Today’s Stop Press

Citi Hires New Group Audit Strategy and Change Head

Citigroup has appointed Nicholas Crapp to the position of head of strategy and change for Group Audit. Nicholas, of former RBS and Goldman Sachs fame, will take the role based in New York. Best of luck and good to see that wisdom occasionally wins the day!

EY Fires Staff for Multi-Tasking

EY has fired dozens of US staff for taking more than one online training course at the same time. The training was offered as part of EY’s Ignite week. One should bear in mind that EY was fined $100 million by the US authorities for failing to prevent cheating in professional exams. Whilst the penalty may seem draconian for what is deemed as an ethical breach it does provoke some thought. Two reflections. When it comes to conscious learning multi-tasking is impossible. Our industry has a bias towards measuring learning using quantity (e.g. SR13-1 and the IIA). Quality is really the only reliable metric.

HSBC Reorganises

New HSBC CEO, George Elhedery, has announced the outlines of a major reorganization of the bank driven by the need to cut costs and manage Chinese tensions. The bank will be split into four units – the UK, Hong Kong, Corporate and Institutional Banking and International Wealth and Premier Banking. The last two units will be further split into Eastern and Western units. Of note is the appointment of Pam Kaur as the new CFO. Pam was formerly CRO and Head of Compliance but has also held very senior internal audit roles.

AI Controls Your Computer

Anthropic yesterday announced that its AI package, Claude, would now be able to control your computer. To be specific, it will be able to use your search engine to browse the internet, click on buttons and input text. The intention is to allow AI to perform mundane tasks.