Seychelles : Foundation Courses in Offshore Services

Given the enthusiastic interest and demand received for the Foundation Course in Offshore Services being held at SIM during the course of the week of the 2nd March 2009;

The Seychelles International Business Authority in collaboration with the Seychelles Institute of Management is undertaking to repeat the course on the following dates irrespective of the number of applicants:

May 2009
September 2009
March 2010
September 2010

This course is part of a new partnership between the SIBA and the SIM that will provide continuous training to persons wanting to join and persons already in the financial services industry. The course is the starting point for a much larger training scheme that will be confirmed and addressed in detail over the coming months.

The SIBA and the SIM takes this opportunity to further engage themselves to providing training of international repute which is directly relevant to the current and ever changing industry needs.

For more information contact us at training@siba.net

Insurance Banana Skins 2009

What are the risks facing the insurance industry as it grapples with the financial crisis? The CSFI's new Insurance Banana Skins survey reports on the views of more than 400 insurance practitioners and observers. Click here to download.

Madoff: A Riot of Red Flags

In a new position paper from the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre, François-Serge Lhabitant and Greg Gregoriou, two of academia’s recognised worldwide authorities on hedge funds, have reviewed some of the red flags that any operational due diligence and quantitative analysis should have identified as a concern.

In the report, Madoff: A Riot of Red Flags, the authors highlight some of the salient operational features common to best-of-breed hedge funds, features that were clearly missing from Madoff's operations. Indeed, according to Lhabitant and Gregoriou, the list of due diligence red flags was so long and unsettling that it should have deterred potential investors.

The EDHEC position paper looks at the events leading up to the fraud and considers how the alleged split-strike conversion strategy would have worked before exploring the due diligence aspects of the case in detail.

Among the areas which should have been seen as a concern were both operational red flags (lack of segregation amongst service providers, obscure auditors, an unusual fee structure, heavy family influence, lack of disclosure, insufficient staff, etc.) and investment red flags (black-box strategy, questionable style exposures, incoherent 13F filings, excessive market size).

A copy of the EDHEC position paper Madoff: A Riot of Red Flags, can be downloaded here or here

BoE : Why Banks Failed the Stress Test

"Why Banks Failed the Stress Test", The basis for a speech by Andrew Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability given at the Marcus-Evans Conference on Stress-Testing, 9-10 February 2009

KPMG selects 'locations to watch' for next outsourcing boom

The credit crisis seems set to prompt a new rush for outsourcing services across the I.T. sector, with a number of new locations worldwide emerging as viable Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) hubs, according to KPMG's Advisory practice.

Launching their Exploring Global Frontiers report at this week’s NASSCOM outsourcing event in India, KPMG claims to have identified 31 cities which are rapidly emerging as leading pretenders to the BPO crown held by the traditional powerhouses such as Bangalore, Chennai or Shanghai.

As those locations rapidly approach saturation point, there is a sizable opportunity for these new and emerging locations to swallow up a large proportion of the new outsourcing work which the credit crisis is apparently creating.

The 31 locations are an eclectic mix, ranging from well-known cities in developed countries to lesser-known places in the emerging markets, well off the tourist track. Winnipeg and Belfast all feature for example, alongside Queretaro, Davao City and Cluj-Napoca.

On the KPMG list, Buenos Aires, with its population of nearly 13 million, thus features alongside tiny Port Louis (population 130,000) in Mauritius. Despite the difference in size, both are emerging as important future outsourcing centers, with the latter rapidly developing an international reputation as a disaster recovery center.

Speaking at the report’s launch, Edge Zarrella, Global Head of IT Advisory at KPMG and a partner in the Hong Kong firm, said: “Traditional sourcing locations, which have been at the forefront of the outsourcing boom, were always going to reach saturation point. Corporates now need to know which locations to consider next for their outsourcing activities. There are many locations around the world which are able to supply a credible outsourcing capability. However, there are subtle nuances in terms of labor skills, niche specialisms and government incentives which have led us to highlight these 31 locations as stars of the future.”

“The need to develop new, cost effective, viable outsourcing locations has been highlighted by the economic events of the past few months. Companies are focused on reducing their cost base, both for short-term and long-term gain. As a result, more organizations are considering savings obtained through outsourcing parts of their operations. Most importantly, they should be convinced that by doing so, they are not sacrificing performance for the sake of cutting costs. Our location study aims to highlight the benefits brought by the different city choices available to them.”

The full list of highlighted destinations includes 10 locations in the Americas (including Calgary, Guadalajara and Indianapolis); 10 in Asia-Pacific (Including Changsha, Jaipur and Ho Chi Minh City); and 11 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (including Sofia, Gdansk and Belgrade).

The reasons for these locations making it on to the final KPMG list are varied but cities in the Americas should typically benefit from large labor pools, scalability, a more mature service offering, proximity to the major client base and multiple language skills. AsPac benefits from lower costs, younger populations, plenty of government incentives and the lessons learned from the numerous outsourcing centers which already dot the region. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region offers great diversity, excellent infrastructure and numerous niche specialisms.

Zarrella concluded: “These are fascinating times to be choosing a new outsourcing provider or location as there is simply so much choice. New cities are emerging as outsourcing contenders all the time, each boasting a different set of characteristics. Just within our 31 for example, there are specific specialisms on offer — such as accounting, R&D or even animation — driven by an apparent skills bias within the pool of locally available graduates. As a word of warning though, these locations are still ‘emerging’ and, as such, can still carry a degree of risk; an element of venturing into the unknown. This is why all outsourcing location decisions should be carefully thought through on a case-by-case basis; there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to outsourcing.”

Exploring global frontiers