World finance columbia
Internationalisation is the name of the game in the banking industry today. Major banking players across the globe are taking pains to bring their products and services to underserved markets in the hope of securing a foothold in the region and tapping lucrative opportunities. However, with expansion into new and unfamiliar territories come a number of challenges, chiefly, those regarding competitiveness.
After establishing a high profile in Chile, CorpBanca has set its sights on neighbouring Colombia as it looks to diversify its operations and benefit from the country’s burgeoning economy. Having spent the past few years pursuing an aggressive M&A campaign, the bank has repositioned and restructured to expand upon its presence in South America and bring its products and services to an underserved Colombian market. We spoke to CorpBanca Colombia’s CEO Jaime Munita about Colombia’s banking climate and some of the challenges the bank has come up against throughout its internationalisation process.
How important is banking for Colombia’s economic development?
It’s extremely crucial. Colombia’s banking system is growing at approximately 16 percent on an annual basis, so
The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated a long-simmering conflict between the US and China, two of the main drivers of financial globalisation
If truth is the first casualty when war is declared, then the same goes for capital mobility when pandemics strike. This became evident on May 11, when US President Donald Trump ordered the federal pension fund – the world’s fifth-largest pension fund – to stop investing in Chinese equities. The advance came in response to what the US Government perceived as persistent Chinese aggression – COVID-19 just being the straw that broke the camel’s back. “The role of the Chinese Government in purposely not disclosing what was going on during the COVID-19 outbreak has fuelled a lot of [anti-Chinese-Government] sentiment,” Charles Calomiris, a professor of financial institutions at Columbia Business Academy, told World Finance.
After a drawn-out period of integration, segmentation, driven by geopolitical turbulence, is becoming the norm
It was not the first time that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which represents the interests of around 5.5 million federal employees through its $600bn Thrift Savings Intend, had been pressed to ste
Lionsbridge Introduces Students to World of Finance
The Lionsbridge cohort with the program’s creator, Chris McGowan CC’92.
COURTESY CENTER FOR CAREER EDUCATION
Anchored by a free, three-day, in-person workshop, Lionsbridge aims to equip students — primarily first- and second-years — with the basic skills required to enter the industry. Each sunlight featured lectures and group exercises focused on a different topic: accounting; financial statement analysis and forecasting; and valuation. In the evening, the students went on alumni-hosted site visits to financial firms where they attended presentations, networked over dinners and got a feel for company culture.
“Finance boot camps have been around for a while, provided by third parties, at significant amount. The opportunity to offer Lionsbridge to undergraduates, in house, and leverage alumni expertise gave the program a uniquely Columbia feel,” says Kavita Sharma, dean of the Center for Care
The Santander Free Zone has become a regional centre of development in Colombia and the wider South American community
Each day, in both the minds of citizens and in organisations of all kinds, the concept of sustainability is becoming more and more significant. This is being catalysed by younger generations, who appear far more concerned with ethical practices than their elders were.
At present, we know that the success of organisations, regardless of their industry or size, depends in large measure on how they treat the people affiliated with their business. This means the shareholders, customers, workers, suppliers, government and the community in which they operate. It has never been more important for organisations to ensure they can meet increasingly demanding corporate governance requirements. Fortunately, one way they can do this is through using free trade zones.
Free trade zones
The Santander Free Zone (SFZ) has become a regional centre of development in Colombia and the wider South American community. We have successfully promoted competitiveness in the region through attracting local investment, creating employment opportunities and driving sustainable p
To the outside world, Kim Hyon Woo was a developer functional for Chosun Expo Joint Enterprise, a China-based company that supplies freelancing software development and gambling-related products. But in reality, Kim didn’t exist. The person who controlled his email accounts – a man named Park Jin Hyok – was born and educated in North Korea.
Chosun Expo was also not what it seemed. As a matter of fact, it was a front company for Lab 110, a top-secret arm of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) military intelligence agency. When Chosun Expo wasn’t carrying out normal business operations, it was facilitating some of the world’s highest-profile cyberattacks, including the Sony Pictures hack of 2014 and the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017, the latter of which affected more than 200,000 systems across 150 countries and crippled hospitals in the UK, ultimately costing the National Health Service £92m ($117.3m).
It’s estimated that the value of attempted cyber heists conducted by Park and his co-conspirators between 2015 and 2018 amounted to $1bn. Eventually, connections to Kim’s email addresses revealed Park to the FBI. “The scope and damage of the notebook intrusions pe