A law unto
themselves

Picture of fountain pen and ink blotIn the atmosphere of
faint anxiety that has begun to gather in anticipation of new
consumer credit regulation and an overhaul of the UK financial
regulation system, it might be time to sit down, take a deep breath
and wonder whether British lending institutions are actually being
– dare we say it – overcompliant with rule-makers.

A lawyer who has worked with
several banks of European parentage recently commented to
MF that, upon informing the lender’s Nordic decision
makers on the incompatibility of planned policies with UK law,
received a surprising (and totally serious) answer.

“Well, why don’t you just go
and get that law changed?”

Oh, if only it were that
simple.

 

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Teutonic
tutelage

Group Financial Services CEO,
and extrovert Bavarian, Christian Kalinke, made some great asides
on Anglo/German meeting culture when speaking to delegates at the
FLA’s 7th Annual Motor Finance Convention this month.

Picture of boardroom meeting desceneding into a shouting matchThe
Germans, he said, were more task-oriented when it came to
discussing a topic, launching straight into business with no time
for pleasantries, unlike the British. Also, he said, Brits
preferred individualism to consensus when approaching tasks as a
committee.

He claimed that Germans were
more
monochronic than the English – which seemed to be a profound
observation until he pointed out that the term means
‘punctual’.

Finally, he pointed out that
business conversations in Germany held a much lower level of
personal context – which, in his own words, means “in Germany you
can give someone some real heat in a meeting, really attack them,
then go for a beer afterwards like nothing happened”.

 

Courting
disaster?

Rumours: Which retail motor
finance broker is making a legal approach to a technology developer
in the sector, claiming to hold intellectual property rights to a
product they have released?

Answers on a postcard
please.