Quotes of the month

“My sense when I took this job is that we have three years to nail this because consumers are already using brilliant apps in many aspects of their lives and this industry has been late to focus on mobile”

Stephen Bird is 18 months into his role as global head of consumer banking at Citi, and a recently-launched app is only part of his strategy

“When the outlook is positive and volatility is low, as a business you can make long-term investments. If the outlook is negative and volatility is high, you postpone them. But now we have this mix of positivity and volatility – that’s a whole new challenge to balance”

Boris Collardi, CEO of Julius Baer, tries to see the positives in a volatile environment for wealth managers

“Luckily for me, China’s taken care of. I wake up in the morning and I think: ‘Damn good job in China: number one! And I didn’t have to do anything!’”

While his competitors ponder the downside of its ownership by Citic Securities, CLSA chief Jonathan Slone sees one considerable upside