Interview of our Director Thorsten Beck to the European Financial Review

The European Financial Review published on 4 January 2022 an interview with our Director Thorsten Beck, entitled ‘European Banking: in pursuit of a common culture’. In the interview, he looked back at his first year as Director of the Florence School of Banking and Finance, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of our School.

Although the pandemic reduced the possibilities of exchanges, many initiatives have been launched throughout the year, including new seminar series such as Women in Finance and FBF Discuss, and training initiatives targeted at non-executive directors on boards. Professor Beck described the School’s achievements in this timeframe as a success, resulting from the swift shift from residential to on-line training, as well as from the continuous engagement with the policy world throughout the pandemic.

The Florence School of Banking and Finance continues to be engaged in shaping seminars and courses on hot financial topics, most recently on cross-border supervisory cooperation. Focusing on latter topic, according to Professor Beck, is necessary to creating a truly European market in banking: ‘we need to move away from the concept of French, German and Italian banks to European banks.’

Read the full article here to explore Thorsten’s opinion on the current capital framework, how the financial stability is affected on a global scale, the domino-like effect of ‘economic interruption’ in financial markets and much more.