Citi Plans Push For Digital Deposits

Citigroup is planning to begin marketing a new app to attract digital customers and grow deposits from individuals in the third quarter, the bank said. The app is part of a larger push to boost the bank’s wealth management business, according to a Reuters story.The push to attract individual depo...

By William Sprouse • July 9, 2018

Get in Front of Digital Finance — Or Get Left Back

The digital finance organization remains an emerging concept in many organizations, and CFOs are still at one remove from the center of digital-transformation efforts, even though they own and manage much of the relevant business information that feeds such initiatives.There is a clear mandate fo...

By Kapil Chandra and Ishaan Seth • July 9, 2018

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Top 5 stories from CFO.com

From CPA licensure changes to undergoing a digital transformation, these are the most popular stories CFOs are reading. 

By CFO.com staff

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending July 6

Andrew Davies has been chosen to lead the finance function at Sprint. Most recently group CFO at VEON, based in Amsterdam, Davies also was previously finance chief at Verizon Wireless.Bharat Mahajan Daseke has named Bharat Mahajan to the top finance spot. He takes over for Scott Wheeler, who was ...

By Joan Urdang • July 6, 2018

Credit Suisse Settles Foreign Bribery Investigations

Credit Suisse Group has agreed to pay $77 million to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The agreement includes a $30 million settlement with the SEC and a $47 million criminal penalty t...

By William Sprouse • July 5, 2018

Manufacturing Orders See Unexpected Rise

The Commerce Department released its latest statistics on U.S.-made goods and they showed an unexpected increase in May. The data suggest a manufacturing sector that is gaining strength. Factory goods orders increased 0.4% last month, according to the Commerce Department. They were expected to be...

By William Sprouse • July 4, 2018

KBR Fined $2.5M for Inflating Work in Backlog

Engineering and construction giant KBR has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle charges that it overstated a key non-financial statement performance metric known as work in backlog.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said KBR misled investors by including $459 million in its publicly disc...

By Matthew Heller • July 4, 2018

Automation Won’t Reduce Finance Staffs: Study

Will companies decrease their finance and accounting staffs in response to automation-driven productivity gains? Or will they instead assign workers to activities that are more value-additive than the rote ones taken over by machines?Many observers have suggested the latter is more likely. Howeve...

By David McCann • July 3, 2018

Cyber-Risk Costs Resist Overall Trend

A measurement of businesses’ total cost of risk (TCOR), primarily used by the insurance industry, declined for the fourth year in a row in 2017, according to The Risk Management Society (RIMS).Despite record-setting natural catastrophes, the average total cost of risk (TCOR) trended lower for the...

By Vincent Ryan • July 3, 2018

Dell, VMware Deal to Create New Public Stock

After five years as a private company, Dell Technologies is making a move to offer shares to the public through a $21.7 billion deal with its VMware business software subsidiary.Under the agreement announced Monday, Dell will exchange each share of the Class V stock that tracks VMware’s performan...

By Matthew Heller • July 2, 2018

Don’t Forget About Existing Technologies

Artificial intelligence in all its forms is captivating finance departments. But new evidence shows that most finance groups are neglecting huge potential value right in their wheelhouse, through technologies that have been available for years.Michael Heric New tools beckon. Adoption of robotic p...

By Michael Heric • July 2, 2018

Ex-Bankrate CFO Pleads Guilty to $25M Fraud

The former CFO of Bankrate has pleaded guilty to inflating the financial services firm’s earnings in an accounting fraud case that resulted in more than $25 million in shareholder losses.Edward J. DiMaria allegedly engaged in the complex fraud scheme at Bankrate between 2011 and 2014 to enrich hi...

By Matthew Heller • July 2, 2018

More Issuers Will Qualify as a ‘Smaller Reporting Company’

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday voted to adopt amendments to the “smaller reporting company” (SRC) definition to expand the number of companies that qualify for the scaled-down disclosure requirements.The new smaller reporting company definition enables a company with less than...

By Vincent Ryan • June 29, 2018

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending June 29

CFO Scott Maw has announced that he will retire from Starbucks at the end of November, and will remain a senior consultant until March of next year. The company has started an external search to find Maw’s successor. Maw had been finance chief since 2014.International Paper has promoted Timothy N...

By Joan Urdang • June 29, 2018

Starbucks CFO Stuns Wall Street With Retirement

Starbucks shares dropped as much as 4.8% on Thursday after the coffee chain said CFO Scott Maw was retiring after just four years in the job.The coffee chain gave no explanation for Maw’s departure, which stunned Wall Street analysts. Starbucks beat earnings estimates during the first half of his...

By Matthew Heller • June 28, 2018

5 Things Every CFO Must Do Now to Create New Value

CFOs can manage risk with their eyes closed. Yet in today’s dynamic business and technology landscapes, uncertainty is the new risk. While yesterday’s finance leaders saw the world in black-and-white, tomorrow’s must see shades of gray to create new value. There was a lot of talk about this at th...

By Accenture and Christian Campagna • June 28, 2018

Is Analytics the Answer?

When so many web pages, whitepapers, and webinars promise that finance-led data analytics programs will transform an organization, it’s easy to buy into the hype. Cooler heads, though, understandably wonder: how effective are data analytics projects, really? Are finance chiefs (and other C-suite ...

By Yasmin Ghahremani • June 27, 2018

Public Scrutiny

The market for auditing services shifts from year to year as companies go public, go private, get acquired, and change auditors, all of which may influence the fees that the Big Four and their competitors charge for services. How much do you know about the current state of public companies and th...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 27, 2018

U.S. House Prices Continue Their Ascent

U.S. home prices continued their relentless rise in April, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, which posted a 6.4% increase for the month. The index covers all nine census divisions.The 10-city composite index was up 6.2% year-over-year, and the 20-...

By William Sprouse • June 26, 2018

Payments Push

Today’s gotta-have-it-now mindset often seems more ingrained in the United States than anywhere else. It’s odd, then, that the country has lagged behind many others in building the infrastructure to make near-instantaneous electronic payments.Finally, though, change is underway, in the form of a ...

By Russ Banham • June 26, 2018

Correcting Wall Street’s Cyber Blind Spot

Investment bankers and their clients have a blind spot when it comes to information technology (IT) issues. Deal teams can be intimidated by technical concepts, leaving them to IT specialists who get involved late in the process, often after a deal closes. They also can understate the significanc...

By Craig Callé • June 25, 2018

Tax Law Drives Pension De-Risking Opportunity

Among the many effects on corporate finance from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a greater motivation to address problems with defined-benefit (DB) employee pension plans. Thanks also to the savings from a lower corporate tax rate for 2018, senior finance executives think that this year may be an op...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 25, 2018

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending June 22

Peter Knag has been named to lead the finance function at Turner Broadcasting System. Most recently, he was vice president of merger planning at AT&T.Steve Fasching has been promoted to the top finance spot at Deckers Brands, effective July 16, replacing Tom George. Fasching is now senior vic...

By Joan Urdang • June 22, 2018

Brookfield to Buy AT&T Data Centers

AT&T Communications announced it has agreed to sell 31 data centers to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in a deal worth $1.1 billion.Under the deal, Brookfield will set up a wholly owned company to own and operate the data centers with Tim Caulfield as chief executive. Caulfield is currentl...

By William Sprouse • June 21, 2018

Can Advanced Technologies Ease Compliance?

Editor’s note: This article addresses improved compliance processes as a result of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. The author’s employer provides compliance services that use such technologies. There may finally be an end in sight to the perpetual increases in complianc...

By Steven Bock • June 20, 2018

Digitizing Finance Delivers Value Beyond the Hype

The pace of digital transformation is accelerating across all industries, creating technological disruption and a risk of being left behind. It’s crucial for business leaders to think through how to make the most of digital technologies — especially within the finance function — and prepare for t...

By Hermann Sidhu and Thomas Spannagl • June 19, 2018