"I’m afraid he’s on gardening leave and could be for a while. You should see the size of this guy’s garden. I think it’s called Buckinghamshire"
An investment bank PR explains why Euromoney can’t speak to the latest hire any time soon
"If the state wants to cut road deaths, it could legislate a speed limit of 10mph and force cars to leave a gap of 100 meters between them. That would cut road deaths to zero. Of course it would destroy the economy"
The CFO of a large bank has his doubts about regulators’ efforts to make the system safer
"Waiting for maturities is like waiting for Godot – you stand around for a long time and nothing much happens"
A fixed-income investor advises corporates to refinance sooner rather than later
"We spent years proudly telling people we were a global financial centre. A major GFC we told them. Now the Australians refer to the global financial crisis as the GFC. I wish we’d stop using acronyms in finance"
A Dubai-based fund manager sees the downside of branding
"People in the US and Europe are supposed to have lost trust in banks, but it’s all relative. I have a friend here who literally has $200,000 under the mattress. She needed $6,000 in an account to get a visa; she did it, got the visa, then immediately withdrew the money and put it back under the bed. That’s what happens when banks fail enough times"
A foreign banker in Cambodia spells out what real loss of faith in banks looks like