By Timothy Grayson January 28, 2024 Embarking on marital life brings joys and challenges, especially in the realm of finances. As newlyweds, developing a robust financial foundation supporting your shared dreams and goals is essential. This BankActivities guide dives into practical steps to ensure your monetary journey together is as blissful as your life journey. Crafting a United Financial Framework Merging lives means intertwining financial habits and goals. Crafting a comprehensive budget that reflects your combined income, expenses, and savings is vital. This budget becomes your road ..read more

By Timothy Grayson January 17, 2024 In the current dynamic era, financial success is not just a matter of earnings; it involves a paradigm shift in your money mindset. This article presented below by BankActivities delves into transformative strategies that can reshape your financial beliefs, educate you about fiscal management, enhance income through entrepreneurship, and guide you in setting and achieving financial ambitions. Embracing positivity, practicing gratitude, and mastering emotional control are also key to unlocking a prosperous future. Uncover and Overcome Limiting Financial Belie ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten December 16, 2023 The CEOs of America’s largest publicly traded companies have been talking about geofinance (cf. the interactions between geopolitics and the realm of finance/ economics) this year. During the explanations they give every so often about their company results, they mention the word almost 12,000 times. That is nearly a threefold increase compared to just two years ago. Some large hedge fund managers are even more explicit. The world totally depends on leaders’ common sense to avoid Armageddon. It is the most dangerous geopolitical environment ever ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten November 22, 2023 The magus is an ancient sorcerer or magician, and the title implies that low volatility could possess the magic to predict a financial crisis. Bearing in mind the severity of the aftershocks of the 2007-2008 systemic financial earthquake that continued to be felt years across many parts of the world, it would be helpful to have a set of “early warning indicators” to tell us what countries are most vulnerable (Frankel and Saravelos, 2010). Indeed, the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-2008 bushwacked every observer and market participant. Until 200 ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten September 15, 2023 The lesser known rating agency, DBRS, has upgraded: – the Hellenic Republic’s Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency – Issuer Ratings from BB (high) to BBB (low). Stable outlook. However, the ratings with S&P/Fitch/Moody’s for Greece are at respectively BB+/BB+/Ba3 with a positive outlook for all three rating agencies. This means that a rating upgrade in the next 12 months is not unlikely. Capital markets share a similar favorable view on Greece with the 5-year CDS being at 73.25, down from 195.19 in October 2022 (Source). This value reveals ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten September 11, 2023 From a systemic banking risk perspective, the U.S. office sector is most at risk, given widespread shift to working from home arising from the pandemic. And that has impacted demand and thus affected pricing/valuation + debt servicing. Research shows that a 35% plunge in office values is forecasted by end-2025 and a recovery is unlikely before 2040. Basically, it means that office values probably won’t regain their pre-pandemic peaks in the next 17 years. Additionally, the U.S. CRE sector is facing a wave of loan maturities ahead – amid stricte ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten September 01, 2023 Since the GFC of 2007-2008, there have been a lot of articles written heralding the need for organizations to build more resilient business models. Resiliency is the best antidote for an organization when facing turbulent times. In the realm of financial markets, power rests with those who control the money. Consequently, stability requires trust in the financial system and in governments whereby ethics and culture are key factors. Still, while the requirement for cultural reform may be self-explanatory, the challenge in bringing about and stre ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten August 01, 2023 It is now widely acknowledged that, by nature of their design, the models developed by neoclassical economists to simulate the economy, from models of financial risk used by banks to the macroeconomic models used by policymakers, failed to predict or even accurately explain the events of the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis. In fact, they also contributed to the crisis by creating a false sense of security, namely one related to so-called optimal market equilibrium. Optimal market equilibrium is the wrong objective But, we have been told a lie: t ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten July 01, 2023 In the aftermath of the GFC, “the fundamental risk management failure” remains unaddressed by the regulators. By steering towards the creation of stronger loss absorption capabilities and higher liquidity, regulators merely addressed the symptoms of the crisis (i.e. depressed asset prices, reduced liquidity in many markets, a contraction in the credit markets, etc.). It is a danger, however, that with the implementation of the Basel III reforms, the industry will only be fully ready for a rehearsal of 2008 – and even that is not true – and not for a ..read more

By Pascal vander Straeten June 01, 2023 Today’s business models are designed to avoid complications and to operate in stable environments. Consider this: companies have thrived and survived for decades by building powerful fortifications to defend themselves. In order to protect themselves against the intrusion of competitors, organizations identified competitive advantages, constructed entry barriers that were high, and developed powerful organizations to realize their goals. In a situation when change was usually predictable and manageable, these walls seemed impenetrable. However, even with ..read more