Four key types of industrial products will fall under the Biden administration’s scrutiny in a detailed review of global supply chains, it has emerged. In a 24 February press briefing, a White House spokesperson revealed that – in accordance with an executive order Biden signed that day – researchers will mount parallel, 100-day reviews of trade in:
While the briefing made no mention of a specific country, the nature of the products has led the announcement to be widely interpreted as the first step in a move to reduce US dependence on China as a supplier.
In the signing ceremony, President Joe Biden himself said: “We shouldn’t have to rely on a foreign country – especially one that doesn’t share our interests, our values – in order to protect and provide [for] our people during a national emergency. Building resilience will mean increasing our production of certain types of elements here at home. It means working more closely with our trusted friends and partners – nations that share our values – so that our supply chains can’t be used against us as leverage.”
Reacting to the announcement, Jesse Chenard – CEO of New York fintech MonetaGo, which uses blockchain to modernise supply chain networks – said: “Trade routes are increasingly diversifying, with emergent markets across Asia-Pacific leading the way in digitisation. In fact, developing economies’ exports to other developing economies have exceeded exports to developed economies since 2011. In 2018, trade between developing countries was already worth $4.28 trillion.”
He noted: “Although China has historically had a stronghold over trade – not just across Asia-Pacific, but arguably internationally – such volumes flowing between lesser recognised trade routes demonstrate that this might be changing. It’s time to look to these smaller trade routes for innovative trade developments. This includes trade finance.”
The number of data records leaked around the world hit a whopping 37 billion in 2020: a year-on-year increase of 140%, according to data-transfer platform Atlas VPN. In an analysis of the latest Year-End Data Breach QuickView Report from vulnerability intelligence gurus Risk Based Security, the firm found that 82% of those files – around 30 billion – had been compromised in just five major breaches. Each of those incidents involved the exploitation of a misconfigured database.
Indeed, the analysis noted, while leaks reached unprecedented heights last year, the total number of breaches shrank from 7,553 in 2019 to 3,932, a decline of 48%. Divided by cause, 77% of the breaches stemmed from the efforts of outside actors, while 16% arose from inside threats. For the remainder, the causes are unknown. Significantly, 676 incidents included ransomware as an attack element – that’s a rise on 2019 of 100%.
In terms of how different industries had been affected, the analysis found that:
Atlas VPN COO Rachel Welch said: “All in all, 2020 has taught us that it is hard to predict what the future holds for cybersecurity. In a single year, breached data files more than doubled, reaching record-high numbers – as did the number of hacks that included a ransomware component. However, there were fewer actual data breaches reported. It suggests that data breaches are growing in severity, with fewer incidents exposing more personal information than ever before.”
Professional services firm the Wilton Group has launched a new enterprise investment scheme (EIS) dedicated to businesses with green ideas. Set up by Wilton founder Tony Flanagan in partnership with entrepreneur Matthew Jellicoe, OnePlanetCapital will work with investor groups and organisations to back business concepts that mitigate climate change, create positive environmental impacts and offer consumer sustainability.
With those aims in mind, the EIS has adopted the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals as its overarching framework and will constantly review the progress and contribution of its projects. To guide that process, it will establish a sustainability management system and measure the carbon footprint of all its business activities.
Each year, OnePlanetCapital will select up to 10 sustainable green firms and schemes to back by assessing prospective investees’ environmental impact, social purpose and corporate governance. Target firms and sectors include those taking steps to tackle emissions through renewable energy, energy efficiency, transport innovation and agricultural technology.
Jellicoe said: “We are fortunate to have a team which comprises industry professionals and experienced entrepreneurs from environmental sciences, engineering and technology, as well as access to a pipeline of early-stage and scale-up businesses.”
He noted: “OnePlanetCapital gives individuals and businesses the opportunity to be part of the green industrial revolution as it unfolds. By investing in the companies of the future that are solving the problems of the present, we believe we can have a positive impact on climate change and the broader environmental issues of the day, while also providing investor returns as the green sector undergoes massive growth and government support.”
Banks seeking to digitally transform their corporate-focused services will be trapped in a ‘Potemkin village’ – or cosmetic appearance of progress – if they fail to overhaul their operations as well as their customer-facing facilities. That’s the message from new Forrester report, The Digital Transformation of Corporate Banking, published in late February.
In a blog post, the report’s lead author, Forrester analyst Arnav Gupta, notes that in order to deliver better outcomes, banks must reconceive their internal capabilities in step with their product lines. Indeed, he stresses, to truly impress their enterprise clients, banks must “come up with a strategic vision for corporate banking and build a capabilities road map” towards a more agile future. In his judgement, that road map should encompass the following, key areas:
1. Digital experience: deliver easy, effective and engaging experiences “Disruptive digital businesses use technology to design better ways to deliver the outcomes customers value. Digital teams at corporate banks need to have a range of capabilities on their road map to boost their digital customer experience.”
2. Digital innovation: continuously improve and break through at the digital frontier “No matter how you go about it – design thinking, agile development, rapid prototyping or continuous delivery – you must transform product and experience development by starting small and adapting as you learn with rapid releases.”
3. Digital ecosystems: build platforms and partnerships to accelerate and scale “Corporate banks must develop or tap into the partner ecosystems. The cost of integrating business capabilities with suppliers, distributors and partners has plummeted with the availability of APIs, internet connections and digital delivery channels. Ecosystems help banks to focus on their core competencies and determine what they can borrow from others.”
Gupta points out: “Corporate banking today is antiquated due to its… complex product offerings, lack of challengers to drive innovation and strong barriers to switching for clients. Enterprise clients have lived with a subpar experience for far too long.”
He adds: “In my research, a majority of business and technology leaders identified COVID-19 among the drivers of change in enterprise clients’ expectations and preferences. [The virus] forced many banks to digitise a number of their processes, such as client onboarding. Remote working further drove demand for more sophisticated mobile apps for corporate banking users to enable business continuity.”
Project finance is well equipped to survive a prolonged COVID-19 crisis, should it last beyond 2022, says Scope Ratings. In a February report, the agency notes that in the crisis so far, project stakeholders have collaborated effectively to reach interim solutions. Lenders have postponed debt repayments and key longstop dates, and/or have provided further liquidity. Sponsors have provided equity injections and shareholder loans.
Grantors, meanwhile, have come up with a range of contingencies, such as covering revenue shortfalls, increasing their investments, providing new public grants or postponing key project milestone requirements.
In Scope’s assessment, many private-public partnerships and critical infrastructure projects – such as highways, roads, bridges, public transport, schools, hospitals and utilities – have availability-based revenue streams paid by local governments. As such, those projects have demonstrated strong resilience. On the other hand, projects in operation with no fixed tariffs or volume conditions have suffered from reduced revenues as a result of lockdown policies, forced service suspension and disruption to the logistics chain. At the same time, projects under construction have suffered from slower progress due to operational restrictions imposed on construction contractors and logistics providers.
However, Scope associate director Dmitriy Platonov points out: “Negative impacts on specific project sub-sectors are not fundamental in nature … so will not have long-term effects. We expect recovery to be quick and solid once restrictions are lifted.”