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How Banks Can Compete Against an Army of Fintech Startups

Harvard Business Review

It’s been more than 25 years since Bill Gates dismissed retail banks as “dinosaurs,” but the statement may be as true today as it was then. Banking for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been astonishingly unaffected by the rise of the Internet.

Banking 14
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The Rise of FinTech in Supply Chains

Harvard Business Review

The use of FinTechs allows suppliers to access funding at the multinationals firm’s lower cost of capital.). They include new enterprises such as Orbian , Prime Revenue , C2FO , Taulia , and Ariba as well as new operations launched by traditional financial service firms such as Citi Group, HSBC, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Bank.

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The Key to a Jobs Plan that Works

Harvard Business Review

A program to incentivize banks to provide increased capital at lower rates to small businesses is desperately needed. Banks aren't looking for cheaper capital; they are looking for lower risk. Cost of capital is passed on to the businesses borrowing the money so it is not a huge factor for lenders.)

GDP 13
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Shutting Down Stores Doesn’t Have to Be Bad for Business

Harvard Business Review

Managing death more effectively can provide numerous benefits: It can boost profits significantly, lower the cost of capital, and reduce complexity in operations, which can improve the performance of concepts that are in the early and midlife stages.

Retail 8
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What’s Driving Superstar Companies, Industries, and Cities

Harvard Business Review

To analyze the superstar dynamics of firms, our metric was economic profit, a measure of a firm’s profit above and beyond opportunity cost. (To To do this, we take the firm’s returns, deduct the cost of capital, and multiply by the firm’s total invested capital.) and Chinese tech firms.

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Should Companies Retain "Strategic" Cash?

Harvard Business Review

Strategic cash usually is invested in high quality short-term securities; this ensures safety and liquidity, but produces a meager return on investment—especially in a low interest rate environment—and does not achieve the company's cost of capital. How Should You Approach Strategic Cash?

Company 14
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Even for Companies, the U.S. Is Split Between Haves and Have-Nots

Harvard Business Review

Companies in the top one-fifth of profitability earn, in aggregate, about 70 times more economic profit (accounting profit less cost of capital) than those in the middle three-fifths combined, according to McKinsey’s database of 3,000 large, publicly listed, nonfinancial U.S. This underinvestment has a real cost to U.S.

ROIC 8