Publications

April 2011 (Revised March 2021)
Case

BANEX and the No Pago Movement (A)

By: Shawn Cole and Baily Blair Kempner

This case examines Grassroots Capital's decision of whether or not to continue investing in a Bolivian microfinance bank that is suffering financial distress. View Details

Keywords: Base Of The Pyramid; Political Risk; Microfinance; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Government and Politics; Investment; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; Bolivia

Keywords: Financial Services

2020
Working Paper

The Effects of Information on Credit Market Competition: Evidence from Credit Cards

By: C. Fritz Foley, Agustin Hurtado, Andres Liberman and Alberto Sepulveda

We show empirically that public credit information increases competition in credit markets. We access data that cover all credit card borrowers in Chile and include details about relationship borrowers have with each lender. We exploit a natural experiment whereby a... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Credit; Financial Intermediaries; Credit; Information; Competition; Credit Cards; Financial Institutions

SSRN

January 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Zaoui & Co. (A): Consigliere for High Stakes M&A Transactions

By: Ashish Nanda, Alex Kitsberg and Zack Kurtovich

In September 2019, Zaoui & Co.’s close-knit team of professionals convened for their annual off-site. In its nine years of operation, the boutique investment bank founded by the brothers Michael (HBS ’83) and Yoel Zaoui (Stanford GSB ’88), had garnered a track record... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firm; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Strategy; Investment Banking; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; Europe; United Kingdom

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

June 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Microfin

By: Michael Chu and Enrique Kramer

The case presents the management dilemmas of a new institution in an undeveloped microfinance market in Latin America. Supported by a globally recognized industry player, it is the result of the efforts of two fledgling local entrepreneurs with a business model they... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Developing Countries and Economies; Social Entrepreneurship; Microfinance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Industry Structures; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

Find at Harvard

01 Oct 2019
News

Competing for deposit growth

15 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 15

we find significant price differences between institutional investors' tranches and banks' tranches on the same loans, even though they share the same underlying fundamentals. Increasing demand pressure causes the interest rate on institutional tranches to fall below... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 1989 (Revised April 1990)
Case

Banc One Corp.--1989

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Banc One Corp., an innovative and financially successful super-regional bank holding company, has a track record of upgrading performance of acquisitions while retaining previous management--doing better with the same people. In June 1989 Banc One made its first... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Banks and Banking; Private Ownership; Human Resources; Mergers and Acquisitions; Performance Evaluation; Management Teams; Banking Industry; United States

January 1996 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Rabobank Nederland

By: Kenneth A. Merchant and Robert S. Kaplan

Describes the account manager's role and the history of one credit application. The purpose is to evaluate various methods the bank uses to influence account managers' behaviors. Also describes some alternatives being considered to improve the information systems used... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Managerial Roles; Accounting; Information Management; Banks and Banking; Power and Influence; Banking Industry; Netherlands

Find at Harvard

Video

Neveen El Tahri

Neveen El Tahri, Chairperson of Egypt-based Delta Shield for Investment, outlines her transition from banking to entrepreneurship as she built a diverse portfolio of brokerage companies. View Details

March 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Ant Financial (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Ying Zhang, Krishna G. Palepu, Anthony K. Woo and Nancy Hua Dai

Headquartered in Hangzhou (China), Ant Financial has grown into a fintech “Unicorn.” The fintech empire that the company established spanned verticals such as mobile and online payment (Alipay), money market fund (Yu’e Bao), wealth management (Ant Fortune),... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Finance; Opportunities; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

Video

Badreddine Ouali

Badreddine Ouali, Founder and Co-CEO of Vermeg, explains why he reestablished his banking software company in the Netherlands, while keeping its back office in Tunisia. View Details

30 Sep 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Comments on Macri's Macro by Federico Sturzenegger

Keywords: by Rafael Di Tella; Banking

February 1992 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Goldman, Sachs & Co.: Nikkei Put Warrants--1989

By: Peter Tufano

Japanese financial institutions' willingness to sell put options on the Nikkei Stock Average provides investment banks with the raw material from which to create a security that would allow U.S. investors to bet on falls in the Japanese Stock Market. The investment... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Investment Banking; Product Design; Globalized Markets and Industries; Japan; United States

June 2020
Supplement

RBC: Transforming Transformation (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; Canada

September 2020 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Building India's 2.0: PayNearby

By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C. N. Hagist

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, FinTech startup Nearby Technologies has seen its flagship brand, PayNearby, rapidly flourish across most of its target market within just four years. The unprecedented success of its payment app, which allows users to access banking... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Developing Markets; Payments; Financial Inclusion; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Competitive Strategy; Banking Industry; India

2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Financial Crisis; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry