Alexander Evans from the London School of Economics as he offers a take on how the British, American and UN systems operate, including on regulatory diplomacy and standards.

Discover the pulsating heart of Central Europe's financial dynamism: Warsaw! Poland's thriving capital, blends history with modern financial prowess. From fintech startups to banking giants, it showcases Poland's economic resurgence. In 30 years, Poland tripled its economy, becoming the EU's sixth-largest and Central Europe's largest. The financial sector is a key player.

Poland's growth made it a global hub for financial institutions. Skilled talent, infrastructure, and a central location attract cybersecurity, R&D, and more. Polish banks and fintechs lead in payments, digital banking, and identification.

Join "Focus on Warsaw" webinar to discover opportunities and innovations shaping the region's financial future. Spotlighting Poland's successes and ambitions, the webinar unveils the Future Finance Poland initiative, elevating Warsaw's global financial standing.

The development of DLT and the digital asset ecosystem presents significant opportunities to improve efficiency and deliver real benefits in global capital markets. In this webinar, Adam will discuss the legal, technological, regulatory and risk management considerations of different DLT use cases in capital markets including DLT-based Securities and DLT-based Payment Instruments. He will also set out the associated risks that regulators will need to manage while also enabling innovation in this fast-moving area of policy.

We are in the new age of Quackery where mountebanks/scammers are online.

Technology has to be involved right from first contact and throughout the payment process to prevent anyone from being deceived of money.

The world is going instant payments. The choice – Credit Card or Bank Account – for payment, regardless of geography, needs to be verified and safe.

Agenda:

Direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the steel sector amounts to about 7% of total energy sector emissions and 25% of industrial CO2 emissions (IEA, 2020) and achieving net-zero steel in sector will require cumulative investment between $5.2 and $6.1 trillion (MPP, 2022). Emission intensity of steel is a critical criterion in investment decisions which underscores the importance of independent measurement and reporting of the emission intensity of the steel produced. ResponsibleSteel Standard and Certification provides an independent third-party certification assessing emissions and other social criteria from a steel a producing site which the finance industry can leverage on to make financing decisions to the steel sector. In this session, ResponsibleSteel will present the dynamics of steel decarbonization, and the critical role of standards and certification program in enabling finance flows to the steel sector decarbonization.

Icebreaker One and Bankers for Net Zero (B4NZ) are developing Perseus, a pragmatic whole-of-market solution to create rapidly scalable, low-effort, low-friction sustainability reporting. This aims to help unlock access to capital by automating GHG reporting for every SME in the country. Starting with SMEs, UK banks and energy companies, it will create a common framework and operational delivery of a solution that will begin to automate GHG reporting for every SME in the UK.

Perseus is backed by the UK Government with the initiative included in the Green Finance Strategy 2023. Further information on Perseus is available here.