Cedar Podcasts

Selecting an Islamic core banking system is more complex than choosing a conventional platform due to Sharia-specific requirements and regional variations. A structured “4D approach” helps banks identify the best fit. First, Define needs through a detailed Business Requirement Specification covering Islamic asset and liability products, profit calculation methods, Sharia rules, and core banking fu...

China and India present highly attractive telecommunications investment opportunities, driven by strong global industry growth and rapid wireless adoption. While voice services still account for over 70% of revenues, wireless is overtaking fixed-line due to expanding coverage and falling prices. Asia is the fastest-growing telecom region, led primarily by China’s scale and India’s growth potential...

Corporate banks face shrinking margins from global slowdown, trade tensions, and rising risk costs, making digital transaction banking a key growth lever. Digitizing corporate transactions reduces cost per transaction while improving speed, accuracy, and client experience. Cash management, trade finance, and supply chain services already dominate global transaction banking revenues and continue to...

CIOs and CTOs are prioritizing the ability to turn enterprise data into actionable insights, as fragmented, siloed systems have limited effective decision-making for years. Many organizations suffer from inconsistent data, weak analytics, duplicated MIS efforts, and data integrity risks due to poor data design. Advances in storage and processing have renewed interest in data warehouses (DWHs), but...

Rising regulatory scrutiny has made compliance costs a major challenge for banks, with global fines exceeding €211 billion since the financial crisis and regulations continuing to expand. Banks must balance shareholder expectations with stricter compliance, often while facing competition from less-regulated players. To manage costs proactively, three imperatives stand out. First, compliance should...

AI is transforming unsecured lending, with rapid market growth driven by instant credit scoring, faster underwriting, and improved customer experience. Traditional loan processes that took weeks are being replaced by AI-based risk assessment models that enable same-day or even instant lending decisions. Banks such as Santander and Scotiabank use AI engines like Kabbage to assess creditworthiness q...

Turbulence in U.S. credit markets is expected to reduce the size and number of private equity (PE) deals in developed economies, as debt for leveraged buyouts becomes scarcer. Despite this, PE continues to face a surplus of capital chasing fewer attractive deals, driven by fewer undervalued companies and limited growth opportunities in mature markets. While Asia and other emerging regions account...

Enterprise architecture is evolving as banks adapt to digital disruption, regulatory pressure and tech-savvy customers, accelerated by Covid-19. Legacy-heavy traditional banks face greater challenges than digital-native ones, as rigid architectures hinder agility and innovation. While earlier enterprise architecture focused on translating strategy into IT, it often became a constraint for rapid di...

Variable pay is a powerful but sensitive tool that can motivate talent and shape organizational culture if designed well, or demotivate employees if handled poorly. Effective variable pay cannot be owned by HR alone; it requires leadership alignment to balance shareholder and employee interests. Four principles are critical: alignment with strategy and values, simplicity and transparency, meaningf...

AI will fundamentally reshape financial institutions, their operating models, and market competition. Rather than a single technology, AI represents a set of capabilities predictive analytics, autonomous learning, and digital interaction enabled by ecosystems including cloud, blockchain, and quantum computing. Back offices will evolve into AI-driven “back-office-as-a-service” models, turning cost...

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly central to predictive and behavioral analytics, especially in risk management and compliance within financial institutions. By analyzing large volumes of financial and non-financial data, AI improves risk identification, measurement, and mitigation. It enables early warning and learning systems in lending, governance, cybersecurity, AML, and fraud prevention...

Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is the only approach that can deliver rapid, dramatic, and lasting performance improvements, but success depends on strategic execution. Effective BPR starts with a holistic, customer-backward view of the enterprise, focusing on value rather than isolated departmental fixes. Organizations must target “addressable” costs, eliminate low-impact processes, priorit...

Open Banking, driven by PSD2, is transforming banking from a closed, protected model into an open, platform-based ecosystem where customer data is shared securely with third-party providers via APIs. This shift creates both disruption and opportunity. Banks must move beyond compliance and rethink revenue models, customer segmentation, product strategies, and technology architecture. Revenue growth...

Sanjiv Anand, Chairman, Cedar Management Consulting International The article challenges Gordon Chang’s view that China under Xi Jinping seeks to dismantle the Westphalian system of sovereign states and that Trump’s “America First” stance is a principled defense of sovereignty. It argues China does not aim to export ideology or replace the global order, but pragmatically pursues its interests usin...

Machine learning (ML) is transforming financial services by enabling systems to learn from data and make predictions, improving accuracy, efficiency and customer experience. Banks are already using ML in areas such as fraud detection, cybersecurity, smart loan origination, collections, virtual assistants and portfolio management, with benefits including lower costs and reductions of over 35% in ba...

Artificial intelligence, big data analytics and cognitive computing are reshaping the traditionally slow-to-adapt insurance industry. As customer needs shift toward on-demand, micro-duration products and real-time risk assessment, technology is enabling insurers to move beyond one-size-fits-all models. AI supports personalized, pay-as-you-go insurance through real-time pricing, chatbots and automa...

The Core Banking System (CBS) life cycle has two phases: implementation and post-implementation, each requiring a distinct Centre of Excellence (CoE) operating model. Implementation is a major transformation, involving customization, process redesign and governance. Key challenges include prioritizing business requirements, ensuring service continuity, planning scalability and deciding on speciali...

Sanjiv Anand, Chairman, Cedar Management Consulting International The US is a major electricity consumer, with coal generating nearly half its power and contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy has become a national priority, driven by policy support, environmental awareness, and stricter emissions regulations. Renewables accounted for 9.4% of US electricity by 2009...

Digital transformation in banking aims to fundamentally reshape customer experience, internal processes, and organizational models, yet not all initiatives deliver intended results. With global digital transformation spending nearing $2 trillion, success depends on more than technology upgrades. Using a Balanced Scorecard lens, four factors determine whether a bank becomes truly digital. First, ba...

The GCC is experiencing a major property development boom led by the UAE and extending across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Planned investments over the next 10–15 years exceed US$344 billion, with the UAE accounting for nearly half. Commercial properties dominate more than 70% of developments, including major financial centers and business districts. Legal reforms allowing expatr...

India is witnessing a rapid mall boom, with significant investments but rising warning signs such as falling rentals and tenant exits. High construction costs and long break-even periods mean malls must be planned for long-term sustainability. Success depends on five strategic imperatives. First, strong design and aesthetics are critical; excessive focus on maximizing leasable area often harms ope...

Cybersecurity in financial services extends far beyond technology, as the industry’s heavy reliance on digital transactions makes it a prime target for sophisticated cybercrime. While spending on cybersecurity is rising sharply, risks are increasingly driven by people rather than processes, with employees, partners and customers all forming vulnerable points in a highly connected ecosystem. Cloud...

China’s recent slowdown has unsettled global markets, especially commodities, but fears of an economic collapse are overstated. The sharp equity sell-off reflects an overdue correction in an inflated market that is largely disconnected from the real economy, with limited household exposure and manageable systemic risk. RMB depreciation is driven by fundamentals and reform goals, particularly advan...

Petroleum retailing in Asia and the Middle East faces margin pressure from deregulation, low differentiation and rising competition. In India, pricing deregulation and new entrants are expanding station numbers, reducing throughput and fuel margins. In the UAE and Singapore, regulated prices, high crude costs, limited geography and stagnant demand constrain profitability. As fuel becomes a commodi...

The Indian hotel industry is experiencing strong growth, with occupancy rates reaching 70%, RevPAR growing at a 19% CAGR, and ARR rising at 10% annually. This upswing is driven by economic growth, rising business travel, expanding tourism, IT/ITES expansion, lifestyle spending, and improved air connectivity. Unlike earlier cycles, growth is now spread across all hotel categories, with the mid-mark...