“If our profits grew as quickly as the size of our annual reports, then we would be doing rather well”
The chairman of one of the world’s biggest banks apologises for the size of his company’s annual report, which his PR chief had just handed to us
“Salespeople are expensive. Computers are cheap. I haven’t paid a bonus to a computer yet!”
This head of markets is a big believer in automation and technology
“One, buy my book; two, get your chequebook out!”
A former senior investment banker’s reply to our question about what might tempt him to return to the market
“You don’t have to be bald to succeed here, but it helps!”
Two follically challenged investment bank chiefs introduce a recently promoted colleague who is equally short on top
“Let me get this straight. Some computer scientist sitting in his garage in Palo fucking Alto with $1 million of venture capital tells you that his new distributed ledger is going to put the DTCC out of business in six months, JPMorgan the year after and that the Federal Reserve might not have much longer. And you believed him?”
This banker doesn’t like Euromoney asking if big incumbent banks are collectively hobbling adoption of the blockchain to protect their vested interests