Banker

Find various books on being a Banker, from fact, to fiction. SA Career Focus has assembled these titles for your convenience.

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A banker is responsible for the daily running of the financial institute. He is directly responsible for the staff - the hiring, training and supervision of them, and is responsible for increasing or maintaining the deposits on hand at the bank. This may mean developing incentive programs to increase customers, or developing programs that encourage savings.

The Business of Investment Banking: A Comprehensive Overview

The business of investment banking has become intensely competitive. With a growing number of clients who prefer to deal with a single financial advisor for all their capital needs, firms must now engage in all major capital-market activities in order to meet this demand. Rapid advances in information technology have closely linked the international capital markets and, as a result, major securities firms have gone global to better serve their clients. To fully understand this changing environment and remain players in the game, new and seasoned professionals alike will require detailed, in-depth information on a broad scope of banking operations. "The Business of Investment Banking: A Comprehensive Guide for Students and Professionals, 2nd Edition" is a complete guide to the major banking activities in today's global marketplace. This convenient, one-volume reference identifies and analyzes key trends worldwide, allowing banking and finance professionals to effectively manage deals and incorporate trends into operations. In "The Business of Investment Banking: A Comprehensive Guide for Students and Professionals, 2nd Edition," Professor K.;Thomas Liaw goes beyond traditional banking topics and includes extensive coverage of rarely discussed subjects that are integral to investment banking, such as emerging markets, proprietary trading, repurchase transactions, operations, money management, and how foreign firms list on Wall Street. Beginning with an overview, covering everything from underwriting to M&As to global presence, Liaw provides a thorough and rigorous analysis of the current market practices in all relevant business segments. He presents an investment banker's perspective on the current environment, with a detailed description of the strategic decision-making process that is crucial to successfully managing the investment bank.;This thorough guide is divided into four main sections: Basic Business - explores venture capital investment, mergers and acquisitions, underwriting, and asset securitization; Global Perspective - detailed information about foreign listing on Wall Street, international capital markets, and emerging markets; Trading and Risk Management - extensive data on proprietary trading, repurchase agreements, financial engineering, and money management; and Special Topics - discusses clearing and settlement, securities regulation, ethics, major trends, and Section 20 subsidiaries. Comprehensive, unparalleled coverage of a wide range of topics makes "The Business of Investment Banking: A Comprehensive Guide for Students and Professionals, 2nd Edition" an invaluable, one-stop resource for all practicing investment banking professionals and for graduate students interested in a career in capital markets.

Review by Kalahari.net

The World's Banker

Appointed president of the World Bank in 1995, James Wolfensohn struck it like a whirlwind, determined to reinvent the institution founded by Franklin Roosevelt and his world War II allies. Wolfensohn embraced debt relief for the poorest countries, put taboo subjects such as corruption on the development agenda, and faced off the riotous critics of the antiglobalization movement. Never has the World's Bank been more important, more in the public eye, or more controversial than during his tenure, when challenges from global financial crises to AIDS to the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries in failed states have threatened global security. Sebastian Mallaby's vivid account shows what it was like to reconstruct Bosnia, to combat corruption and currency collapse in Indonesia, to fight AIDS in India, to pull one in five Ugandans out of poverty. But behind the absorbing narrative lies a critical question. In the next quarter of a century the world's population will increase from 6 to 8 billion. The World Bank is the leading mechanism for dealing with the consequences. Is it equal to the challenge?

Review by Kalahari.net

Banking on Change

The objective is to inform and influence the debate, following the signing of the Financial Sector Charter in 2003, in part by creating a common authoritative reference source which records what has been tried, and benchmarks the starting position in 2004.
There has been no published comprehensive overview of the financial sector  for example, financial services did not feature in governments recently released 10 year review  although the sector is clearly moving to centre stage. As an authoritative 10-year review, it will be a reference source on developments in the financial sector. And, by synthesising a large body of recent research, it will provide a guide to the future.
The target audience includes policy-makers, regulators, bankers, development professionals, donors and the World Bank. While the book is aimed at South African readers, it will also be accessible and of interest to an international audience which has followed developments here.
David Porteous is currently CEO of FinMark Trust, an entity based in Johannesburg, founded in 2002, which has as its mission Making financial markets work for the poor in Southern Africa. David has experience of banking in both private and public sector, and has had first-hand experience of financing the development of micro-finance in South Africa in the nineties. He earned a PhD in economics from Yale University in 1993. His dissertation was published as a book, The Geography of Finance, by Avebury (Gower) in 1995. He has been the author of numerous articles and chapters of books; and speaks regularly at conferences and seminars in South Africa and abroad.
Ethel Hazelhurst is a research manager at FinMark Trust. She recently retired as surveys editor of Financial Mail after a long and distinguished career. She is a five-times category winner in the Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year (including 2004) competition and was overall winner in 1999.

Review by Kalahari.net

International Bank Management

International Bank Management provides current, integrated coverage of international banking issues, including foreign exchange markets, derivatives, country risk analysis, asset-liability management, and banking strategies. Mehta & Fung utilize a variety of analytical frameworks to explain important decision-making processes and illustrate their applications through real-world examples. Learning objectives and end-of-chapter review questions reinforce key themes and concepts. A focus on the increasing globalization of financial markets in this text enables students to obtain the comprehensive, international perspective essential for a successful career in banking.

Review by Kalahari.net

Banker

Don't let that title worry you: there's plenty about horses in Francis' new mystery - which offers one of his best plots in years. The narrator this time, rather less appealing than other Francis heroes, is young London banker-merchant Tim Ekaterin. But Francis manages to make Tim's loan-department work thoroughly engaging: the office politics, the excitement of seeing a risky loan pay off (as with a cartoonist/animator whom Tim believes in). And one particular loan soon dominates: the bank, on Tim's recommendation, lends stud-farmer Oliver Knowles the $5 million pounds to buy racing-stallion Sandcastle. (Intriguing details on the mechanics and economics of star horse-breeding abound.) Tim befriends Knowles and his adorable teenage daughter Ginnie; he makes friends in the horse-world - including Calder Jackson, a charismatic "healer" of horses who has brought several incurable animals back to health. But then everything turns sour: a veterinarian acquaintance is murdered; over half of Sandcastle's first crop of foals are born dead or deformed; Knowles faces ruin; dear Ginnie is also murdered. So Tim, with help from a pharmacologist friend, starts piecing things together (most readers will be slightly ahead of him). . . and winds up in an ordeal/confrontation with the villain. Francis tends toward the saccharine here and there, especially with Tim's love-life. (He longs for the wife of a beloved colleague - and gets her in a mushily contrived fadeout.) The whole book, in fact, could have used some editorial tightening. But, if not in a class with early/great Francis, this is several lengths ahead of almost everybody else: a lively, amazingly fresh blend of horse-talk, money-talk, medicine, action. . . and sentiment. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review by Kalahari.net

Opportunities in Financial Careers

With more than 100 titles in the series, "Opportunities in..." is the most comprehensive career books series in the world. This is a thoroughly revised and updated title in the series. Each book in this series presents expert advice and the most up-to-date information available for training, resources, salary statistics, and opportunities in a specific, narrowly defined field.

Review by Kalahari.net