The depth and reach of several crises over the past years have forced us to do some soul-searching. As global events become trickier to forecast, the conventional approach and model variables relied upon by banking are fast becoming obsolete. To help business and society cope with these shocks and uncertainty, we must adjust to new forms of chaos.

This issue of Banking Insight is designed for just that.

Our cover story, Crypto’s ‘Whoa Nelly!’ Moment: Basel is Cracking the Whip With Its New Global Standard, signals that there’s a new sheriff in town. We give you the run-down on future governance of the ‘Wild West’ crypto market that’s tasked to rein in systemic risk from an increasingly volatile asset class.

Other aspects of banking and finance are also experiencing synchronistic movements.

At a time when quantum computing is still a distant consideration for many leaders, Christophe Barel of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center is a step ahead. He urges us “to be resilient in the face of tomorrow’s threats” by investing in resilient technologies and security systems that will future-proof us against vulnerabilities that are yet to come.

The answers to some of these banking quandaries can be found in our exclusive interview with Chartered Banker, Mohd Rashid Mohamad, Group MD cum Group CEO of RHB Bank Berhad, who concurrently serves as an AICB Council Member and a member of the AICB Human Resource Committee. He ponders the changing landscape of banking and predicts that there will be “an intensified adoption of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence technology that has gained traction, most notably ChatGPT. In this respect, there will be multiple use cases that can potentially be adopted across the banking value chain to be deployed in the near future.”

As environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing continue to evolve at lightning speed, it’s clear that executives have their work cut out for them in the race to net zero. Our article, What’s The Right ESG Framework For You?, is a primer in choosing the most suitable reporting standard for your organisation. This is coupled with Bangor Business School’s Robert Souster’s article on navigating the social/environmental dichotomy. In ESG and Sustainability Reporting: Challenges for Banks, he warns that “the bank has a duty to its client and a broader duty to the environment, and these obligations are difficult and often impossible to reconcile.”

There’s no doubt that banking is due for some serious spruce up.

The Institute is here to work with and for our members, every step of the way.

The Editor