Tag Archives | banks

The financial sector: a culture of transparency?

The recent global financial crisis highlighted the need to broaden the discussion about regulation and oversight of the financial system. Transparency and related risk assessments of financial institutions have surged to the top of the agenda. In our study on transparency and disclosure of measures for reducing corruption risk among the world’s largest companies published […]

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Fail Again. Fail Better: Reform of the EU Banking Sector.

Samuel Beckett’s exhortation to “fail better” could also be applied to the EU banking sector. Time and time again, troubled financial institutions have been bailed out by the taxpayer because they have been perceived as “too important to fail”. The ability of a large number of banks to benefit from excessive risk-taking without fully absorbing […]

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Cleaning up finance: when corporate governance turns bad

If anyone questioned the European Commission’s current concern with corporate governance in financial institutions, last Friday’s bombshell that 17 international financial groups – including such household names as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland – are to be sued by the US government for offences ranging from misrepresentation to fraud and aiding […]

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Looking to a new Libya

As Transparency International asks the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group to prioritise anti-bribery laws, asset recovery and money laundering ahead of the Cannes G20 Summit, Transparency International’s Group Director for Research & Knowledge Robin Hodess reflects on relevance of the disastrous and destabilising impacts the failure to address corruption has had in Arab Spring countries such […]

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Should banks profit from dictators’ money?

As Libya prepares for the future, what are financial centres doing to stop the flow of stolen assets from dictators? The following is adapted from a speech made by Transparency International’s vice-chair, Akere Muna, at the UN public service forum in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania.   If corruption, especially money laundering and […]

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