Tony de Bree

Tony de Bree

Senior Management Consultant

Seven ways to reduce your financing needs as a start-up

13 August 2016

Recently  I was coaching and judging a number of local startups in my hometown, The Hague, in The Netherlands. The interesting fact is that many of those different entrepreneurs have a number of things in common and one of them is that they focus way too much on financing their company, their working capital and their investments and not enough on their customers and how to differentiate themselves from others. And the other thing that many of them have in common, large or small, is that they are asking for way too much money! Their financing needs are way to high. And that is a pity. So here are seven ways to reduce your financing needs as a start-up, inside or outside Fintech. 

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Cenkos failed to identify and manage properly the key risks

09 August 2016

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today fined Cenkos Securities plc (Cenkos) £530,500 for failures in its sponsor services business. Cenkos failed to have appropriate systems and controls in place across its sponsor services business, and, on a particular transaction, failed to act in its sponsor role with the level of diligence and professional care that the FCA expects.
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Principles of Corporate Governance

08 August 2016

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has launched a peer review on the implementation of the G20/Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance (Principles). The overarching objective of the review is to take stock of how FSB member jurisdictions have applied the Principles to publicly listed, regulated financial institutions, identifying effective practices and areas where good progress has been made while noting gaps and areas of weakness.  Continue reading…

Is Europe breaking bad?

04 August 2016

by Hans Bevers

The Bremain scenario was our (very uncomfortable) base case scenario going into the referendum but now seems (because it’s not 100% sure that an exit will happen) to be off the table. The effects of a Brexit both from an economic and asset allocation point of view are just impossible to ignore. That said, while the outcome is highly unwelcome, this is not the end of the world. The global economic recovery is still weak and of course Brexit will make things harder but doom scenarios in terms of huge economic fallout seem exaggerated for now. Moreover, European politics were already quite worrying even before this latest referendum.
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EBA stress test reassures but challenges lie elsewhere

04 August 2016

As anticipated the mostly positive results of the 2016 EBA stress tests show visibly strengthened EU banks’ capital position; however main emerging structural weakness remains untested. Referring to the EBA stress test results announced last Friday, Scope Ratings noted that as anticipated on aggregate they highlighted a much improved capital position for the large EU bank sector.
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Warning about CFDs, binary options and other speculative products

02 August 2016

ESMA and a number of national supervisors have observed an increase in the offer of speculative products, including financial contracts for difference (CFDs), binary options and other speculative products (such as rolling spot forex) to retail clients, and at the same time a surge in the numbers of complaints from investors who have suffered significant losses when trading these products. 

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