Financial Institutions Archives - Page 2 of 2

Financial Institutions, Stock Exchanges / 08.08.2020

Stock ownership by institutional investors cause higher stock price volatility, inefficiency and fragility, study finds

According to a recent study, institutional investors, among which BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, JPMorgan, are responsible for increasing price volatility and mispricing in company stocks. Moreover, stocks with higher ownership by such investors show greater price drops during periods of market turmoil. The findings of this study provide...

Corporate Governance, Criminal Transactions, Financial Institutions / 03.08.2020

Wirecard scandal: the German fintech firm linked to Maltese gambling companies used to launder money for the Mafia

After the fraud scheme, Wirecard’s links to the Italian Mafia have also been discovered. The firm processed payments for Maltese gambling companies that laundered money for the Ndrangheta. A good ESG analysis would have been effective in detecting Wirecard's controversies. The German payment service provider Wirecard, which went bankrupt...

Corporate Governance, ESG, Financial Institutions / 01.08.2020

US Administration deterrence against ESG strategies

Despite the worldwide increase in ESG and sustainable investments, in the USA we are assisting to a great deterrence against ESG policies reviving the old objection they provide low returns, which has not been supported by the facts. In the last decade, a fundamental shift towards sustainable...

Companies, Corporate Governance, Financial Institutions, Racial and Gender Diversity / 17.07.2020

Morgan Stanley sued by former Head of Diversity for racial discrimination and retaliation

Ms. Booker, former Global Head of Diversity at Morgan Stanley, has pursued legal action against the bank claiming that she was fired last December after having pushed a plan aimed at helping black financial advisors. Last June, Marilyn Booker has pursued legal action against Morgan Stanley for...

Big Four, Corporate Governance, Criminal Transactions, Financial Institutions / 04.07.2020

Wirecard scandal: a story of fraud and auditing negligence

Wirecard’s share price has collapsed after the exposure of its fraud scheme. On Thursday, June 18th 2020, Wirecard’s auditor, EY, stated that, when carrying out its 2019 audit of the firm, it could not find $2 billion in the company’s accounts, funds that the German firm later...

Corporate Governance, Financial Institutions / 25.06.2020

How a whistleblower exposed the corporate word – the Danske Bank case

In 2018, the Danish bank, Danske Bank was accused of suffering a “near-total process failure” in a whistleblower report, which reveals that up to USD 3.3 billion linked to the President and the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation had been laundered through its...

Climate change, Financial Institutions, Oil and Gas / 18.02.2020

BlackRock’s Sustainable Investing Push

BlackRock CEO recently announced he will take action towards a more sustainable investment. Whereas, in the early stages, responsible investing meant excluding from portfolio highly controversial and problematic stocks, such as gunmakers. Nowadays, responsible investment means selecting carefully the assets in portfolio and constantly monitoring to...

Climate change, Disinvestment, Financial Institutions, Senza categoria / 28.11.2019

ECB under pressure to ditch climate polluters from balance sheet

The European Central Bank should take "concrete action" to help tackle the climate crisis, more than 160 academics and civil society groups said in a letter to new ECB chief Christine Lagarde. "The most powerful financial institution in Europe cannot just sit passively as we witness...

ESG, Financial Institutions / 25.09.2019

Hedge Funds Putting More Focus on ESG

Hedge funds are starting to face the increasing interest in responsible investing. According to the survey by BarclayHedge, a division of technology firm Backstop Solutions, four out of ten hedge fund managers now consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings in their capital allocation decision. The reason...

Climate change, ESG Rating, Financial Institutions / 20.09.2019

The case for closer oversight of the ESG fund industry

"Green-friendly ETFs hold shares in groups with coal operations" said Financial Times on September 19, 2019. The case for closer oversight of the ESG fund industry is the conclusion of the analysis conducted by the environmental research group InfluenceMap on a basket of 118 climate-themed funds listed...

Financial Institutions, Tax Avoidance / 18.09.2019

Saving capitalism from the rentiers

The FT has launched on Wednesday September 18, 2019 a new agenda under the simbolic title "Capitalism. Time for a reset." The famous FT editorialist Martin Wolf has written an extreemely interesting article on how 'rentier capitalism' is destroying the economy and capitalism itsself. Where...

Corporate Governance, Financial Institutions / 09.09.2019

PPI scandal is still ongoing

Thursday, August 29th was the deadline for the claims of the longest financial scandal in the UK. We are talking about the selling of shadowy payments protection insurance (PPI) on loans, credit cards and mortgages that occurred between mid 90s and 2010, the year when supposedly the...