@GoldmanSachs, @RBC: First to Put the #GFC in the Rear-view Mirror
Before we dig into the latest numbers, let's level set the motivations here because, in the helter-skelter nature of most people's day, some of this analysis tends to get brushed aside as pedestrian. There is only so much one can do to make a headcount index sexy and provocative. But, this is something folks should be paying attention to. Banks are the biggest employers, the largest providers of services, and the most voracious consumers of technology in the global financial services ecosystem. As innovations strip away their dominance and incumbencies, people should want to know how the dominoes are going to fall because these players are currently interconnected with most everything that goes on in this space... Anyway, preamble (and gentle finger-wagging) aside, here's the setup: Why do we care so much about tracking bulge bank headcount? There are at least two reasons. The first is, well, a bit pedestrian, actually: Since we use headcount to normalize the variance in scale between banks (and other #fintech buyers) in order to [...]