Defend the Indefensible

BBC Radio 5 Live has a weekly “Fighting Talk” show which includes a round where guests are given 20 seconds to defend the indefensible. Each player is asked to vigorously support a theme that is either distasteful, contrary to public opinion or politically incorrect. Even though it is made clear that the point of this round is not meant to reflect the truth or the contestants real views, complaints are often made to the BBC.

So, i thought i would try to encourage debate amongst the world of financial crime departments and hope that out of chaos, some home truths will emerge. Any thoughts on these subjects?

Our job is to suspect, and suspect what we suspected some more but the Dunning Krueger Effect is rife within financial crime teams.

Dunning Krueger Effect — a form of cognitive bias where people overestimate their ability to do a particular task, it’s when the unskilled gain an illusion of superiority, leading to overconfidence in their ability to execute the task.

Chris Skinner wrote “the reason people do not trust financial services is because they give you an umbrella on a sunny day only to ask for it back when it rains”, therefore Fintech is a short term solution that only produces performance enhancing products.

Financial institutions are caught between doing the right thing and keeping the regulator of their backs.

Crypto currencies have created a secondary economy and without global regulations there is nothing real. The result is that they will resemble the Emperors new clothes.