This article from Wolfgang Hammes outlines the risks of an impending inflation crisis. Lot of things have happened over the past two weeks. If you follow me, you probably have read my extensive posts on Silicon Valley Bank and other bank failures. I don’t want to repeat what I wrote in my posts: Just this: Nothing was surprising. It is much more interesting to look into the future and this will be disturbing for those who do not invest into…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bill Bentaieb. Bill has, since 1998, been a consultant and interim transformation executive serving as Head of Finance, HR and Technology Transformation, Global Business Services, Analytics, BI and Outsourcing Programmes. As an independent consultant and interim executive, he supports and leads business transformation programs including the design, implementation and optimization of GBS structures in Finance, HR and Technology, with a focus on technology benchmarking, selection and implementation process and organizational design, outsourcing, off-shoring and transition…

Tobias Baer shares an article on credit risk and the perils of the buy-now-pay-later trend. A just-published TransUnion study shows that buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) takes the UK (just as other markets) by storm, with 35% of the population having used it in the past 12 months (driven in particular by Gen Z and Millennials with up to 60% usage). There are both obvious and not-so-obvious implications for traditional lenders. BNPL promotes further fragmentation of consumer debt – and therefore will make…

Luiz Zorzella shares an article designed to help improve strategy by understanding your net Interest margin (NIM).  If you are a bank executive and want to manage the bank’s business strategically, you must understand the key drivers of your bank’s profitability and the trade-offs they imply. For example, to some extent, banks can trade the cost of deposits for efficiency ratio by making it more convenient for clients to make deposits. At the same time, the equilibrium of these trade-offs…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Hugo Teophilo Rufino. Hugo has worked for McKinsey in the practices of financial services, public sector mostly serving clients in strategy, org design, performance implementation and digital transformation Besides McK, he worked for PwC/Strategy&, Altran and as Executive Director for companies in the Tech and Insurance industries He lives in Brazil with his wife and baby daughter. Hugo is passionate to serve clients and collaborate in strategy and transformative projects….

Peet van Biljon shares a recently published article on quantum computing in finance. There are two competing narratives on quantum computing. The first is that the technology is overhyped, still in its infancy, beset by enormous technical challenges and that full-scale, reliable quantum computers are decades away. The second is that many companies, including some of the world’s most prominent financial institutions such as Barclays, BBVA, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and RBS are investing in, and experimenting with, quantum-computing applications and…

Sanjay Gandhi shares an article that discusses strategies for companies and High Net Worth families and individuals that can provide a silver lining amidst the tough news and provide long-term benefits when valuations rise again. The coronavirus (COVID-19) has resulted in significant public market losses, as reflected in daily stock market gyrations and volatility. Private companies, asset and debt values have equally been affected by the pandemic. For High Net Worth individuals and companies, certain strategies can provide a silver…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marco Berizzi.  Marco acted as Chief Financial Officer within pharmaceutical and medical device space and as Head of Business Solutions for a company developing business intelligence, advanced analytics and planning platforms in Switzerland since 2013. Prior to this, he spent almost six years in Bain & Company, Italy accomplishing business due-diligences underlying private equity transactions, serving financial institutions customers within corporate banking & risk management projects and dealing with business improvements & BPR projects in…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Michael D Pollack with Pollack Consulting.  Michael has over 25 years at driving industry transformation and delivering insights through leveraging best in class analytics. Prior to Pollack Consulting, Michael was a Managing Director at JP Morgan in Asset & Wealth Management where he was the Global Head of the Portfolio Analysis Group, the group that provided investment analytics for both external and external analysis of JP Morgan’s investment performance. Prior to this role, Michael was…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Paul Browne with Lexington. Paul is combines a wealth of experience in international blue-chip companies with an intellectual drive, curiosity for data, and experience in helping high-performing complex executives get outstanding results. He has lived and worked extensively across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He lives with his author wife, (N.M. Browne) in Richmond-on-Thames, UK – useful for Heathrow. Paul is an Associate at the Møller Institute at the University of Cambridge and…

  Marcin Mazurek shares interesting financial insights on the major bank challengers in Europe. A review of operations of major bank challengers after a year of significant challenges offers some interesting insights.   Slower customer growth The group of major* players representing top bank challengers in Europe (Revolut, N26, Monzo, Monese, Starling, TransferWise, Curve, and Tandem) served nearly 39 million customers as of Q4 2020 as compared to nearly 27 million as of Q4 2019. What is striking here is…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Adam Anderson. Adam has led and participated in over a hundred consulting projects at McKinsey, Accenture, KPMG and on his own. He has also spent over 10 years as CFO, CEO, board member and chairman of the board. His industry experience is wide, with most time in financial services and manufacturing. His specialty is rapid and radical improvement of key metrics, for example revenue and income. A strategy expert, he has also worked in finance,…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Peter Kovacs.  Peter spent almost nine years in various Strategic, Finance, and Business Unit roles at MUFG Union Bank in California. Prior to that, he spent four years in the FIG practice at McKinsey out of Budapest, Hungary. Since 2016, Peter has been balancing his time with independent consulting both as an individual and leading teams in a variety of engagements primarily for FIG and PE clients, as well as owning and operating several unrelated…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christophe De Greift with NEXUSQUANTS. Christophe De Greift has 15 years of experience in management consulting, part of it at The Boston Consulting Group and more recently running his own consulting firm focused on business analytics. Christophe has led 75+ projects in Latin America and Europe and has particular expertise in marketing analytics and supply chain analytics in sectors such as media, finance, logistics, consumer goods, energy and mining. He lives in Lima, Peru with…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Yevgeniy Rikhterman.  Yevgeniy Rikhterman spent three years as the Director of Strategy at Herff Jones, a PE owned CPG company. Yevgeniy has experience in creating strategic plans, as well as an evergreen strategic planning processes. Yevgeniy led the strategic planned that helped to maximize the value of Herff Jones during a critical PE transaction. He also led the corporate development, and M&A aspect, and as such has specific experiences that is applicable to mid-size companies…

  This in-depth article from Boris Galonske explains how digitization helps improve resilience in commodity trading. Commodity trading suffers from shrinking margins and in some commodity classes also from low price volatility. At the same time operating environments struggle with manual routines, legacy processes and systems resulting in high cost income ratios (CIR). How can this challenge be addressed and how can the profitability and the resilience of trading businesses be increased? Situation today Commodity trading exhibits still several manual…

Robyn M. Bolton provides a few inside tips on how to work with resource constraints and the people who control them when you need to access the resources that will fund your innovation.   The process of setting annual goals and budgets can be frustrating and even demoralizing for employees and managers alike as their visions and budgets get slashed in each round of management reviews. This process can be especially painful for Innovators who feel like they are expected…