Hamish Monk - Community Author: Finextra Research

The future of ESGtech: Goal 5 - Gender equality

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The future of ESGtech: Goal 5 - Gender equality

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This is an extract from Finextra's The Future of ESGTech 2022 report. Focus Target 5.5: Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life. Financial institutions have the potential to...

21 December 2021 /sustainable

Innovation in service: Supercharging Jersey’s sustainable finance offering

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Innovation in service: Supercharging Jersey’s sustainable finance offering

Keen to meet growing investor demands for transparency on the impact of their portfolios, private wealth managers and fund administration firms are increasingly utilising technology-based sustainable finance solutions to upscale their ESG practice. There are, however, some key challenges that need to be addressed, such as: how do we quantify these ...

13 December 2021 /sustainable

The future of wealth management: Benefits of innovation and digitisation

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The future of wealth management: Benefits of innovation and digitisation

This is an excerpt from Finextra's Research report 'The Future of Wealth Management 2022,' and is available for download via Finextra Research. Traditional and established wealth management operating models are increasingly under existential threat. Today’s investors do not want quarterly paper statements. They want instant access to their portfol...

01 December 2021 /wealth

Fixing finance from the ground up: The fight for afforestation

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Fixing finance from the ground up: The fight for afforestation

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest just hit its highest level in over 15 years, despite Brazil – along with 100 other world leaders – promising to end deforestation by 2030, at Glasgow’s Climate Summit, COP26. According to official data from Brazil's space research agency, Inpe, 13,235 sq km has been lost during the 2020-21 period. This rate o...

29 November 2021 /sustainable

Busting sustainable finance myths: Why Tariq Fancy is only half right on ESG, part 2

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Busting sustainable finance myths: Why Tariq Fancy is only half right on ESG, part 2

Blackrock’s former sustainable investing chief, Tariq Fancy, has made nine key claims against the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement. While the ensuing discussion has shone a light into some of the asset management industry’s darkest corners, there are some myopic myths that need to be busted. Finextra, alongside founder of Respon...

16 November 2021 /sustainable

Busting sustainable finance myths: Why Tariq Fancy is only half right on ESG

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Busting sustainable finance myths: Why Tariq Fancy is only half right on ESG

A controversial series of articles criticising the asset management industry’s approach to sustainable investing, authored by Blackrock’s former sustainable investing chief, Tariq Fancy, has thrown into question the efficacy of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement. As would be expected, the salad of responses to Fancy’s position...

01 November 2021 /sustainable

Women’s Equality Day: Working toward gender parity in financial services

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Women’s Equality Day: Working toward gender parity in financial services

It is Women’s Equality Day today – and over two years since the publication of the UK government’s last mandatory gender pay gap report, due to coronavirus-induced cancellations for the 2019/20 reporting year. With just over five weeks until the next gender pay gap report – for 2020/21 – is issued, it is time to take stock of the how the fintech a...

26 August 2021 /people

Curbing the cost of payment failures with straight through processing

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Curbing the cost of payment failures with straight through processing

Automating high volumes of transactions across different geographies and jurisdictions is yet to be a seamless process. In fact, failed payments remain a common challenge for the industry. A recent research study by Accuity, ‘The True Cost of Failed Payments’, estimated that in 2020, failed payments costed the global economy $118.5 billion. Agains...

20 August 2021 /payments

The future of NFTs: Democratising space and digitising endangered species

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The future of NFTs: Democratising space and digitising endangered species

Earlier this year, the non-fungible token (NFT) bubble had swollen to colossal proportions. With the likes of musical artists such as Grimes selling $6 million worth of cryptoart in February, and artist Beeple’s ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’ piece pulling in $69 million at Christies in March, the NFT goldrush was in full swing. By April, howe...

17 August 2021 /sustainable

The IPCC climate change report: How is the fintech community responding?

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

The IPCC climate change report: How is the fintech community responding?

A ‘code red for humanity’ has been declared, in the form of the first major review of climate change since 2013, and the sixth report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – published on Monday. In response, the fintech community has called for further collaboration, and widespread investment in natural capital and clean t...

10 August 2021 /sustainable

Demystifying the role of the fintech CIO

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Demystifying the role of the fintech CIO

This series of articles looks to demystify the various C-level roles within fintech companies today – exploring the career paths taken by top managers, their critical skills, daily responsibilities and challenges, and even how the pandemic has impacted their understanding of running a successful business. This fifth instalment in the C-suite Serie...

14 July 2021 /people

Demystifying the role of the fintech CFO

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Demystifying the role of the fintech CFO

This series of articles looks to demystify the various C-level roles within fintech companies today – exploring the career paths taken by top managers, their critical skills, daily responsibilities and challenges, and even how the pandemic has impacted their understanding of running a successful business. This fourth instalment in the C-suite Seri...

09 July 2021 /people

Long reads