Banks are a way of organising society.
Their liabilities are money. They make wealth portable. They facilitate commerce. They do the work of markets where markets don't exist. No one much likes banks. We resent their power and wealth. They hold our mortgages and issue our credit cards. They know things about us. They can veto our plans. But we need them. Prosperity requires credit. The economy struggles if its banks are overcautious. When a bank fails, the public suffers.
But do we know enough about how they work?
In Prudence and Ambition, former director of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Harrison Young looks back on his long career to explain how banks work and why the Western bank governance model is no longer fit for purpose.
Taking us through key moments of a career that spans over four decades and twenty countries, Harrison explores different banking systems, their failures and successes, and offers his vision of the change needed to build banks for the future.
If you're not a banker, this book offers fascinating insight into how the world of finance operates. If you are a banker, or aspire to be a banker, this book will make you pause and reflect. Essential reading for anyone participating in the global economy.
Biography/Memoir, Banking, Global Banking, Governance, Global Economy
About The Author
Born and raised in the United States, Harrison Young graduated from Harvard in 1966 with a job as a reporter for The Washington Post and an aspiration to have an interesting life. The Vietnam War interrupted his journalistic career.
He spent five years in the US Army, becoming a captain in Special Forces, learning rudimentary Chinese and serving in Okinawa, Japan, and Vietnam. He joined Citibank in New York 1971, moved to Morgan Stanley in 1975, and focused on financial institutions for most of his business career. As the US government official in charge of failing banks in the early 1990s, Harrison oversaw the resolution of 266 institutions.
For two years in the late ’90s he was Chief Executive of China’s first investment banking firm, China International Capital Corporation, which is based in Beijing. He was for six years Vice-Chair of Morgan Stanley Asia, based in Hong Kong, and for four years was Chair of Morgan Stanley Australia. From 2010 to 2013, Young was Chair of NBN Co., the government business enterprise that built Australia’s national broadband network.
Harrison Young was also a non-executive Director of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia from 2007 to 2017, and chaired its board risk committee for seven years. He led the restructuring of The Conversation, the global online news and information network, and served on the boards of the Asia Society, AsiaLink, Financial Services Volunteer Corps and The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.
Young has done business in twenty countries and advised a dozen governments on banking system matters. A dual citizen of the United States and Australia, he makes his home in Melbourne. His latest novel is Prudence and Ambition - How Banks Work and Why their Governance Needs to Change
