This is a YouTube video titled "The Evolution of Treasury Recruitment: Mike Richards with Richard Bostock" featuring a discussion between Mike Richards and Richard Bostock recorded in 2023. The conversation covers topics such as the unpredictability of future economic conditions, the impact of fintech on personal and business banking, and the evolving work environment post-pandemic, emphasizing the balance between remote work and office presence.
Foreign, we don't know, five years. I think we sometimes even struggle to predict three years in advance. If you actually look at it now, we're recording this at the end of January 2023. Let's put look back three years ago. Oh yeah, we've got plane sailing. All this a month after it was Feb. 2020 grums and it all kicked off from there. So I think making predictions of what will happen three years in advance, predictions, this is what will happen is dangerous. I think we can make educated guesses and that's what a lot of treasurers do. I think we can predict certain things. You know prior to Ukraine and political everything was plain sailing. Oh right, we're out of this and then suddenly this happens and it's like whoa, okay, how do we deal with this? It's about being prepared.
Why should we be bothered about Fintech? Well at personal banking level there is, there's a huge uptake. Just because it's so easy to open an account leveraging a lot of automation, a lot of AI security is, is much better than it was two, three, four, five years ago. Cybersecurity is improving the speed of service, the quality and, and the new products coming along, they are getting better all the time. So personal banking level, it's happening now. We cannot go back to bricks and mortar banks that has started to permeate into the small and medium sized business sector because fees are generally lower than Neobanks service that there's less hassle, there's less worry about having to meet your bank advisor every month or two for whatever reason. So it's much more fluid and easy for smaller and mid sized businesses to have a bank account with a Neobank and I think that's going to continue with the larger companies that they will see. Well actually it's much easier to manage these accounts and these relationships.
Let's just reflect on a couple of the bits that happened. You know we went through Covid, everyone then proved they could work from home. Now as we come out of pandemic and everyone's going oh we need to go back in the office. Why, what's the point now? There is a point. The point is that you can be more sociable with your colleagues. You, you can gain through social situations in the office and water cooler moments and things and then there's a balance. You know I've said the guys I spoke to in Ireland, when I spoke at the Dublin treasurers conference he was like I get so much more done by working five days a week from home. And then we got into a conversation and he said, yeah, but when I was in the office, I took to, to my right and I had a 20 year veteran of the company, to my Left was a 20 year treasury professional. And he said, yeah, it was actually easier. And when he was being trained up and learning, he wouldn't have traded anything for that. But then he also had the challenge of travel and everything else. So bringing it down to a sort of a micro level to some of the listeners today, I think it's about balance and I think that's what people need to be thinking about.
