My Book Reviews

ISBN:  978-0-00-842109-0 Verdict :  👍👍 👍 👍 I really enjoyed this book from Mark Carney, a former G7 central banker, governor of the Bank of Canada and more recently the Bank of England, so he brings a wealth of financial experience and insights into this book. This book address  values and the value  using past economic crisis, cryptocurrencies, covid and the net zero goals / initiatives and brings some advice with a very much financial lens.   The book does make one and reflect on things e.g.  the value of Amazon (the company) in relation to the Amazon Region where Amazon has a $1.5 trillion equity valuation, whilst the Amazon Region does not appear on any ledger yet the costs to both climate and biodiversity of destroying the rainforest has greater value to the planet – Makes you think! This example and others set the tone. Here are some of favourite bits – however unless you read the book the context is lost but worthy of mention. 1.  ...

I SBN :  978-1781259658 Verdict :  👍👍   Financial fraud, a derivative of a financial crime, is an interesting topic - For someone who has spent quite a bit of time researching this topic from a regulatory and systems perspective ( transactional monitoring and pattern recognition) this book was on my reading list. The book does not disappoint it is a nice read and I did enjoy it - although chapter 8 was a bit of  curve ball in the sense the author went all  biblical side in terms of crime - which did not interest me , but others may find it useful to read. My highlighter did get used quite a bit and the following are just some of the bits I enjoyed seeing ;   You can tell more about the structure of any industry by looking at patterns of payments than you can from any ‘five forces’ or SWOT analysis (p29) People don’t check upon things which they believe to have been ‘signed off’. The threat is now inside the perimeter . ...

ISBN: 978-1-78125-055-6 Verdict:  👍👍   👍   👍     The story of the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) is a truly remarkable one in which the transformation from a small bank located in a small fishing village, on the Hong Kong waterfront 155 years ago, to that of one of the largest financial global businesses and hence worthy of a understanding in terms of development , ethos and culture – This book covers some of the years from 1970 to 2014ish.   The book charts the history and key decisions surrounding some major global events in history e.g. the transfer of the island of Hong Kongs sovereignty back to China when the lease expired and the subsequent decisions made to ensure the associated risks were mitigated from political and economic forces.   The 622 pages of banking history is not for everyone and mapped to major economic events which makes it an interesting read and my highlighter 📝 was fully used ! – There are several pearl...