SET Training - Banking and Fintech

In an era defined by volatility, organizations face a complex and unpredictable risk landscape. Leaders are constantly challenged to distinguish between headline-grabbing threats and the ground-level realities that truly disrupt operations. Navigating this environment requires clear, evidence-based insight into what is happening now and what is likely to happen next. The BCI Horizon Scan Report 2025 provides exactly that insight, delivering a crucial benchmark for resilience professionals worldwide. By combining quantitative survey data with in-depth interviews, the report uncovers a fascinating disconnect between what organizations perceive as their greatest future threats and the issues that are actually causing the most damage today. This post will distill the five most surprising and counterintuitive takeaways from the report. These findings challenge conventional wisdom about business risk and provide a practical guide for leaders seeking to build genuine, future-proof resilience....

  In an era of relentless disruption, the very definition of corporate survival is being rewritten in real time. For decades, business continuity was a back-office discipline of checklists and recovery plans. But a new, more dynamic vision of resilience is emerging from the fog of technological change and geopolitical uncertainty, and it demands a radical shift in our thinking. The Business Continuity Institute (BCI), a leading global authority, has pierced through the noise with its "Resilience Vision 2030 Report." Drawing on insights from over 200 professionals, this analysis is not another predictable forecast. It uncovers a series of surprising, counter-intuitive trends that will redefine what it means for any business to be built to last. The report’s core message is that the future of resilience is less about rigid plans and more about adaptive cultures; less about technical fixes and more about strategic influence. Here are the five most critical takeaways that will s...

A video overview charting the evolution of globalisation. Spanning the hyper-globalisation of the 1990s to the current era of “Slowbalisation”. This video from The Economist tracks shifts in trade flows, geopolitics , and popular discontent. It provides an unparalleled understanding of the forces driving deglobalisation, exploring how economic integration is being undone by political backlash and geopolitical tensions.

By Stanley Epstein -  Introduction: The Promise of Stability The financial world is buzzing with talk of stablecoins. It’s no longer a niche topic; major players like Citi, Visa, Stripe, and a growing number of large US banks are actively building platforms and exploring issuing their own. This isn't just experimental—the scale of the ambition is immense. Citi's CEO, Jane Fraser, recently forecasted that stablecoin issuance could surge to an astonishing $3.7 trillion by the end of the decade. At its core, the promise of a stablecoin is simple: to create a cryptocurrency with a stable price by pegging it to a real-world asset, most commonly the US dollar. This is meant to offer the benefits of digital currency—speed, accessibility, and transparency—without the wild price swings associated with assets like bitcoin. But beneath this straightforward promise lies a far more complex and surprising reality with profound consequences for the global financial system. The rapid growth of...

- By Stanley Epstein -  In 2024, the global banking sector achieved something unprecedented: it generated $1.2 trillion in profits, the highest total ever recorded for any industry. Return on Equity (ROE) hit a 20-year high. By all conventional measures, it was a banner year. Yet, beneath the surface of these record-breaking figures, capital markets are sending a clear message of deep scepticism. This scepticism is starkly visible in a massive valuation gap. Today, the banking sector is valued nearly 70 percent lower than the average of all other industries. Investors believe the recent profit surge was driven by temporary tailwinds and is fundamentally unsustainable. They see an industry struggling to find a new business model for the leaner years ahead. This profound disconnect between record performance and market pessimism signals that massive, underlying shifts are underway. A recent McKinsey report, the "Global Banking Annual Review 2025," digs into this paradox and unc...

- By Stanley Epstein - Why escalating cyberattacks, ICT vulnerabilities, and sophisticated fraud are now at the core of operational risk management across Europe’s financial sector. Introduction European banks have entered a new era of operational risk exposure — one dominated not by rogue traders or faulty models, but by invisible adversaries in cyberspace. As digitalisation accelerates and financial institutions migrate core processes to the cloud, operational resilience has become the defining risk management challenge of the decade. The European Banking Authority (EBA) now consistently identifies cyber and ICT (Information and Communication Technology systems) risk as the most critical operational risk facing the banking sector. Rising losses, growing dependence on external technology providers, and an intensifying threat environment underscore the urgency of this challenge. At the same time, fraud, conduct risk, and third-party dependency are converging with cyber threats, amplify...

By Stanley Epstein – We tap a card, wave a phone, or click a button, and money moves. This process has become so seamless, so integrated into our daily lives, that it's easy to overlook the colossal system working behind the scenes. But this seamless experience masks a tectonic shift. The very architecture of global finance is fracturing and re-forming, and the 2025 McKinsey Global Payments Report reveals a series of surprising shifts that will affect not just banks and tech companies, but everyone with a digital wallet. Here are the four most impactful truths from the report that are shaping the future of money. 1. The Hype is Over: Global Payments Growth is Hitting a Wall After a period of supercharged expansion, the global payments industry is experiencing a significant slowdown. While revenue surged by an impressive 12% in 2023, growth fell sharply to just 4% in 2024. According to the report, this deceleration is caused by four distinct factors: peaking interest rates, a more ...