September 2018 saw the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers - often portrayed in popular culture as the high profile starting pistol for the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). During the aftermath, banking and financial services were put under intense scrutiny and continue to be subject to incredible levels of political intervention, commentary, enhanced regulation, legislation, and in many cases, ongoing criticism. At the end of 2017, we interviewed banking and financial services professionals from around the world to find out how they felt about their industry and how optimistic they were for its future. This report explores:
Did they think that regulation and compliance requirements would increase or decrease?
How did they think their firm and the industry as a whole would perform financially in the coming year?
How large did they expect their bonuses to be, if they expected to receive one at all?
Did they feel the world had moved past ‘banker bashing’ ten years after the GFC?
Did they want to remain in banking and financial services?