Latest news with #StandardChartered
Times of Oman
4 hours ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
Credit growth influenced by economic activity rather than surplus liquidity: Report
New Delhi: Credit growth in the economy is influenced more by overall economic activity than by the size of the liquidity surplus, according to a recent report by Standard Chartered, an international bank. The report noted that while a high liquidity surplus may provide some support to unsecured personal loan growth (excluding consumer durable loans), it does not automatically lead to broad-based credit growth. It stated, "Credit growth depends more on economic activity than the size of the liquidity surplus; however, unsecured personal loan growth (ex-consumer durables) could get a fillip on a large liquidity surplus". In fact, as the report mentioned that the credit growth excluding unsecured personal and consumer durable loans tends to slow during periods of excess liquidity. This trend suggested that the real demand for credit, which is closely linked to economic activity, is a more important driver than the availability or cost of funds. "Slower economic activity triggers action by the central bank to increase the liquidity surplus as a counter-cyclical measure," the report said. However, despite such efforts, overall credit (excluding unsecured personal and consumer durable loans) as a share of GDP has declined during past episodes of high liquidity surplus. For example, the report highlighted that during the period from December 2016 to September 2017, when liquidity surplus ranged between 2.6 per cent and 3.3 per cent of Net Demand and Time Liabilities (NDTL), credit (excluding unsecured personal and consumer durable loans) as a percentage of GDP fell from 48.9 per cent to 46.2 per cent. This decline continued until mid-2019. Interestingly, unsecured personal loan growth (excluding consumer durables) has shown a strong uptrend over the last decade. Its size more than doubled to around 6 per cent of GDP. While this growth is largely driven by structural factors such as improved access to credit and the rise of digital lending, the report pointed out that its pace of expansion tends to increase during periods of high liquidity surplus. During March 2021 to March 2023, as per data shared by the report amid a large liquidity surplus and relaxed credit conditions, the share of unsecured personal loans in GDP rose at a faster pace than during previous similar episodes.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
It's not just Gen Z: This baby-boomer bank CEO says his MBA was a waste—and the skills he learned have ‘degraded, degraded, degraded' since college
CEO of the $26 billion bank Standard Chartered, Bill Winters, admits that his MBA was 'a waste of time,' and that the skills he learned at college have 'degraded, degraded, degraded' over the last 40 years. The executive says that soft skills like communication, curiosity, and empathy are more important as AI takes over grunt technical work. A LinkedIn careers exec agrees that human touch is the new in-demand talent capability. Attending college has long been seen as a rite of passage for success, but now student-loan-ridden Gen Z is calling their worth into question. They're not alone. The CEO of $26 billion bank Standard Chartered has just admitted that his time at Wharton Business School wasn't necessary. 'I studied international relations and history. I got an MBA later, but that was a waste of time,' Bill Winters told Bloomberg in a recent interview. 'I learned how to think at university, and for the 40 years since I left university, those skills have been degraded, degraded, degraded.' The banking chief executive may hold degrees from Colgate University and the University of Pennsylvania, but getting an Ivy League degree doesn't equate to being a valuable worker. Winters says that AI has had a major impact on the relevance of skills; now that chatbots can compile documents, create meeting slideshows, and even write code, many hard capabilities like software engineering skills once seen as a career gold mine are now being rendered redundant. Instead, human soft skills like curiosity, communication, and critical thinking are incredibly important in leadership and work, according to the 63-year-old CEO. And those are skills that don't require a college degree to pick up. In discussing the skills of tomorrow and what advice he has for young people, the Standard Chartered CEO says that soft skills are making a 'comeback' thanks to AI—which can already rival professionals with PhDs. 'The technical skills are being provided by the machine, or by very competent people in other parts of the world who have really nailed the technical skills at a relatively low cost,' Winters said. One key soft skill that's missing, Winters suggests, is real human connection—and AI is actually making communication worse, not better. It's become so bad that managers are complaining that Gen Z candidates can't hold a conversation without a chatbot, and begging them not to use them in job applications. 'I really think in the age of AI, that it's critical that you know how to think and communicate,' Winters continued. 'Not communicate better than ChatGPT, but actually, I'm going to go back to curiosity and empathy.' While the banking CEO admits that some degree of hard skills are still needed, they'll only continue to wane in importance as AI takes over more workplace functions. As technology takes over all the heavy lifting, people will have to increasingly engage their human expertise on the job. 'Of course, technical skills are required at some level, but less and less as the machines take out,' Winters said. Fortune reached out to Standard Chartered for comment. While some CEOs like OpenAI's Sam Altman still advise young people to learn up on AI tools, there's growing urgency for soft skills across industries. The number one in-demand skill that companies wanted out of employees last year was good communication, according to a LinkedIn study. And the employment platform's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, echoed that AI has renewed a need for communication, empathy, and critical listening. Plus, it's not just Gen Z grads who will need to practice talking in the mirror to get the job. Emotional intelligence has even become more important when assessing for management hires too. This perhaps explains why staffers across the board want training with these skills; employees ranked teamwork (65%), communication (61%), and leadership (56%) as the most valuable when it comes to training workplace skills, according to a 2024 study from Deloitte. Technical skills like coding or data analysis were ranked lower, at 54%. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
21 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Bill Winters Sees ‘Enormous, Untapped' Chance in Carbon Credits
Standard Chartered Plc Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters said financial markets are underestimating the business case for carbon credits, given the growing need among companies to offset their CO2 footprints. 'The enormous, untapped opportunity is the corporations of the world,' Winters said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Francine Lacqua on Tuesday.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Real-World Asset Tokenization Market Has Grown Almost Fivefold in 3 Years
The real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market has grown by 380% in just three years, reaching $24 billion this month in a sign that traditional finance is finding benefits from embracing blockchain technology, according to a report from RedStone, Gauntlet and "Asset tokenization has decisively transitioned from experimental pilots to scaled institutional adoption in 2024-2025," the Real-World Assets in On-chain Finance Report concluded. Tokenization refers to representing real-world assets such as stocks and bonds as tokens that can be bought, sold and traded on blockchains, with the goal of reducing some of the costs and inefficiencies associated with legacy infrastructure. Projections for how large this market could grow to vary wildly, but many seem to involve a number multiple that starts with a "t." McKinsey predicts it to become a $2 trillion market, while BCG estimates $16 trillion by 2030. The report by RedStone et al cites Standard Chartered's projection of it growing to some $30 trillion by 2034. "The RWA market's explosive growth is not just impressive number — it's evidence that traditional finance is finding genuine utility in blockchain infrastructure. From BlackRock's $2.9 billion BUIDL fund to Apollo's ACRED private credit tokenization, we're witnessing the early stages of what could be the largest capital migration in financial history," the report said. While stablecoins, tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset such as a fiat currency, are not typically regarded as RWA tokenization, the report argues that real-world assets could serve a similar role. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that stablecoins could bolster U.S. dollar supremacy, a sentiment that could equally apply to tokenized Treasuries. "These words should be interpreted within the broader U.S.-denominated RWA category — tokenized Treasuries directly help finance government operations and manage public debt levels, while tokenized corporate bonds and private credit strengthen dollar dominance by expanding USD-denominated investment opportunities in the global digital economy," the report in to access your portfolio
Entrepreneur
a day ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Standard Chartered CEO: Wharton MBA Was a 'Waste of Time'
Bill Winters, the CEO of 160-year-old bank Standard Chartered, says that the MBA he earned from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business was a "waste of time" — but the humanities undergraduate degree he received from Colgate University was more worth it. In an interview that aired earlier this week, Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua asked Winters, 63, what he would recommend for young people to study. Winters responded by saying that he studied international relations and history as an undergraduate, graduating in 1983. He recommended those fields, stating that majoring in those areas taught him "how to think." But his MBA from Wharton in 1988 was unnecessary, he said. "I got an MBA later, but that was a waste of time," Winters told Bloomberg. "I learned how to think at university. For the 40 years since I left university, those skills have been degraded, degraded, degraded." Related: Goldman Sachs CIO Says Coders Should Take Philosophy Classes — Here's Why Winters explained that critical thinking skills are "coming back" and becoming more important in the workforce now because AI is taking over tasks on the technical side. "I really think in the age of AI that it's critical that you know how to think and communicate," Winters said. He clarified that communication doesn't mean to act like ChatGPT and churn out answers, but to know an audience and anticipate their needs with curiosity and empathy. Technical skills are being needed "less and less," Winters said. Bill Winters. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images Winters started his career at JPMorgan in 1983, rising over nearly three decades to become the co-CEO of JPMorgan's investment bank. He was considered a potential successor to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, but was ousted by Dimon in October 2009. He started his own fund management business, Renshaw Bay, in 2011 and joined Standard Chartered as CEO in 2015. Related: Using ChatGPT? AI Could Damage Your Critical Thinking Skills, According to a Microsoft Study Winters isn't the only executive encouraging the study of the humanities. Goldman Sachs' Chief Information Officer, Marco Argenti, wrote in a post in the Harvard Business Review last year that engineers should take philosophy classes in addition to standard engineering courses. That's the advice he gave his college-age daughter who was thinking about what to study. Meanwhile, big tech companies are rapidly adopting AI in their operations as the technology sweeps over technical skills. AI generates about 30% of new code at Google and Microsoft, and up to half of software development within the next year at Meta. "Vibe coding," or having AI code entire apps and projects based on prompts, is also on the rise. Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated earlier this month that he had used AI coding assistants to "vibe code" a webpage in his spare time.
