Of Special Interest
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- Newslink Trends-The Global Strategic Perspective
- Juniper Research says digital wallet users to exceed 4.4 billion by 2025, as mobile drives digital payments’ revolution
- Criminals exploit COVID-19 pandemic with rise in scams targeting victims online
- Equifax says Open Banking proving pivotal to pandemic lending
- Consumer confidence in banks, credit card providers and investments remain stable as demand supercharges digital finance says Toluna research
- Mintos says Europeans are starting to embrace investing
- US banks see IT modernisation as a way to improve customer experience
- Risk mitigation in global trade depends on digitisation-Andrew Raymond, CEO, Bolero International comments
- Juniper Research new study says the volume of B2B payments facilitated by non-banks will exceed 53 billion in 2022, from a COVID-related low of 38 billion in 2020
- CMA issues fifth publication over 3 years of the service quality league table of personal and business current account providers
- Barclays says scammers take advantage of COVID-19, cashing in on nations’ uncertainty
- S&P Global report says financial market infrastructure sector's earnings likely to cool off In second half
- Global banking market capitalisation slumps by over 30% amid pandemic says Buyshares research
- Digital wallet spend in Europe & North America to increase by 40% in 2019, finds study
- Juniper forecasts mobile money transactions will exceed 200 billion by 2024
- Banks can save the world from climate change, says former UN climate chief
- Research by NatWest reveals gender divide over attitudes to saving
- Europe’s big bank problem: too much capital is trapped in the US, says Scope
- Later-Life lending market set to almost double in the next 10 years, finds report
- Barclays/Cebr report challenges nation to think differently about wealth
- Fifth of UK investors looking to debt investment, new research reveals
- Regtech will play a more important role in PSD2, says Mitek
- Banks turn to Fintech partnerships to improve customer experience, finds Fraedom
- New industry code to tackle fraud must deliver, says Which?
- New TTF report highlights loss of trust in financial services
- Arxan highlights financial app vulnerability epidemic
- SAS asks whether banks really need to choose between operations and innovation
- Which? raises alarm as almost 1,700 free ATMs become fee-charging
- Financial wellness affects half of peoples’ mental or physical health, finds report
- Study finds traditional financial institutions embrace Fintech disruption
- Grass is greener for environmentally friendly businesses, finds Barclays
- Prospective homeowners would consider a 40-year mortgage to escape renting, finds Santander
- Millennials’ needs are changing the face of banking industry, says new report
- FS is putting consumer data at risk by failing to protect mobile apps, says Arxan
- A lack of belief in their ability holds 28% women back in work, says Cambridge & Counties
- ‘Which?’ reveals Scotland has lost over a third of its bank branches in eight years
- Next downturn unlikely to be as bad as 2008, according to S&P
- FCA reveals findings from first cryptoassets consumer research
- US consumers favour single mobile app for banking and payments
- Banks suffering major IT shutdowns every day, ‘Which?’ reveals
- The US will be a key offshore centre in 2019, says GlobalData
- Debit industry changes markedly in 10 years of the Debit Issuer Study
- UK's ‘Big Five’ face ‘too big to compete’ as small challengers secure stellar returns
- Banks as vulnerable now as before crash, says new study
- Leverage ratio a constant conundrum for European and US banks, says SNL
27th April 2012
Blankfein PR offensive
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs gave TV interviews with both CNBC and Bloomberg, the first public interviews since 2010.
He said in both interviews he had no plans to step down or separate the chairman and chief executive positions. He also admitted the bank "had not got everything right in how we deal with the public" and as a consequence “We’re going to have to do a better job ... in getting out there and telling people how important this industry is.”
Regarding the resignation letter by Greg Smith sent to the New York Times Blankfein claims that he was shocked at the allegations and that a review of emails failed to find support for the allegations made. He said,"We had 30,000 people who felt the opposite and clients who were unbelievably supportive," Blankfein said. "It didn't undo the damage and the shock to the wider public but we certainly were buoyed by the response that we got from our clients and our investors and our people of Goldman Sachs."
Smith claimed that executives in the London office had no respect for their clients and talked only of how much money they could extract from them. His letter referred to the Goldman Sachs employees referring to their clients as'muppets'. For the non-British this is a term suggesting stupid, silly or simple-minded.
Following the banking crisis some comments by Blankfein were certainly not helpful towards his bank or to the banking sector more generally. That, plus the fact that Goldman was generally considered the largest and most successful investment bank led to much campaigning against the bank.
The interviews are thought to be part of a new communications strategy. Recently Jake Siewert took over as head of communications. He has relevant experience with past clients including former US President Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary who also had problems with the media when first appointed. Blankfein was still unrepentant on certain matters. When pressed on the many occasions Goldman Sachs has been accused of conflicts of interest he replied, “If you want to rule out conflicts of interest you’ll just give advice to maybe one company, never give lending, never give capital support."