Author Archives: Diana Latona

WEF- Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World

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The global context has changed dramatically: geostrategic fissures have re-emerged on multiple fronts with wide-ranging political, economic and social consequences. Realpolitik is no longer just a relic of the Cold War. Economic prosperity and social cohesion are not one and the same. The global commons cannot protect or heal itself.

Politically, new and divisive narratives are transforming governance. Economically, policies are being formulated to preserve the benefits of global integration while limiting shared obligations such as sustainable development, inclusive growth and managing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Socially, citizens yearn for responsive leadership; yet, a collective purpose remains elusive despite ever-expanding social networks. All the while, the social contract between states and their citizens continues to erode.

The 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting therefore aims to rededicate leaders from all walks of life to developing a shared narrative to improve the state of the world. The programme, initiatives and projects of the meeting are focused on Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World. By coming together at the start of the year, we can shape the future by joining this unparalleled global effort in co-design, co-creation and collaboration. The programme’s depth and breadth make it a true summit of summits…..WEFSurgical Comb-Over

Silvan Wegmann
www.w-t-w.org/en/silvan-wegmann

United Against Corruption – Anti-Bribery Convention Paris

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LIVE:  OECD
20 Years of the Anti-Bribery Convention:
Successes and Challenges
The-Detection-of-Foreign-Bribery

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention focuses on enforcement through the criminalisation of foreign bribery but it is multidisciplinary and includes key requirements to combat money laundering, accounting fraud, and tax evasion connected to foreign bribery.

The first step, however, in enforcing foreign bribery and related offences is effective detection. This study looks at the primary sources of detection for the foreign bribery offence and the role that certain public agencies and private sector actors can play in uncovering this crime. It examines the practices developed in different sectors and countries which have led to the successful detection of foreign bribery with a view to sharing good practices and improving countries’ capacity to detect and ultimately step-up efforts against transnational bribery.

This study was undertaken by the OECD Working Group on Bribery which brings together the 43 countries party to the Anti-Bribery Convention.  

The report was launched on 12 December 2017 at a Roundtable on 20 years of the Anti-Bribery Convention.

Anti-Bribery-Convention-Timeline-2017

CALL FOR PROPOSALS WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS FINANCE INITIATIVE

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WE-FI is open for Business: Octobre 12. 2017

The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) is pleased to announce its first call for proposals. Up to $150m of grant financing is available for this call.

The objective of the We-Fi is to address financial and non-financial constraints faced by women-owned/led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in IDA and IBRD eligible countries and territories. The We-Fi aims to achieve this by mobilizing more than $1 billion in commercial and international financial institution (IFI) finance for entities that provide women entrepreneurs with access to debt, equity, venture capital, insurance products, capacity building, networks and mentors, and opportunities to link with domestic and global markets; and for governments to improve the business environment for women-owned/led SMEs.
WeFi-CallforProposals-Oct17
Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative Statement
Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative- We-Fi

http://www.financialbuzz.com/we-fi-for-business-905256

All over the developing world, women have successfully made it in business. But they are a small group of women — only 30 percent of formal small and medium enterprises (SMEs) around the world are owned and run by women. Seventy percent of formal women-owned SMEs in developing countries are either shut out of financial institutions or can’t get the capital they need.

This results in a nearly $300 billion annual credit deficit for formal women-owned SMEs. It is nearly impossible to sustain a business without access to capital. Lack of networks, knowledge, and links to high value markets further limit female entrepreneurship in developing countries.

We-Fi intends to change those statistics. Its holistic approach will help women in developing countries gain increased access to the finance, markets, and networks necessary to start and grow a business.

“There Are Crooks Everywhere You Look. The Situation Is Desperate.”

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Daphne Caruana Galizia leading journalist of the Panama Papers investigation in Malta was killed by a car bomb Galizia car exploded Monday afternoon as she left her home in a town outside Malta’s capital, Valetta.

Galizia had been leading the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta, according to The Guardian, and was even described by Politico as a “one-woman WikiLeaks” who was “shaping, shaking and stirring” Europe with her reports.

The Panama Papers refer to the 11.5 million documents that were leaked from large offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2015.  Galizia is survived by her husband and three sons, The Guardian reported.
Journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia Final Words

Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative- We-Fi

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New World Bank Group Facility to Enable more than $1 billion for Women Entrepreneurship.

To help unlock the potential of women entrepreneurs, the new Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative We-Fi will enable more than $1 billion in financing to improve access to capital, provide technical assistance, and invest in projects and programs that support women and women-led SMEs in World Bank Group client countries.

Women Entrepreneurs Face Many Challenges

  • It is estimated that women-owned entities represent just over 30 percent of formal, registered businesses worldwide.
  • Yet, seventy percent of women-owned SMEs in developing countries are either shut out by financial institutions or are unable to receive financial services on adequate terms to meet their needs. This results in a nearly $300 billion annual credit deficit to formal women-owned SMEs.
  • Lack of networks, knowledge, and links to high value markets further constrain female entrepreneurship.
  • Moreover, unfavorable business and regulatory environments are among the barriers that still impede women entrepreneurs from accessing finance.
  • The fact that many emerging markets financial institutions have yet to develop a sustainable strategy to address this significant market gap represents a missed opportunity and constrains private sector development.

The competent committee, which will determine the operational measures of the Facility and the award criteria, will meet for the first time this October.

Notes to Worldbank Editors

  • The facility will be established as a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) at the Bank, drawing on the Bank’s extensive experience housing such Funds.
  • The Bank and IFC will be Implementing Partners, as well as other Multilateral Development Banks that would propose private and public sector activities to be supported by the We-Fi facility.
  • While she helped initiate the idea for the facility and has been a strong advocate for the issue of women’s entrepreneurship, Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump will play no operational or fundraising role in the facility.

    Cartoon courtesy of Peter Lewis and the Newcastle Herald
    www.livecaricatures.com.au

 

Accused Of Laundering Using Bitcoin

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The exchange BTC-e is alleged to have facilitated cybercrime, drug trafficking and payments to corrupt officials.

Bitcoin: A Russian man has been arrested in Greece on suspicion of laundering more than £3bn as part of a Bitcoin exchange allowing users to trade the digital cash…
Accused of Laundering 3bn in Bitcoin
Reuters.com

FinCEN fines BTC-e $110 million for violating anti-money laundering laws.
One of the largest digital currency traders in the world has been assessed a $110 million dollar civil money penalty by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of California.

BTC-e, or Canton Business Corporation (BTC-e), was the target of the Treasury’s first action against a foreign-located money services business for knowingly violating U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) laws, and was hit with a $110,003,314 penalty. The company was also complicit in their facilitation of digital transactions involving “ransomware, computer hacking, identity theft, tax refund fraud schemes, public corruption, and drug trafficking,” according to an official statement.

BTC-e is an online, foreign-based money transmitter that takes fiat currency and virtually all popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Novacoin, Peercoin, Ethereum, and Dash. The company processed over $300,000 in bitcoin stolen from Mt. Gox, one of the world’s largest bitcoin exchanges, from 2011 to 2014, and over $296 million in bitcoin in total. The company also facilitated at least $3 million in transactions related to ransomware operations dubbed “Cryptolocker” and “Locky”, in addition to sharing customers and conducting transactions with the since-dead money laundering website Liberty Reserve.

“We will hold accountable foreign-located money transmitters, including virtual currency exchangers, that do business in the United States when they willfully violate U.S. anti-money laundering laws,” said Jamal El-Hindi, Acting Director for FinCEN in the statement. “This action should be a strong deterrent to anyone who thinks that they can facilitate ransomware, dark net drug sales, or conduct other illicit activity using encrypted virtual currency.

The facilities of BTC-e were seized by various law enforcement agencies, including the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service. One of BTC-e’s operators, Russian national Alexander Vinnik, was also arrested in Greece this week and assessed a $12 million fine.

BTC-e’s transactions included funds sent and received domestically, despite the company being foreign-based and masking their geographic location and ownership.

The failure to comply with U.S. AML laws and regulations necessitated law enforcement action, and BTC-e’s civil money penalty represents “the second supervisory enforcement action FinCEN has taken against a business that operates as an exchanger of virtual currency, and the first it has taken against a foreign-located MSB doing business in the United States,” according to the statement.

G20

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G20 – a meeting at the highest level

The G20 Summit in Hamburg on 7 and 8 July 2017 will be a meeting at the highest level. Its participants will include the world’s major economic players, the two countries with the largest populations in the world, the world’s biggest island country and the most important international institutions on the planet. But who are these participants of the G20 Summit in Hamburg? Twitter.com/RegSprecher

G20 Womens Entrepreneurship

The G20 also seeks to improve women’s economic empowerment. The G20 thus agreed on the goal of improving labour force participation among women and reducing the gap that still exists in this respect between men and women by 25% by 2025. Germany’s G20 Presidency will build on that and focus on improving the quality of women’s employment. The German G20 Presidency will also work to remove the existing barriers which prevent women from gaining access to information and communications technology in developing countries and to improve education and employment prospects in the field of ICT.

    •  
       

    Financial inclusion
    Promoting female entrepreneurship and access to finance for womenThe G20 has not yet fully acknowledged the potential of entrepreneurship as another driver of growth. Female entrepreneurship as well as women’s access to finance, including full legal capacity for all women, should therefore be promoted by improving access to credit and investor networks, training, information services and technical support.

    Women20 urges the G20 to:

      • Abolish laws and standards that inhibit women’s full legal capacity
      • Ensure women’s access to financial and productive assets as well as to markets
      • Launch specific programmes to support female entrepreneurs, helping them not only to overcome start-up barriers, but also to grow and sustain their businesses, including via trade
      • Increase the share of public procurement sourced to companies that meet specified gender criteria
      • Update the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), with a particular focus on access to finance and bank facilities for women

     

    Suppression of Corruption on G20 Agenda

    With a view to combating international terrorism, the G20 states have decided among other things to dry up channels of terrorist financing by means of closer cooperation and improved exchange of information. Since 2009, the prevention and suppression of corruption has also been on the G20 agenda. The G20 has since been working consistently to expand its existing body of principles. Under the German Presidency, the focus is on measures to improve public sector integrity and the common search for ways to fight corruption in particularly susceptible areas. G20-Anti Corruption

Congo President’s Daughter Charged With Corruption in France

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Investigators have widened a corruption probe into the French assets of three African ruling families, charging the daughter and son-in-law of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, judicial sources told AFP on Sunday. Julienne Sassou Nguesso, 50, and her 53-year-old husband Guy Johnson were placed under investigation this week for “money laundering and misuse of public funds”, the sources said.

Investigators are trying to determine how the couple in 2006 were able to purchase a mansion valued at 3 million euros ($3.4 million) in the swanky Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine just north of the ritzy 16th arrondissement, according to a judicial source.

The tentacles of the case also reach out to ruling families in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Julienne Sassou Nguesso is an insurance agent by profession and her husband is a lawyer…..Congo Presidents Daughter Charged with Corruption

Your Money, Your Goals

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Effective Financial Literacy: What Youths Need to Know, When They Need to Know It. Emily Appel-Newby reports:  Almost 20 percent of all young people around age 15 are not financially literate — they don’t have skills like budgeting income and expenses, pulling a credit report or understanding the terms of a credit card. Young people who live in lower-income homes are even less likely to be financially literate. Research also indicates that the benefits associated with typical financial education classes are often short-lived: Participants gain some immediate short-term knowledge, but their ability to translate that knowledge into practice later is less likely.

The CFPB developed the toolkit in 2014 so that frontline staff who work directly with clients have ready-made, practical tools to help them build financial skills. The toolkit, which is free and available on the CFPB’s website, contains more than 35 tools that can be used with a variety of clients at different stages of life, including those getting their first jobs and transitioning to living independently. Tools are arranged in nine modules:

  • Setting goals and planning for large purchases.
  • Saving for emergencies, bills and goals.
  • Tracking and managing income and benefits.
  • Paying bills and other expenses.
  • Getting through the month (cash flow).
  • Dealing with debt.
  • Understanding credit reports and scores.
  • Money services, cards, accounts and loans.
  • Protecting your money.

Effective Financial Literacy

Wilhelm Busch: Teacher Lämpel (from Max and Moritz)

A Statue Of A Defiant Girl Now Faces The Wall Street Bull

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The Wall Street statue of the Fearless Girl won a permit to spend 11 months in front of the iconic Charging Bull statue. The roughly four-foot statue has become a social media sensation.

State Street Takes On Wall Street’s Gender Gap
Annalyn Kurtz reports: When the Fearless Girl statue appeared in lower Manhattan in March, it was, for a while, almost impossible to escape her. Here was a little girl, about four feet tall, staring down the massive bronze Charging Bull, a testosterone-charged symbol of Wall Street bravado. The imagery was captivating: High finance, Fearless Girl affirmed, was a woman’s world too.

The statue quickly became a sensation. Queues of tourists crowded around her to snap selfies, mimicking her Wonder Woman stance, hands on hips and chin held high. By one estimate, she drew more than 500,000 social media mentions in just one day. She was originally meant to stay at the Bowling Green ­plaza for only a week, but thousands signed a petition to make her a permanent public work of art, and by the end of March, the city of New York had agreed to let her stay for a year.

 But Fearless Girl had a commercial side too. The statue was part of a marketing push by State Street Global ­Advisors (stt), the $2.56 trillion asset-­management arm of financial giant State Street Corp. A plaque at her feet included a plug for SHE, a State Street exchange-traded fund that invests only in companies committed to gender diversity. Her ­arrival also coincided with State Street putting thousands of other companies on notice. The company announced that, as an institutional investor, it would vote against corporate boards that don’t make strides in adding women to their ranks…Fortune.com

Jeremy Nguyen
www.twitter.com/jeremywins