• This is a preview of Business Insider Intelligence's US Banking Digital Trust Report 2020.
• The full report will be available to Business Insider Intelligence enterprise clients in late April. To learn more about this report, email Business Insider Intelligence Client Services at bii-clientservices@businessinsider.com.

The US banks with the highest levels of digital trust in 2020 are PNC, Chase, and Citibank, according to Business Insider Intelligence's inaugural Banking Digital Trust study. Digital trust is the confidence that consumers place in their banks' digital channels — and that confidence is more important now than ever. As the coronavirus pandemic sparks branch closures, digital banking outages, and fraud schemes, trust is being put to the test on multiple levels. 

Building digital trust could unlock valuable benefits for banks, including increased satisfaction, engagement, and customer lifetime value. Respondents who rated their bank above average in digital trust ratings considered themselves likely to open their next account at the bank at more than twice the rate of those with low trust (22.6% versus 10.4%).

Even with high digital trust among their customers, banks still face the looming threat of tech giants: The provider cited by the highest percentage of respondents as one of their most-trusted banking services providers was fintech PayPal (43.1%), edging out respondents' primary bank (42.5%). 

To help banks pinpoint how to maintain and grow trust among customers, our Banking Digital Trust 2020 study surveyed 2,055 US banking customers on which factors play the biggest part in determining the level of confidence they feel when using digital banking channels, namely: Security, Privacy, Reputation, Reliability, Feature Breadth, and Ease of Use.

We asked respondents to rate their bank's performance in each of those factors, and used these rankings to determine which banks have the highest levels of digital trust overall. We also dove into our survey results to offer banks data-driven insights on how they can improve trust levels across the six factors. This study looked exclusively at the top 10 consumer-facing banks in the US by asset size.

Here are the top three leading banks in digital trust overall:

PNC punched above its weight, earning the highest overall digital trust score. Despite being middle-of-the pack by asset size, the bank earned the highest customer marks in the three most important categories of the study: Security, Privacy, and Reputation. The bank's strong lead within those heavily weighted categories, along with its second-place score in Feature Breath, were enough to offset its average customer ratings in the Ease of Use and Reliability categories. 

• Rank: 1st
• Score: 87.3 out of 100

Chase was a top contender in all six pillars of trust, clinching second place overall. The bank placed second in Security and Reliability, and third in Reputation, Feature Breadth, and Ease of Use. Chase's strong digital trust scores in Reliability, Feature Breadth, and Ease of Use likely benefit from its industry-leading IT budget— the bank reportedly spent $11.4 billion on technology in 2019 alone.

• Rank: 2nd
• Score: 86.2 out of 100

Citibank took third place overall in digital trust, earning top marks in the Reliability category, and scoring among the top three in the Security and Privacy categories. The bank's strong scores in the two most important categories of digital trust, Privacy and Security, helped it secure third place overall, despite scoring seventh place in reputation — a category in which all the largest banks struggled.

• Rank: 3rd
• Score: 85.9 out of 100

Business Insider Intelligence's Banking Digital Trust study ranks US banks according to how confident customers feel when using their digital channels and offers analysis on what banks need to do to maintain and grow trust levels. The study is based on a January 2020 flash survey that narrowed down the six biggest factors that determine customers' levels of digital trust, and a February-March 2020 study of 2,055 respondents on how they rank their bank on each of these six factors. 

The full report will be available to Business Insider Intelligence enterprise clients in late April. To learn more about this report, email Business Insider Intelligence Client Services at bii-clientservices@businessinsider.com. The Banking Digital Trust study ranks: Bank of America, BB&T, Chase, Capital One, Citibank, PNC, SunTrust, TD Bank, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. It also includes supplementary data on Ally Bank, BBVA USA, Chime, NFCU, USAA, and Varo Money.

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• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought shares in a gold miner last quarter, despite the billionaire investor dismissing gold as a subpar asset for more than 20 years.
• Berkshire added 20.9 million shares of Barrick Gold worth about $564 million to its portfolio, its only new position in the period.
• Buffett has repeatedly blasted gold for being an unproductive asset that has underperformed stocks in the long term.
• "If you bought gold at the time of Christ and you figured the compound rate on it, it may be a couple tenths of 1%," he said at Berkshire's annual meeting in 2018.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made its first investment in a gold miner last quarter, even though the famed investor has warned against betting on the precious metal for at least two decades.

The conglomerate bought 20.9 million shares of Barrick Gold, worth about $564 million at the end of June, according to its latest portfolio update. The miner was its only new holding in the period.

The news of Buffett's backing sent Barrick's stock price up as much as 10% in pre-market trading on Monday.

Read More: Joe Biden officially accepts the Democratic nomination this week. RBC says buy these 47 stocks spanning every industry that are poised to crush the market if he wins in a wave election.

Berkshire's move is a shock given Buffett's repeated dismissal of gold as a compelling investment.

He has called it less appealing than a farm or a business because it doesn't produce anything, and pointed out that it has massively underperformed stocks in the long term.

Here are some of Buffett's past criticisms of gold:

• "[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head" — speech at Harvard University in 1998
• "It's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that" — comparing companies like Coca-Cola and Wells Fargo to gold in a CNBC interview in 2009
• "Neither of much use nor procreative ... if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end" — 2011 letter to shareholders
• "We could buy all US cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, earning more than $40 billion annually) [and] have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money — arguing in his 2011 letter to shareholders that gold is incredibly expensive as the global stock of the metal would fit in a baseball infield and produce nothing, but still carry a price tag of $9.6 trillion
• "The magical metal was no match for the American mettle" — comparing the returns from a gold bet and an investment in a S&P 500 index fund in 1942 in his 2018 letter to shareholders
• "If you bought gold at the time of Christ and you figured the compound rate on it, it may be a couple tenths of 1%" — Berkshire annual meeting in 2018
• "For every dollar you have made in American business, you would have less than $0.01 of gain by buying [gold]" — comparing a $10,000 investment in a cross-section of US stocks in 1942, which would be worth about $51 million in 2018, with a gold bet of the same size that would be worth about $400,000, at the annual meeting in 2018.

Read More: A Wall Street investment chief says the relentless surge in big tech stocks is headed for an abrupt ending — and warns it could sink the entire market by 40%

Buffett is clearly a vocal critic of gold, but it's important to note that he has invested in precious metals in the past.

The Berkshire boss purchased almost 130 million ounces of silver in the late 1990s as he predicted shrinking stockpiles would drive up the metal's price. He also bought silver in the 1960s in anticipation of its demonetization by the US government.

Moreover, Buffett might not be behind the Barrick investment. One of his two investing deputies, Ted Weschler and Todd Coombs, may have made the call.

Berkshire's stock portfolio was also worth more than $200 billion at the end of June, meaning its Barrick position is tiny relative to many of its other holdings.

Read More: 'We are going to pay the price': Famed investor Jim Rogers sounds the alarm on central bank money-printing and exorbitant debt — and warns the next market meltdown will be 'the worst in my lifetime'

However, the investment still represents a significant shift in Berkshire's stance on gold and a puzzling departure from Buffett's stated views on the metal.

Buffett has advised investors against buying gold in times of fear and uncertainty, arguing stocks will almost certainly perform better in the long run.

Berkshire's bet on a gold miner during a pandemic suggests he may have changed his mind.

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• Vertafore is set to be acquired by tech company Roper Technologies for $5.35 billion.
• And we expect investors' demand in specialized software providers to continue.

• Insider Intelligence publishes hundreds of insights, charts, and forecasts on the Fintech industry with the Fintech Briefing. You can learn more about subscribing here.

US-based Vertafore, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, is set to be acquired by tech company Roper Technologies for $5.35 billion in Q3, Reuters reports.

Although it'll be part of the Roper family of acquired software companies, Vertafore will continue to be run by the existing management team. The price tag is almost twice the insurtech's value when it was last acquired in 2016 by Bain Capital Private Equity and Vista Equity Partners for $2.7 billion.

The acquisition meets Roper's overarching strategy to invest in revenue-generating software businesses that provide value-added solutions to critical customer processes.

• Vertafore runs a proven sustainable business model. The insurtech has served the insurance industry for over 50 years, including over 20,000 agencies and 1,000 carriers. Since its last acquisition in 2016, Vertafore has added more than 500 employees and improved its customer Net Promoter Score by 200%. Roper aims to capitalize on this growth trajectory and expects Vertafore to contribute about $590 million of revenue in 2021.
• Its insurtech cloud-based solutions specifically target incumbents' digital capabilities across the value chain. Vertafore's software provides agency management, compliance, workflow, and data solutions to automate the P&C insurance life cycle. These applications are increasingly in demand among incumbents: Fearing the risk of losing customers to more tech-savvy competitors, many insurers are turning to software providers to improve their digital offerings. Vertafore's client-focused digital tools, for example, can help incumbents offer a seamless customer experience, such as 24/7 client self-service and two-way document sharing, comparable to large P&C insurtechs.

As insurers increasingly look to digitize, we expect an uptick in M&A and IPO activity among specialized software providers. Cloud-powered Majesco, for example, was recently acquired for $729 million due to its high-profile client base and range of services tailored to P&C operations as well as life and annuity (L&A). Duck Creek, meanwhile, is eyeing a $3 billion valuation in an upcoming IPO, following its $230 million funding raise in Q2.

These recent stories are likely due to prospective investors turning to business opportunities that target needs that have gained relevance amid the pandemic. Beyond competitive pressures from insurtechs, insurers also have to contend with their customers calling for better digital contact channels to avoid face-to-face interactions — increasing demand for software providers.

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Over the last decade, fintech has established itself as a fundamental part of the world’s financial services ecosystem.

Today, fintech financing is surging across the globe, despite major banks remaining cautious about acquisitions.

Instead, three emerging trends are fueling the current fintech boom: new geographical fintech centers, more late-stage mega-rounds, and the rise of fintech-focused venture firms.

In the Future of Fintech: Funding’s New Guard slide deck, Business Insider Intelligence explores how these three key trends are driving a surge in funding.

This exclusive slide deck can be yours for FREE today.

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• The storied investment bank has seen leadership shakeups under CEO David Solomon and a slew of partner departures. 
• Goldman has been moving away from high-risk businesses like trading and is making pushes into more stable areas like consumer lending, wealth management, and transaction banking. 
• There have been big cultural changes, too. Solomon is looking to create a more transparent workplace, while new tech execs are taking cues from Silicon Valley heavy-hitters. 
• At Business Insider, we are closely tracking the latest developments at Goldman. You can read all of our Goldman coverage on BI Prime.

Storied Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs is going through some massive changes under CEO David Solomon.

It's taken big steps involving transparency and inclusion to change up its culture. It has seen a slew of partner departures — many in the securities division. And it's making big pushes into businesses like wealth management and transaction banking.  

The latest on people moves, tech initiatives, transparency

• Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs are hiring journalists from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg to repair their own images. Here's a look at their strategies.
• Goldman Sachs is reportedly looking to acquire General Motors' credit-card business away from Capital One as it looks to rev up its consumer-banking unit
• A peek inside Goldman Sachs' internal idea factory that's hatched products like a LinkedIn for Wall Street. Here's what else it's trying to disrupt at the bank.
• Goldman Sachs just overhauled how it does performance reviews, and 10% of staff will get rated underperformers each year
• REVEALED: The 20 leaders in charge of the powerful Goldman Sachs merchant-banking division that's raising $100 billion for a new alternatives push
• A drive-in Hamptons concert where the Chainsmokers played and Goldman Sachs' CEO DJed is under fire for drawing crowds that weren't social distancing
• Inside the rise of Ram Sundaram, the leader of a secretive Goldman Sachs desk that's minting billions by designing some of the bank's most imaginative — and controversial — trades
• Goldman Sachs is building an AI-powered digital assistant and checking account for its Marcus consumer bank. Here's how it's shaping up.
• Inside Goldman Sachs's first in-person board meeting since the pandemic began
• Goldman Sachs designed its glitzy London office with tons of amenities, but little parking. In a post-pandemic world, it could be a big snag as the firm looks to bring workers back in.
• $60 billion quant fund Two Sigma just hired Goldman Sachs' first-ever chief data officer to lead its massive tech team
• Why Goldman Sachs, which has a $509 billion wealth business geared towards ultra-rich clients, is buying a small Virginia fintech for financial advisers and retail investors
• Goldman Sachs just hired Kurt Hoffman, an expert in distressed situations and bankruptcy, to join a trading unit known for some of the bank's most lucrative deals
• Goldman Sachs' top tech exec explains how a fresh slew of senior hires are transforming the bank's approach to building products
• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs just sent naming 4 execs to lead its private-equity investments across the merchant-banking division

Culture and talent

• Goldman Sachs' summer internship is going virtual, joining the likes of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley who are running remote programs
• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs just sent to staff announcing its new head of regulatory affairs. The former White House counsel will be tasked with helping clean up the bank's 1MDB drama.
• Goldman Sachs just hired 2 senior recruiting execs focused on luring top talent from other firms —and it's a huge departure from the firm's traditional promote-from-within mentality
• Read the full memo David Solomon just sent to 38,000 Goldman Sachs employees explaining why he's moving his management team out of stuffy offices and into open seating
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and his management team are ditching their stuffy offices and moving to an open floor plan closer to the people so they can feel the buzz of New York headquarters
• Goldman Sachs just unveiled a new gender pronouns initiative as part of a broader inclusion push at the Wall Street firm
• Read the memo Goldman Sachs just sent to its employees unveiling a new pronouns initiative

Coronavirus response

• Inside a 38,000-person remote work rollout at Goldman Sachs: sleepless nights, assembly lines, and an Amazon-like hub on a Manhattan trading floor
• How a massive New York hospital secured 130,000 N95 masks from China with help from a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, private jets, and a call to Warren Buffett
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon just sent a firm-wide voicemail about the coronavirus crisis. Here's what he told employees.
• Goldman Sachs and Bank of America just updated their WFH policies — again. Here's what they're telling employees about the latest steps aimed at combating the spread of coronavirus.
• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs top brass just sent detailing the firm's coronavirus contingency plans, including separating employees into 'blue' and 'white' teams to alternate working from the office and home

Consumer push, transaction banking, wealth management

• Goldman Sachs just announced its first partnership for transaction banking as it looks to build a new $1 billion business moving money around the world
• Goldman Sachs is sending much less mail to potential Marcus customers. A senior exec lays out the reason why.
• A Goldman Sachs exec explains why the bank isn't sweating concerns over the Apple Card's profitability
• A Wall Street firm crunched the numbers around how much Apple will make from its new credit card with Goldman Sachs
• Here's why Goldman Sachs just did its biggest deal in nearly 20 years as part of a pivot to less wealthy clients
• Goldman Sachs execs are opening up about their plans for Marcus, and they think it can do to banking what iTunes did to the music industry
• Goldman Sachs' partnership with Apple could move it a step closer to being 'a bank branch in your pocket'
• Human resources is the next battleground for Wall Street wealth advisers as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs jockey over new turf
• Goldman Sachs has a novel method for predicting the next economic slump, and it's at the heart of its hot new business

Technology

• Amazon just entered the small business loan market with Goldman. Here's how the e-commerce giant is building a bank for itself.
• JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are finally beginning to embrace fintech startups. Here's how they test the waters before committing to working with them.
• We talked to the execs behind Bloomberg's new data partnership with Goldman Sachs. Here's why they think it's a sign of Wall Street's future.
• Goldman Sachs is putting its own Marquee app on Amazon's cloud in a pitch to lure more fintech developers
• Goldman Sachs is embracing open-source code and its chief data officer says it's part of a "new world" of software
• Read the memo the new Goldman tech chief sent to the firm's 9,000-plus engineers where he urges them to ditch presentations in favor of Amazon's famous narratives
• A new Goldman Sachs tech exec hired from Amazon is taking a page from the Jeff Bezos playbook by urging engineers to ditch PowerPoint and write memos
• Goldman Sachs' new CTO shares his strategy for attracting outside developers to work more closely with the bank, giving a glimpse into the future of how Wall Street will work
• A Verizon executive is joining Goldman Sachs as chief technology officer as the Wall Street bank reshuffles its ranks
• Marty Chavez is retiring from Goldman Sachs. We chatted with him about the bank's tech transformation, why now is the right time for him to step down, and what he's planning next.
• Goldman Sachs is scrapping a homegrown email app it once touted — and it's a sign the bank is moving away from building tech in house
• Goldman Sachs is exploring plans to create a Netflix for data, and it marks a new frontier for Wall Street
• Goldman Sachs' internal idea factory hatched a plan for the Google of Wall Street, and it's now looking for the next big thing to disrupt the bank
• Goldman Sachs' big bet on the future of Wall Street had a rocky start. Here's the inside story of the bank's struggle to grow its next business and an exclusive look at its plans

Trading

• Bank of America is shaking up its global markets division and poached a Goldman Sachs exec to fill a key new role
• Goldman Sachs' massive quant business now rivals AQR and Two Sigma. We talked to the bank's top quant about asset growth, finding data sources, and why critics of computerized trading are wrong.
• Goldman Sachs' CEO tells us the bank is winning over quant clients. That helped it outpace rivals like JPMorgan last quarter.
• Goldman Sachs is cutting about 5% of sales and trading staff after senior equities leaders delivered a tough town-hall talk
• Goldman Sachs is moving away from a tool championed by its former CFO as it pushes its traders to see clients where they once saw quick wins
• Goldman Sachs is shuffling its top stock trading executives as the business tries to claw back market share from Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan
• Goldman Sachs's bond trading unit is still trying to find its way — and it represents a key challenge for new CEO David Solomon

Alternatives

• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs just sent naming 4 execs to lead its private-equity investments across the merchant-banking division
• Goldman Sachs is making targeted hires for a 'storefront' for alternative investments that's modeled after firms like KKR and Blackstone
• Goldman Sachs' push into private equity is ruffling feathers at Blackstone — and it might be a sign of big client skirmishes to come
• Goldman Sachs execs are jockeying for control of the firm's lucrative private investing units after a plan to merge it — and the stakes couldn't be higher
• Meet the Goldman Sachs execs tasked with building the firms' new Blackstone-esque private-investing unit — and pumping up the bank's flagging stock price
• 'It's good to be Rich': Meet the Goldman Sachs banker who has built a private investing empire that goes head-to-head with Blackstone — and you've probably never heard of him
• Goldman Sachs is considering a shakeup of its alternative investing units as part of a plan to simplify the bank's strategy

Deals

• Goldman Sachs is assembling a team of senior bankers focused on middle-market private equity. Here are the key hires and the playbook they'll use to land new clients.
• Goldman Sachs unloaded some of its WeWork shares before its investment bankers pitched investors on what it once considered a $60 billion-plus IPO
• Goldman Sachs just revealed it sold part of its Uber stake to SoftBank and it helped boost a $4.5 billion business
• A senior Goldman Sachs fintech banker was about to join JPMorgan — but then got lured back —and it's another sign of the fierce battle for M&A talent
• Goldman just promoted a star tech banker close to Tesla and Microsoft to co-head one of its most profitable businesses, as incoming CEO Solomon makes his mark
• Goldman Sachs just announced a shakeup of its leadership — and it signals the rise of bankers over traders
• A tug-of-war between Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan over a top banker highlights Wall Street's $1 trillion battleground

Investor day 2020

• Inside Goldman Sachs' first investor day, where avocado toast and crab apples were served with tech talk, 3-year plans, and a surprising trading mea culpa
• Goldman Sachs just revealed a new wealth brand at its first-ever investor day. It shows how the bank is trying to reshape its strategy — and image.
• Goldman Sachs just unveiled hundreds of slides laying out the future of the company. Here are the 10 crucial slides that show how it plans to transform into a bank for everyone.
• Goldman Sachs is rethinking how it makes private-equity bets with its own money – and one analyst thinks that shift will be a big driver of its stock price

Careers 

• Goldman Sachs is now hiring high-school graduates for roles in Salt Lake City, one of the company's 'high value' locations
• Goldman Sachs has lost at least 54 partners since David Solomon became CEO. We're keeping a running list — and compiling details from insiders about how the exits are being celebrated.
• Read the full memo Goldman Sachs' top brass just sent to staff announcing 2 heads of the bank's private-investing arm are out as it's gearing up to raise billions
• 2 coheads of Goldman Sachs' private-investing business are retiring, in a blow to David Solomon's fundraising plans
• A Goldman Sachs partner who just resigned is leaving behind a job overseeing $2 billion for a London VC with a leading stake in neobank Revolut
• Read the memo announcing the departure of Adam Korn, the Goldman Sachs exec who was 'instrumental in building and championing' innovations like the bank's Marquee platform
• Another Goldman Sachs partner is out. HR chief Dane Holmes is the latest key player to leave the Wall Street bank in a matter of days.
• Goldman Sachs is offering buyouts to encourage partners to leave as CEO David Solomon works to shrink one of the most elite clubs on Wall Street
• Goldman Sachs is making renewable energy a big priority based on its hiring strategy. It's a sign that its ideas incubator is working.
• The David Solomon era at Goldman Sachs kicked off with 43 words Lloyd Blankfein would never say
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon shares his best leadership advice
• Goldman Sachs is shaking up the way it stocks one of the most elite clubs on Wall Street — and it shows how banks are back to making money again
• Goldman Sachs' 1MDB problems are eating into employee morale, and insiders worry the firm will use its legal woes as an excuse to scrimp on bonuses
• Goldman Sachs is about to move dozens of jobs out of pricey New York to Utah as Wall Street turns to cheaper cities

SEE ALSO: We identified the 70 most powerful people at JPMorgan. Here's our exclusive org chart.

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• Kira Systems, an AI-driven contract-analysis startup, is working with the police-reform initiative Campaign Zero on a newly launched project that seeks to inform social-justice discussions.
• While the legal-tech startup is typically used for contract review at law firms, it's being leveraged to parse through more than 700 police contracts.
• Business Insider spoke with Noah Waisberg, the CEO and cofounder of Kira Systems, and Samuel Sinyangwe and DeRay McKesson, the cofounders of Campaign Zero, on how they've used technology to power social reform.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Kira Systems, a machine-learning startup that analyzes contracts, is partnering with Campaign Zero to help catalyze police-reform discussions.

Though the software, powered by artificial intelligence, is typically used for commercial tasks like due-diligence reviews on mergers and acquisitions — Kira's roster of clients includes big law firms like Davis Polk, Latham & Watkins and Clifford Chance — the technology can easily be used as a tool in other contexts, Noah Waisberg, the CEO and cofounder of the startup, said.

The partnership between Kira and Campaign Zero is an example of how social-justice activists are employing tech to create an impact, especially as the nation grapples with renewed calls for police reform amid the recent months' heightened attention on the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Our belief is that businesses do a better job running themselves if they know what's in their contracts, because they can just make accurate decisions," he told Business Insider. "And that applies to society as well."

Waisberg first heard about Campaign Zero when a member of Kira's sales team mentioned a podcast episode featuring the initiative's cofounders, DeRay McKesson and Samuel Sinyangwe. When Waisberg learned they were trying to analyze police contracts and find a way to efficiently pull data from them, he knew Kira was a perfect match.

The fruits of their partnership launched Monday with Campaign Zero's latest initiative, Nix the 6. The name refers to the six specific types of clauses it's identifying across more than 700 police-union contracts and documents, including clauses related to erased misconduct records and unfair interrogation procedures.

Through its data-driven approach, the social-justice initiative seeks to tangibly demonstrate that incidents of racism and police violence aren't "anecdotal, isolated incidents," but rather part of a larger systemic pattern that will take policy changes to address, Campaign Zero's Sinyangwe said.

It seeks to provide reporters, policymakers, and the public with valuable information, allowing them to bypass the arduous process of sifting through hundreds of pages of wordy legalese.

Kira has also accelerated Campaign Zero's internal review of the contracts. Instead of staffers having to manually parse through each contract, some of which are more than 200 pages long, the software can tag clauses, which a team member would then quickly double-check. Campaign Zero said that leveraging Kira boosted efficiency of this entire process by 70%.

The speedier review process means that Campaign Zero can advance its project more quickly, while there's still immediate attention on the cause in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

"I hope that by being able to get the data quicker to people, they're able to have more of an impact now than they might in a year," Waisberg said of the campaign.

When he was asked about the potential conflicts and politics behind a tech startup's involvement in social activism, Waisberg responded, "I think data is more objective."

He said Campaign Zero doesn't put a spin on the data and instead simply publishes it for anyone to access. "If you don't agree with an interpretation, you can go look at the data and interpret it yourself," Waisberg added.

He said it "makes things a little less political" by enabling people to make "better data-informed decisions."

Ultimately, the crux of what they're trying to do boils down to one of Waisberg's core beliefs: "The world is better off with more knowledge in it," he said.

SEE ALSO: Meet 9 legal tech startups that top VCs say are poised to take off as law firms look to cut costs and boost productivity

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By Dan Brusstar and Russell Karas, CME Group

• The crude oil hub in Oklahoma provides the physical delivery mechanism for the benchmark WTI futures contract.
• As global economies reopen, oil stocks in Cushing have been drawn down to 51 million barrels in storage since the peak of 65.4 million barrels on May 1.
• Pipelines at Cushing have 3.7 million barrels per day of inflow capacity and 3 million barrels of outflow capacity.

The oil market has begun to adjust to the "new normal" in the global economy, with significantly lower fuel demand and decreased oil production.

In the wake of the demand collapse and lower refinery utilization rates, storage levels for crude oil have finally peaked and are starting to decline as the economic recovery from COVID-19 begins.

The nexus of oil fundamentals

At the heart of the global pricing network is the Cushing, Oklahoma crude oil storage hub, which provides the physical delivery mechanism for the CME Group's NYMEX WTI futures contract.

When the WTI futures contract was first listed in 1983, Cushing was a vibrant hub for cash market trading of crude oil with a network of pipelines, refineries, and storage terminals. Today, Cushing is the key nexus of market fundamentals for the global crude oil market, with nearly two dozen pipelines and 20 storage terminals.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the working storage capacity in Cushing is 76 million barrels and 91 million barrels of total shell capacity as of September 2019.

The pipeline infrastructure in the Cushing market is expansive, with approximately 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of inflow pipeline capacity to Cushing and 3 million bpd of outflow capacity. The inbound pipelines deliver crude oil streams produced in Canada and the US shale oil areas, including the Bakken, Niobrara, and Permian producing areas. The outbound pipelines supply crude oil to the main refining centers in the Gulf Coast and Midwest. 

Making and taking delivery

It's not just the storage or pipeline capacity that make Cushing the critical hub, but also the interconnectivity between a diverse mix of operators at Cushing. The WTI futures contract allows for delivery through Enterprise or Enbridge facilities in Cushing or at a facility that is connected to either.  

The Enterprise terminal provides a key junction point in Cushing, capable of facilitating the transfer of tens of millions of barrels of crude oil every month. A commercial company that elects to take delivery after the termination of the WTI futures contract must have storage and/or pipeline capacity connected to one of the NYMEX delivery locations in Cushing. From there, the firm can elect to take the oil into storage or into a pipeline with connectivity to Midwest refineries and to the Gulf Coast market.

2020 stress

The unprecedented global market fundamentals put intense stress on the oil industry in the first half of 2020. The first indicator of the energy demand destruction from COVID-19 was seen in the New York Harbor RBOB gasoline futures contract (RBOB).  

The futures market for RBOB gasoline forecasted demand concerns early when prices traded at a 20-year low of $0.376 on March 23. RBOB futures is an important indicator for global gasoline as it is the only gasoline futures contract to trade electronically around the clock. Historically, gasoline stocks build in the winter in anticipation of the peak summer driving demand.  

As it became apparent that the summer driving season would be significantly curtailed, RBOB futures prices started to decline at a faster pace than crude oil prices. Meanwhile, the price of New York Harbor Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) futures held up relative to RBOB futures in March and April due to stronger demand from the transportation sector for delivery of essential goods during the pandemic, as reflected in the crack spread chart below.

Oil storage drawdown

In response to the sharp drop in gasoline and ULSD prices, the oil refining companies were quick to respond to the price signals, as is evident in the decline in the US refinery utilization rate, which has been stuck below 75% utilization during the peak summer demand period when refinery utilization typically rises over 90%. As the refining sector ramped up production with the reopening of global economies, the stocks in Cushing have been drawn down significantly since the peak level of 65.4 million barrels in storage on May 1.

As a result of the surging global oversupply, US crude oil production dropped sharply to 10.5 million bpd in June 2020, down from a peak of 13 million bpd in December 2019. The oversupply coupled with demand collapse on a global scale created price arbitrage that was not favorable for US crude oil exports.

Exports stood at 2.5 million bpd in June, down from the peak of 3.7 million recorded in December 2019. The growth in exports has been transformative for the US crude oil market and has enabled US crude to become the marginal barrel of supply in the global energy market.

Looking ahead

WTI futures continue to reflect the fundamentals in the physical crude oil market driven by the unprecedented global impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including decreased demand for crude, global oversupply, and high levels of US storage utilization.

These fundamentals intersect at the Cushing hub and will continue to put intense stress on the oil industry in 2020, as companies respond to price signals and hedge the price risk associated with the "new normal" in the global economy.

Read more market insights from CME Group here.

This post was created by CME Group with Insider Studios.

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• Investment banks pay top dollar for talent, with analysts' base salaries approaching or exceeding $100,000.
• The median salary for Harvard Business School graduates heading into the industry was $150,000 last year. 
• Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification's 2020 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to shed light on what boutique banks paid employees at different seniority levels. 
• Here's a look at base pay at firms like Moelis, Lazard, and Evercore. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Banking is one of the most lucrative – and most competitive – industries for talent. 

Goldman Sachs, for instance, only hires about 0.5% of the applicants for midlevel jobs each year, making the bank nearly 10 times as selective as Harvard. The competition is fierce at boutique investment banks, too, with a top-notch talent pool vying for a small number of spots. 

About 3% of Harvard Business School's class of 2019 went into investment banking, per the most recent numbers disclosed by the school. Those HBS grads made a median base salary of $150,000, and inked a median signing bonus of $57,500. (People typically join firms at the level of investment-banking associate after graduating business school.) 

See more:Here's exactly what it takes to get a job as a banker at Goldman Sachs in 2020, according to Wall Street recruiters, current and former employees, and the head of HR

Many boutique banks hire dozens of foreign workers for their US offices. When US companies file paperwork for visas on behalf of current or prospective foreign workers, they're required to say how much base compensation the workers are offered. And every year, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification discloses this salary data in an enormous dataset.

Business Insider analyzed the agency's second-quarter 2020 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to shed light on what the banks paid employees at different rungs on the ladder. The jobs were based around the country and typically include ranges for each role, though they do not reflect bonuses, which can make up a substantial chunk of bankers' pay. 

One of the firms, Evercore, broke out the salaries' job titles into sub-categories. For example: associate 1, associate 2, associate 3, associate 4. The others did not disclose this information. In general, investment-banking salaries can increase as you go from level to level, but also as you progress from year to year at a given level — from first-year to second-year analyst, for example. 

According to US Department of Labor documentation, the offered wages in the disclosure data are the minimum amounts companies provided in foreign labor certification applications for specific workers. The wages are derived from the average compensation that similar employees in each given job, industry, and with comparable qualifications are paid, which is known as the "prevailing wage." Prevailing wage sets a floor for their salary, but salaries are often much higher than the prevailing wage.

Representatives for the banks either did not respond to or declined requests for comment.

See more: After flashy hires and a big buildout, Perella Weinberg's media and telecom team has been gutted. We tracked the exodus — and what it says about the landscape for blockbuster M&A deals.

Jefferies

The firm has about 900 people in its investment banking division. 

• Associate: $97,000-$200,000
• Senior associate: $110,000-$150,000
• Vice president: $130,000-$300,000
• Senior vice president: $169,500-$275,000

See more: Inside Jefferies' all-virtual summer internship: 5 weeks of charity work, and guest appearances from the CEOs of Blackstone and Zoom

Moelis

About 640 of Moelis' 900 global employees are investment bankers. 

• Associate: $150,000-$200,000
• Vice president: $250,000

Lazard 

The company, which also has a sizable asset management division, has about 3,000 employees. 

• Analyst: $85,000-$95,000
• Associate: $100,000-$150,000

Evercore Partners

Evercore had about 1,900 employees at the end of 2019. 

• Analyst 1: $73,424-$95,000
• Analyst 2: $73,424-$100,000
• Senior analyst: $76,742-$105,000
• Associate 1: $137,821-$160,000 for associates without sector designation. By sector: 
  • Restructuring: $137,821-$160,000
  • Technology: $156,978-$160,000
• Associate 2: $137,821.00-$160,000
• Associate 3: $170,019-$180,000
• Associate 4: $170,019-$196,000
• Vice president: $203,221-$250,000

Houlihan Lokey

The Los Angeles-based firm has nearly 1,500 employees.

Houlihan listed one job, associate, which paid $130,000 - $150,000. 

Read more: 

• For certain corners of Wall Street, dealmaking is happening faster than ever. That could mean a permanent lifestyle change for some investment bankers.
• POWER PLAYERS: Meet 20 top Wall Street restructuring bankers taking center stage as a wave of bankruptcies rocks Corporate America
• How to use cold emails to land a gig working on Wall Street, according to a JPMorgan banking analyst turned VC who did it herself

SEE ALSO: How to use cold emails to land a gig working on Wall Street, according to a JPMorgan banking analyst turned VC who did it herself

READ MORE: Wall Street is starting to return to the office — but not everyone is heading back. Here's which finance jobs are the most likely to remain virtual.

SEE ALSO: Boutique banks like Evercore and Moelis are saving tens of millions in travel and entertainment costs while dealmakers are grounded. Here's what that newfound efficiency could mean for the future of business travel.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Entertaining clients is a key part of doing business on Wall Street. And some are getting creative when it comes to getting in face time. 
• Some Wall Streeters are embracing Manhattan's outdoor dining options. But sitting outside in the summer heat on a city sidewalk isn't appealing to everyone. 
• Golf, Hamptons dining, and even walks on the beach are all popular alternatives for dealmakers, lawyers, and vendors looking to schmooze with clients. 
• For those that are still keeping in touch from afar, the challenges are mounting. Clients don't always like video calls, and social media interactions are complicated by compliance practicalities. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Even as offices remain largely empty, there are signs that in-person client schmoozing is returning for the Wall Street crowd. 

The New York restaurant scene has been staging a comeback — outside. But while that's been a welcome change for foodies who have longed to return to their favorite spots, it also means sitting at tables on the sidewalk or in parking spaces in the summer heat.

One New York-based hedge-fund manager told Business Insider that he wasn't looking forward to what normally would have been a nice dinner — paid for by a bank — inside. Now, that same dinner has to happen outside, socially distant from other diners, with waiters in masks.

"It's 90 degrees, I don't want to sweat my ass off eating dinner," he said.

Hot weather hasn't kept people from hitting the links, though. A top salesman for a software used by hedge funds said golf remains the one constant — it's a socially-distant game that can be comped by the company. And you don't even have to leave Manhattan to get a golf fix: he recently has been taking prospects to a driving range at Chelsea Piers.

A private equity-focused lawyer currently in Florida said he's never been more thankful he has a top-notch golf game so he can take clients out.

If dinner is a must, sources say that it's much more enjoyable to be eating outside on the water in the Hamptons than in a converted parking space in Manhattan.

One investment-banking MD who's based in Greenwich, CT, said he's played a lot of tennis and golf. He's also gone for local walks and even driven out to the Hamptons for a long walk on the beach with an important client.  

'You can fill your dance card Tuesday through Thursday'

But there are some advantages for those sticking it out in the city. While it might be tougher to book a table now with restaurants spacing out seating, coordinating schedules with clients can actually be easier.

"You'd be surprised about how many people are in the city," said another banking MD, who's been going to the office a few days a week. "I've had lunch with clients in Midtown Manhattan on the streets. Getting a dinner reservation with clients on a Tuesday night in the Upper East Side was not easy."

He said it's easier to get on clients' calendars than normal because people are bored of seeing only family and perhaps close friends for months, and few are traveling. He said some companies, like smaller firms that might not have deal flow as active as that of the major names, are prioritizing face-to-face activities more to drum up deals. 

"There's no mandate to be in. But if you do go calling around, it's amazing who's there," he said. "Maybe they're not here all five days, but you can fill your dance card Tuesday through Thursday." 

Read more: Boutique banks like Evercore and Moelis are saving tens of millions in travel and entertainment costs while dealmakers are grounded. Here's what that newfound efficiency could mean for the future of business travel.

Keeping clients' safety in mind

For financial advisers, the pandemic has tested what are typically high-touch relationships with their well-heeled client bases. Usually, there are splashy outings; client-only events thrown by the firm; dinners; travel; meetings as simple as a living room visit to discuss their accounts. 

The risk for severe illness from the coronavirus increases with age, and financial advisers are extra mindful of the precautions they must take with older clients. And for those that are still refraining from in-person interactions, the challenges have been mounting.

For one wirehouse financial adviser based in New Jersey, it took the pandemic to motivate one of his clients, a widow pushing 80, to recently learn how to use the firm's online banking tools (and her cell phone) effectively. 

Another wirehouse adviser, who is based in the southern US and has clients living stateside and internationally, said the situation has tested the limits of some clients' tech expertise. 

Some older clients of his had tended to walk to their local branches to take care of wealth management- and banking-related transactions; now that's not a possibility. So the adviser has had to guide them remotely, he said in a recent phone interview. 

He's taken to keeping in touch with his clients over the phone — only. He doesn't like video calls, and some of his clients either don't have the know-how to set it up, or just prefer the phone as well.  

There was once also the issue of Zoom-bombing, the problem video-conferencing Zoom said it took measures to prevent earlier this year when uninvited guests would get into meetings. One of the advisers in his branch had an instance of pornography popping up on a client call. They've since switched to WebEx. 

Meanwhile, firms' compliance departments and regulators enforce strict guidelines around what they can post online, meaning communicating with clients over social media, texting, and video calls has been a delicate balance.

Still, some rules are changing with the times. For instance, Morgan Stanley is currently conducting a pilot program allowing a group of advisers to "like" posts on LinkedIn, according to a person familiar with the policy.

Aside from keeping clients happy, advisers are dealing with another challenge: adding new clients to their practices. Some firms have given advisers a break on goals related to client activity, acknowledging many will have a hard time with categories like new household acquisition. 

That's likely a welcome relief, with some advisers who are stepping back from cold prospective client outreach.

A wealth adviser at a wirehouse based in the Northeast US said in a recent interview that his team were focusing more on serving existing clients — some of whom have lost family members during the pandemic and are dealing with financial complications on top of grief — rather than trying to source new business. 

With new reach-outs, "we don't want to be insincere" during a sensitive time, he said. 

Read more: A leaked memo shows Bank of America's Merrill Lynch is dealing with 'many' violations by financial adviser trainees working from home, so it's paused their reach-outs to new clients

SEE ALSO: Boutique banks like Evercore and Moelis are saving tens of millions in travel and entertainment costs while dealmakers are grounded. Here's what that newfound efficiency could mean for the future of business travel.

SEE ALSO: Wall Street's disaster playbook never included work-from-home trading. Insiders explain how banks rapidly adjusted during one of the most chaotic markets in history.

SEE ALSO: A leaked memo shows Bank of America's Merrill Lynch is dealing with 'many' violations by financial adviser trainees working from home, so it's paused their reach-outs to new clients

Join the conversation about this story »

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• ConocoPhillips, one of the nation's largest oil companies, has proposed a large drilling project in northern Alaska, where climate change is causing the permafrost to melt.
• The company is planning to use chillers called thermosyphons to prevent the ground from thawing underneath key infrastructure, according to an environmental impact statement published last Friday.
• Melting permafrost could damage ConocoPhillips' infrastructure, the Bureau of Land Management said Friday. The agency approved the plan. 
• Burning oil produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that fuels global warming.
• For more stories like this, sign up here for our weekly energy newsletter, Power Line.

ConocoPhillips, one of the nation's largest oil companies, might soon be forced to face symptoms of a problem it helped create — melting permafrost wrought by climate change. 

In a planned project in northern Alaska, where global warming is causing the frozen soil to thaw, the company said it would use chillers to keep the ground beneath key infrastructure frozen, according to an environmental impact statement published by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last Friday, Bloomberg Law first reported.

The infrastructure, itself, could also exacerbate the thawing of the ground, the agency said. 

Click here to subscribe to Power Line, Business Insider's weekly energy newsletter.

The project, known as Willow, could produce more than 160,000 barrels of oil per day over a period of about 30 years, during which climate change is likely to worsen warming, BLM said.

In the last 60 years, average temperatures in the region rose by 3 degrees and they're expected to increase by as much as 12 degrees by the end of the century "if global emissions continue to increase," the agency said. 

The transportation sector — which runs on fuels made with oil — is the largest source of planet-warming emissions in the US. The oil produced by the ConocoPhillips project is thus likely to accelerate global warming and the melting of Alaska's permafrost. 

"Climate change is affecting the Arctic and our operations, but these effects are incremental, which means they can be effectively monitored and addressed as they arise," a ConocoPhillips representative said in a statement. "For example, in addition to closely monitoring changes in the depth of the usual summertime thawing of the permafrost surface layer each year, where necessary we use cooling devices (thermosyphons) that can chill the ground enough in the winter to help it remain frozen through the summer."

Do you have a tip about ConocoPhillips or another energy company? Reach out to this author at bjones@businessinsider.com or through the encrypted messaging app Signal at 646-768-1657.

Climate change bites back

Set to be built in Alaska's North Slope, the ConocoPhillips project is reliant on the region's cold temperatures and the permafrost — ground comprised of soil, rocks, and ice that typically stays frozen year after year.

The plan includes almost 500 miles of ice roads and an ice bridge, Bloomberg Law reports. And it depends on the frozen ground to build drilling pads for oil extraction, gravel roads, and airstrips, according to the BLM review.  

Without intervention, that infrastructure is at risk.

Melting permafrost, brought on by global warming, not only releases additional greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane but it can also cause the ground to suddenly give out, causing roads and other infrastructure to fall apart. 

"Key changes to anticipate as a result of a changing arctic climate are permafrost thawing, shorter ice road seasons, and changes to precipitation," the agency said. "Permafrost thawing and uneven settlement could cause damage to infrastructure such as gravel pads, roads, and pipelines. A shorter ice road season would affect the transport of materials and personnel that depend on ice roads."

Oil drilling infrastructure including gravel roads and well casings can also accelerate the thawing of the land immediately surrounding it, the agency said. 

"Well casings from production and injection wells would transfer heat to the surrounding soils and could change the thermal regime of the permafrost and create areas of deep thaw," BLM said. 

One solution: Refreeze the ground

One solution to the thawing permafrost is to haul in giant freezers — which is essentially what ConocoPhillips plans to do, according to the impact statement.

BLM said in its report that the oil company, based in Houston, would deploy thermosyphons, a type of non-electronic cooling device, nearby various infrastructure including well pads and well house shelters. 

"Thermosiphons would be installed in specified areas," the report said, "to protect the permafrost and prevent subsidence."

ConocoPhillips, Alaska's largest oil producer, would also take other precautions, such as making the gravel roads and well pads especially thick, according to the agency. 

The project could help boost the state's oil output, which has fallen dramatically in the last few decades, from over 2 million barrels per day in the late 80s to just over 400,000 barrels per day, Reuters reports.

The Trump administration approved the plan last Friday, per Reuters.Bloomberg Law reports that the public has 30 days to comment. 

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Attentive is a buzzy New York ad tech startup.
• But it might never have been born if investor Scott Friend, a partner with Bain Capital Ventures, hadn't told founder and CEO Brian Long that his original idea for the company was mediocre.
• Friend and Long had met and grew to trust one another when Friend invested in Long's previous startup, TapCommerce, which sold to Twitter for $100 million in 2014.
• Long had VCs pounding down his door offering excellent terms for his second idea, he told Business Insider. He had the product built and a big customer.
• But Friend convinced him that his idea wouldn't pan out in the long run, Friend told us.
• Because Long trusted Friend, he listened and Attentive was born: a company that makes a mobile messaging app used by over 3,000 brands and organizations, including Coach, Sephora.
• Here's how their friendship helped turn Attentive into a company that might "go on forever."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Attentive is a New York startup with pedigreed founders and fast success that ad tech VCs are watching.

Attentive offers a mobile messaging app used by over 3,000 brands and organizations, including Coach, Sephora, and Urban Outfitters. Founded in 2016, it has raised a total of $163 million from firms like Bain, IVP, and Sequoia, including an oversubscribed $110 million round that closed in April, raised while the economy was melting down from the pandemic.

But such success might not have happened if Bain Capital's Scott Friend hadn't told Attentive CEO Brian Long that Long's original idea for Attentive was mediocre. This even though Long had already launched a product and signed a big customer.

Friend and Long forged a friendship back in 2013, when Long was running his previous startup TapCommerce and Friend became an investor and board member. 

Long and the TapCommerce team were rising stars, Friend thought at the time.

"They were firing on all cylinders," Friend told Business Insider. At the first board meeting, Friend recalled, the startup's revenue projections were actually higher than what they had originally pitched. It didn't take long for Friend to develop a "fundamental trust" in Long, 

Soon after, in 2014, TapCommerce sold to Twitter in 2014 for $100 million.

With that kind of track record, when Long set out for his second venture, he had lots of VC suitors knocking on his door, Friend said.

Long acknowledged that other investors were offering bigger, more tempting term sheets, but he selected Friend because they had already built up a lot of trust with one another.

"The analogy to it being marriage is a good one," Long said of the relationship between founder and VC, "but I actually think that it's more than a marriage. There's no way to really end your relationship with an investor."

While Friend was game to invest in Long's company again, he was underwhelmed with it. 

"The category they were experimenting in with mobile workforce management was a robust category," Friend said. The founders "could've raised money for that, for sure."

But Friend had previously met with over half a dozen other startups working in the area and felt that the idea would not lead to an attractive exit. The VC thought this even though Attentive had already obtained the Holy Grail for startups: traction.

"They had built something," Friend explained. "They were getting early trials." The startup even scored a multi-year contract with a major public company. 

Still, Friend advised the co-founders to switch gears. 

Despite the early signs of success, Long said he wasn't "feeling great about" the startup's direction either.

When he heard Friend's advice, he, to the surprise of the customer, pulled out of the contract and "pivoted into what became Attentive," he said.

"Relative to what they're doing now," Friend said, their first idea "would've been a disaster."

Nice vs candid

Far too often, Long explained, founders are too nervous to seek out candid feedback about their products.

"You get a lot of false signals when you meet a friend of a friend," Long said, referring to the types of people entrepreneurs often lean on at first to seek advice. Usually "they're just being polite."

Another major challenge is that many VCs, especially when funding seed and Series A rounds, prioritize founders' previous successes rather than the actual products they've pitched.

Long's track record with TapCommerce meant that he could have raised funds for just about any idea he had, including mobile workforce management, but that doesn't mean his new company would have automatically turned into "the large-scale, high-growth business" that Attentive has become today, Friend said.

Now, "Attentive may be in the rare situation where the company goes on forever," Friend said, hinting that an IPO might be on the horizon. 

SEE ALSO: 2 Bain VCs say the firm is on the hunt for early-stage founders. Here's an exclusive look at Bain's plan to support 'outlier' entrepreneurs and nurture unicorn-track startups https://www.businessinsider.com/bain-venture-capital-vcs-explains-strategy-for-early-stage-investments-2020-8

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Meet the 2019 class of Wall Street's rising stars.

From starting a hedge fund before age 30 to running their own alternative-data shops and helping lead $27 billion investments, this group of young finance leaders is in a league of its own.

It was harder than ever this year to select just 25 people. Our selection criteria: We asked that nominees be 35 or under, based in the US, and stand out from their peers. Editors made the final decisions.

Here's our list of the next crop of Wall Street leaders.

Additional reporting by Alex Morell, Bradley Saacks, and Dakin Campbell.

Click here to read the full list.

Adam Parker, 34, Center Lake Capital

Adam Parker has been focused on running his own hedge fund as long as he can remember – and he's already running $350 million before the age of 35 with his fund, Center Lake Capital. 

Parker started investing in college after he sold a GrubHub-like company he and a couple friends started. From there, he interned at the Lehman Brothers real-estate group in summer 2007 and was choosing between returning for a full-time position or joining the now shuttered Force Capital. He chose Force. 

After working as an analyst, he eventually interviewed with billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, and worked for Duquesne Capital until Druckenmiller closed the fund. He then went to PointState Capital, which was started by Duquesne veterans, and became a portfolio manager after just a year, running $150 million to start out.

Center Lake launched in 2014 with multiyear commitments from a few critical investors, Parker said. Now he believes the firm has differentiated itself because of the concentrated investments and specific focus within the tech world. 

Click here to read the full list.

Evan Feinberg, 32, Tiger Global

Feinberg started at the University of Pennsylvania with plans to be a lawyer and had no idea what investment banking even was. It took only a year for him to transfer into the Wharton business program, and the rest is history.

Feinberg worked at Morgan Stanley during the summer of the financial crisis and joined Silver Lake Capital, a private-equity firm in New York, after he graduated. He joined Tiger Global six years ago as the hedge fund run by the billionaire Chase Coleman decided to expand more into the private markets. 

In that time, Feinberg estimates he has been a part of 40 to 50 different investments Tiger Global's private-investing team has made, including co-leading the firm's investments in the Brazilian financial-technology unicorn Nubank and the buzzy workout company Peloton. Both the investments were made earlier on in the companies' histories — series B for Nubank and series A for Peloton — a fact Feinberg is proud of.

Feinberg is looking for founders that are inspirational but also grounded, so they don't let their vision get the best of them, while also being able to get employees and investors to buy into the potential of the company. 

Click here to read the full list.

Want to meet the rest of Wall Street's rising stars?

BI Prime publishes dozens of exclusive stories like this every day that feature in-depth industry and market analysis. 

>> Get started by reading the full list

• This is a preview of the Fintech and Financial Inclusion research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• 14-Day Risk Free Trial: Get full access to this and all Fintech industry research reports.

Historically, the US banking industry has discussed financial inclusion solely in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Offering services to the underserved — unbanked consumers who lack access to banking products, and underbanked consumers who make only limited use of mainstream financial services — has long been economically unviable. But two forces have flipped the conversation from CSR to a genuine business opportunity.

First, digital tools from mobile banking to AI are driving down costs and allowing financial institutions (FIs) to offer previously untenable products, such as fee-free accounts or credit scoring based on unconventional data.

Second, the US' financial landscape is more competitive than ever, as fintechs, incumbents, and even tech companies like Amazon vie for larger shares of the overall space. That's creating a compelling reason for banks to seek out fresh growth opportunities, and the financially underserved represent just that. And with close to 33 million US households either unbanked or underbanked, the opportunity for fast-moving banks is huge.

In Fintech and Financial Inclusion, Business Insider Intelligence explores the business opportunity for incumbent banks looking to tap the growing opportunity presented by the financially underserved, highlights through case studies how innovative players are utilizing technology to capture share in this market, and outlines recommendations for how banks can enter the space as well.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Amazon, BBVA, Chime, Citi Bank, Experian, FICO, LendingClub, Petal, and Synchrony.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Despite the US being one of the most developed financial ecosystems in the world, a quarter of households in the country make little or no use of mainstream banking products.
• Several barriers have stymied underserved consumers' adoption of mainstream banking products, both from the consumer and FI perspective.
• Innovation in digital banking channels has helped reduce some of these barriers to adoption, making financial products viable for consumers and FIs alike.
• Banks planning to target consumers that are financially underserved need to consider a number of factors, including product fit, financial literacy, and how they measure metrics for assessing of a financial inclusion effort.

In full, the report:

• Details the key reasons why millions of US households are either unbanked or underbanked.
• Forecasts the market opportunity of serving this group.
• Explores how seven players have leveraged technology to tap into this lucrative market — Citi Bank, Chime, BBVA, LendingClub, Petal, Amazon, and Synchrony Financial.
• Provides actionable recommendations for how banks can successfully pursue a financial inclusion project.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are three ways to access it:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
2. Subscribe to a Premium pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
3. Current subscribers can read the report here.

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• This is a preview of the Banking and Payments for Gen Z research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• 14-Day Risk Free Trial: Get full access to this and all Payments industry research reports.

Generation Z, defined as customers born between 1996 and 2010, hold up to $143 billion in spending power, but haven't yet developed brand loyalties that dictate where they store and spend that money.

For banking and payments providers, attracting these customers while they're young could lead to lucrative relationships throughout their lives, with value increasing as they age, earn more money, and expand the number of financial products they engage with. 

Most Gen Zers haven't started using financial products beyond a bank account, which makes them a ripe opportunity for players in the space.

As a result, many firms target millennials and Gen Zers together in a push to attract younger customers, but this could be limiting their ability to effectively capture the interest of tweens, teens, and young adults, because Gen Z differs from their older counterparts. As a group, they're more responsive to influence from friends and peers than they are to traditional advertising, less likely to remember life before the internet, and more open to a wider variety of financial service providers than other consumers.

Understanding what makes Gen Zers tick is critical for marketers, strategists, and developers looking to cater to these younger customers and build out a suite of products, tools, and services that they'll want to adopt. In this report, Business Insider Intelligence will use a six-point framework — developed based on industry research and conversations — to explain the core attributes that Gen Z values in a product.

It will then explain how each of these attributes can be applied to banking and payments products, and offer actionable recommendations, strategies, and examples for how to implement them to grab younger customers ahead of the competition.

The companies mentioned in the report are: Affirm, American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Current, Discover, Instagram, Google, Grab, Greenlight, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, PayPal, Uber, Venmo, Visa, Wells Fargo, Zelle

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Gen Z's lack of financial services product adoption offers providers a long runway for growth. While two-thirds of Gen Zers have a bank account, many don't yet use debit cards, haven't aged into credit cards or loans, and aren't responsible for the bulk of their own spending. As they navigate life transitions, like going to college or getting a first job, there's ripe opportunity for providers to engage these customers.
• Gen Z is more interested in digital payments products and services than any other generation. While adoption of mobile wallets has been tepid among the general population and P2P apps, like Venmo and Zelle, are just now gaining traction among older users, Gen Zers are diving in head first: Over half use digital wallets monthly, and over three-quarters use other digital payment apps or P2P apps in the same time frame.
• To attract, engage, and retain Gen Zers, financial services firms must develop products that are social, authentic, digital-native, and educational, offer value, and evolve over time. This combination, which emphasizes key attributes that Gen Zers value, serve as a roadmap for developing offerings with features that appeal to these users in both the short and long run.

In full, the report:

• Explains why Generation Z represents a meaningful and urgent opportunity for financial services providers.
• Outlines a six-point framework for building services that can attract, engage, and retain Gen Zers.
• Offers specific strategies that banks and payments providers can implement to build products tailored to this generation.
• Evaluates examples of tactics that work in bringing Gen Zers into the fold and turning them into lifelong customers.

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1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
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• President Trump's attack on TikTok has highlighted the extensive, but not-well-understood powers the president has to regulate or block foreign investment in the US.
• The president's order came as a result of a process initiated by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS, a group of cabinet officials and presidential advisors empowered to review deals for national security concerns.
• The committee can force companies to modify deals or recommend that the president block them.
• CFIUS has broad authority, all of which can be seen in the TikTok deal — it can review deals involving any company that engages in interstate commerce in the US, no matter where they're actually based.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Trump's order that China's Bytedance unload its TikTok business in the US has put a spotlight on a government committee with remarkably broad powers to regulate corporate acquisitions — even when none of the businesses involved are American companies.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS, the multi-agency group that recommended Trump's TikTok order, is a 45-year-old panel comprised of cabinet-level officials and presidential advisors authorized to vet foreign investment in the US for national security concerns. 

For years, CFIUS was primarily focused on deals with clear relevance to traditional national security, such as companies involved in weapons production or industries important to military readiness. 

But the committee has taken an increasingly broad view of national security over the years and recent changes to the laws underlying CFIUS have broadened its power further. And with the "tech cold war" between China and the US escalating, CFIUS is now flexing its muscles in ways that may seem surprising to many in Silicon Valley.

"I feel that a lot of businesses are not understanding this," said Doreen Edelman, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler and the chair of the law firm's global trade and policy group.

The TikTok situation provides a case in point.

Many past press reports have erroneously suggested that Musical.ly — the lip-synching app that would become TikTok after getting acquired by China's ByteDance in 2017— was an American company. Under that assumption, CFIUS's involvement, even years after the deal closed, might not seem overly surprising.

But in reality, Musical.ly was not a US company. Although it had a small office in California and was popular with US teens, but it was headquartered in Shanghai.  So Trump is ordering, following a CFIUS review, the undoing of a merger between 2 two Chinese internet companies.

What makes a business American?

The reason he can do that is because in the eyes of CFIUS, Musical.ly actually was a US company.

Under the laws undergirding CFIUS, any individual, group, or organization that is "engaged in interstate commerce in the US" is considered to be a US business. So an entity could have only a small office in the US or — at least in theory — could have no physical presence at all and still be considered a US company as long as it engaged in interstate transactions.

Not only did Musical.ly have a US office in Santa Monica, Calif,  it obviously was engaged in interstate commerce — its video sharing services had millions of US customers. Those factors were enough to place it under CFIUS's jurisdiction.

Once a deal falls within CFIUS's jurisdiction, the committee a lot of power. It can rubber stamp a transaction, demand that the parties make changes to address its concerns, or recommend that the president block the deal. And it can do so pretty much any time it wants, no matter how long after the fact.

In the case of Musical.ly, the committee didn't start investigating the acquisition until last fall, some two years after the parties announced it. CFIUS has full authority to retroactively review deals, particularly those it didn't scrutinize in the first place, such as the ByteDance-Musical.ly deal. 

When ByteDance announced the acquisition, the companies had no obligation under the rules in place at the time to notify CFIUS of the deal, which is the precursor to any formal review. The flip side of that freedom to ignore CFIUS was that the committee could at any time — months, years, potentially even more than a decade later — decide that the deal had a bearing on national security and undertake a review of it. There's no statute of limitations on CFIUS's retrospective review power. It can even go back and review or force modifications to deals to which it's previously given a green light, legal experts told Business Insider.

OK, but so how did a deal involving a video-sharing service popular with teens fall under the rubric of "national security?"

In years past, security issues that would be reviewed by CFIUS were fairly narrowly construed, dealing primarily with things like weapons production, military equipment or facilities. 

However, what constitutes "national security" has always been left open for each administration to define. Over the years, the definition has gradually widened to include infrastructure such as ports and, increasingly, deals that might threaten economic security, rather than military security.

More pertinently for the ByteDance-Musical.ly acquisition, Congress updated the laws underlying CFIUS in 2018 to spell out three types of deals that would now be considered to have obvious national security implications and would be subject to mandatory review by the committee. Those deals are ones in which foreign entities are investing in or acquiring one of three things — critical infrastructure; critical technologies, including cutting-edge software and hardware; or the personal data of 1 million or more US citizens. By acquiring Musical.ly, ByteDance got access to just that — the personal data of millions of Americans. 

And as a result, the deal is a national security concern.

Business Insider reporter Max Jungreis contributed to this story.

Got a tip about startups, venture investing or TikTok? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

• Read more about the TikTok dispute:
• Trump's attack on TikTok is setting off alarm bells in Silicon Valley
• SCOTT GALLOWAY: Why TikTok is unlikely to be banned in the US, despite plenty of US apps being banned in China
• TikTok reportedly has 18 million users who are 14 or younger, renewing concerns for children's safety
• TikTok's US employees are scared they won't get paid if the app is banned, and now they're planning to sue the Trump administration

SEE ALSO: These 3 startups were recently accused of misstating their financial information, highlighting how little such companies may be required to disclose to their VC backers and other investors

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• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway invested in a gold miner last quarter, even though the billionaire investor has repeatedly warned against betting on the precious metal.
• Berkshire's new stake in Barrick Gold is "encouraging," said Darren Pollock, a portfolio manager at Cheviot Value Management, which owns both Berkshire and Barrick stock.
• "Gold should have the wind at its back for some time," he added, citing the soaring US budget deficit and rock-bottom interest rates.
• Buffett may be picking winners with his stock-selling spree last quarter, record stock buybacks, and recent $2.1 billion bet on Bank of America, Pollock said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

  ---

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made a surprise investment in Barrick Gold last quarter, its latest portfolio update revealed.

It's a promising move by the famed investor's conglomerate, Darren Pollock, a portfolio manager at Cheviot Value Management, told Business Insider.

"The biggest and most encouraging news from the filing is Berkshire's willingness to buy a gold mining company despite Buffett's public dissertations against owning gold," Pollock said.

Cheviot has counted Berkshire as its biggest holding for more than 20 years, and it owned $39 million of the company's stock at the end of June. It also boasted a $10 million stake in Barrick after boosting the position by 30% last quarter.

Buffett has repeatedly criticized gold as an investment because it isn't a productive asset like a farm or business, and it has historically underperformed stocks.

Given his clear disdain for the metal, it is possible that one of his two investing deputies, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, actually bought the Barrick shares, Pollock said.

"The younger portfolio managers are not beholden to Buffett's recent views on precious metals," he noted.

Pollock outlined several reasons why Berkshire may have decided to break from tradition and back a gold miner. 

1) The price of gold is strongly correlated to the US federal budget deficit, as a deficit signals to investors that the economy is suffering and they should park their cash in "haven" assets such as gold.

The deficit has ballooned this year, and may remain elevated for years as stimulus policies drive up government spending and a depressed economy weighs on tax revenues, Pollock said.

2) The gold price moves inversely to interest rates, as low rates make it more appealing for investors to buy gold instead of holding cash that earns almost nothing in the bank, or government bonds paying paltry yields.

The Federal Reserve is likely to keep interest rates low for years to encourage spending, minimize borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, avoid sparking a wave of loan defaults, and shore up economic growth, Pollock said.

"Gold should have the wind at its back for some time," Pollock said.

Berkshire's stock selection was also on point, he continued, as Barrick is "a top tier gold mining company, with mines in safe jurisdictions, run by excellent management."

"CEO Mark Bristow has overseen a great improvement in the business, reducing debt, keeping costs low, and achieving great increases in free cash flow," he added.

Banking on Berkshire and Bank of America

Buffett and his team slashed two of their biggest positions, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, last quarter. They also ditched the "big four" airline stocks, dumped their remaining shares in Goldman Sachs, and trimmed their stakes in other financial companies including BNY Mellon, PNC, and US Bancorp.

As a result, Berkshire's net stock sales hit their highest level in more than a decade, Pollock said. The last time they came close to that amount was the fourth quarter of 2009, a year after the financial crisis struck, he added.

However, Berkshire's bosses went on to plow more than $2 billion into Bank of America stock in the three weeks to August 4. They also bought back more than $5 billion of Berkshire stock last quarter, and likely repurchased another $2 billion worth in July.

Buffett is arguably sending mixed messages by backing a gold miner and dumping stocks, then betting big on Bank of America and executing record share buybacks. He may simply be picking favorites, Pollock said.

The bank sales "may indicate that Buffett believes Bank of America is the best-positioned large bank to weather the difficult economic terrain ahead," he said.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has been a formidable leader over the past decade, and at 60 years of age, could be in charge for a while yet, Pollock continued.

Meanwhile, Buffett's record stock buybacks represent a wager on his own company, and Pollock is "quite pleased" to see aggressive repurchases at a compelling price.

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• The failure of the US to effectively limit the spread of the novel coronavirus has opened the door to China becoming the world's dominant superpower, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has said.
• Greenspan said in a blog post for a wealth-management firm that the US looked as if it had "lost its way" while China was on track to achieve President Xi Jinping's ambition to become a dominant superpower by 2049.
• While the economist said the US would enjoy less dominance this century, he highlighted some reasons its economy was not entirely replaceable.
• "For all its problems with populism, America has something precious that China lacks: a stable political regime," Greenspan wrote.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The failure of the US to effectively limit the spread of the novel coronavirus has "worsened" its road to economic recovery and opened the door to China becoming the world's dominant superpower, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has said.

The economic landscape for the coming generation will be defined on the basis of the relationship between the US and China, he said in a blog post published Monday for Advisors Capital Management, saying the Trump administration's shoddy response had opened the door to Chinese dominance.

"The COVID-19 crisis has presented a real threat to the United States' position of global dominance," said Greenspan, a senior economic adviser to the financial-portfolio manager.

Greenspan said the US economy had "lost its way" at a time when China was enjoying relative success and embracing President Xi Jinping's ambition for the country to become the dominant world superpower by 2049.

"China is endeavoring to wrench global hegemony from the United States," he wrote of the Asian power, which was the first to see a rebound during the coronavirus pandemic.

"The resurgence of the virus in the US threatens to forestall our economic recovery," he said. "And as political tensions heat up between the world's two largest economies, the balance of power that will result is still unclear, but becoming of increasingly greater concern by the day."

Read more: Warren Buffett bet on a gold miner and slashed his bank stakes because he's picking winners, a veteran Berkshire Hathaway shareholder says

While Greenspan said the US's dominance would dwindle this century as China contributed to a growing share of the world's gross domestic product, he said there were some reasons it could not be entirely replaced.

"America leads in all the industries that are inventing the future, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, driverless cars, and, indeed, finance," he said. "And for all its problems with populism, America has something precious that China lacks: a stable political regime."

He said problems of poor policy were fixable and could be restored through political will.

President Donald Trump has kept his consistently tough stance on China at the front of his bid to win November's presidential election.

The Trump administration has pivoted the US's policy toward China from strategic ambiguity to open rivalry.

Recently, Trump signed an executive order threatening to ban the popular viral-video app TikTok in the US if the Chinese company ByteDance did not sell the app's US operations to an American company.

The US also recently shut down the Chinese Consulate in Houston and separately placed sanctions on Chinese officials accused of human-rights violations in Hong Kong and China's Xinjiang region.

Read more:Charles Schwab's stock-picking chief told us why a COVID-19 vaccine would trigger a mass exit from tech stocks — and pinpoints 3 companies that would benefit instead

SEE ALSO: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway moves in the 2nd quarter reflect 'caution in the current environment,' Morgan Stanley says

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• Financial advisers are likely to switch firms in search of better tech if their current firm does not offer adequate tools, a new survey of around 250 advisers and financial planners has found.  
• After polling around 250 advisers in the US and Canada, the financial-technology solutions firm Broadridge found 77% of respondents said they lost business because of gaps in tech.
• The findings underscore an ongoing balance as firms look to control costs during a highly uncertain economic period while investing in tech they didn't know they would need to improve so rapidly. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The pandemic has tested financial advisers' typically high-touch relationships with clients — so often entailing close hand-holding during rocky markets, and attending in-person events and meetings that build trust and rapport. 

With in-person engagements off the table and tech the only adviser-client lifeline, it's also tested wealth managers' loyalty to firms when digital tools aren't up to snuff, according to a new report from by Broadridge Financial Solutions.

Half of some 250 US- and Canada-based financial advisers and planners Broadridge polled in June often think of leaving their wealth management firms in search of better technology, and more than three-quarters said they have lost business because of lacking tech tools to interact with clients. 

Financial advisers who reported losing clients because their technology was not good enough said they lost, on average, about one-fifth of their book of business. 

"Clients want high-touch, high-technology. They want a very personalized experience, and digital capabilities are core. They're no longer a luxury. They're core, and they're expected," Michael Alexander, president of wealth management at Broadridge, said in a phone interview. 

"Advisers are recognizing that," he said. "And if they don't have those capabilities, they're going to be willing to vote with their feet and leave." 

Read more: Long walks on the beach and Hamptons dinners al fresco: Here's how Wall Streeters are entertaining clients in a social-distancing era

The findings pull wealth management firms' pandemic-era priorities into focus. Companies are balancing controlling costs during a highly uncertain economic period with investing in tech platforms they didn't anticipate having to improve in the short-term. Sub-par digital tech could lead to advisers leaving, already in full swing during remote work.

Gaps in adviser technology are often in areas like client onboarding processes (a typically onerous, paperwork-heavy activity advisers bemoan), electronic signature capabilities some firms have only started to upgrade in recent years and are crucial to doing transactions remotely, and the digital infrastructure to get clients into alternative investments.  

Broadridge, which has some 150 wealth management clients and conducted the survey with the market and research firm Research Knowledge and Insights, did not ask respondents to specify where they worked or the type of wealth management firm that employs them. 

To keep advisers and their client bases satisfied, firms have to have "intuitive" and easy-to-use tech for their advisers and clients, Alexander said.

Read more: Here's what financial advisers say is the most overhyped wealth tech, and which tools they think will actually help them in the next 5 years

"A lot of processes are still very manual, for example, alternative investments or client onboarding. So they don't have the digitization of client engagement and the digitization of client service, and they really need that," he said, emphasizing the need to eliminate paper and offer client information aggregation. 

Firms' plans of action

Some wealth management firms are acutely aware of the need to keep advisers' technology as updated as possible.

 "To help advisers effectively operate remotely, we developed a bundle of new and enhanced capabilities," Dan Arnold, the chief executive of independent broker-dealer LPL Financial, said last month during a call to discuss earnings.

The firm created an online calendar tool for advisers and clients to schedule time to meet virtually and an instant-messaging feature for advisers to stay connected with their staff virtually, Arnold said, according to a transcript on the investment research platform Sentieo. 

"We also continue to evolve how we engage with our advisers in the new and more virtual landscape," he said.

Read more: Wealth managers could save millions in costs from a snappier recruitment process. An analyst lays out the 3 firms that could benefit most.

Financial institutions' priorities have shifted as a result of the pandemic's stay-at-home mandates, a recent report from Celent, the fintech-focused research and advisory firm, shows. Wealth managers have been heavily investing in onboarding processes, the report by Awaad Aamir, Andrew Schwartz, and Neil Sheehan found.

The firm expects a 3% reduction in wealth managers' technology spend this year, and estimates overall yearly spending to come in at $21.2 billion. Between 2021 and 2023, that spending should grow at a 5% compound annual growth rate, Celent estimates.

"While we expect a gradual return to 'normalcy,' remote collaboration tools are here to stay," the report's authors wrote. "Throughout the pandemic they have proven their worth. Business has and will continue to be conducted outside of the traditional office. It is imperative firms double-down on bolstering these technologies."

SEE ALSO: 9 top financial adviser recruiters to know right now who have moved wealth teams managing billions

SEE ALSO: Here's what financial advisers say is the most overhyped wealth tech, and which tools they think will actually help them in the next 5 years

SEE ALSO: Wealth managers could save millions in costs from a snappier recruitment process. An analyst lays out the 3 firms that could benefit most.

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Hiya!

If you're even the least bit tech savvy, there is a good chance you've sent money to someone via one of the many apps that exist these days. If so, you might have paid the wrong person. Maybe you misspelled their username — it's Lindsay with an "a" not an "e" — or maybe you got your wires crossed. Either way, it's not a great feeling.

Now imagine you are a bank. And imagine that rogue payment was actually $900 million. 

That's the reality for Citigroup. As first reported by Bloomberg, the bank is in the midst of trying to claw back $900 million it mistakenly wired, but the recipients aren't as keen to hand over the cash. 

The story in and of itself is interesting enough, but even moreso when considering the knock-on effect this will have on the market for transactional banking, a space dominated by Citi, JPMorgan, and HSBC.

One particularly eager new participant waiting in the wings? Goldman Sachs.

If you're not yet a subscriber, you can sign up here to get your daily dose of the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.

Like the newsletter? Hate the newsletter? Feel free to drop me a line at ddefrancesco@businessinsider.com or on Twitter @DanDeFrancesco. 

If you can't beat them, join them.

Over a decade removed from a financial crisis that cast them as villains, financial firms are taking a proactive approach to their image, media coverage, and how they communicate with the public. 

Dakin Campbell and Rebecca Ungarino have all the details on how Wall Street is ramping up its home-grown internal media units. 

Goldman Sachs, in particular, has been ambitious with its plans, which include an interview show, a podcast, and a newsletter edited by a former Wall Street Journal reporter (it's competitive out here!).

We've already covered Goldman's efforts to become your friendly neighborhood bank, and this strategy definitely falls in line with that. Click here to read the full story.

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• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made a surprise bet on gold miner Barrick last quarter, undermining the billionaire investor's past criticisms of the metal as an investment.
• However, Berkshire and Barrick have more in common than it appears.
• Barrick's bosses have emulated Berkshire's culture of trust and partnership and its decentralized structure, and vowed to follow Buffett's advice to think independently and invest astutely.
• "It is our intention to become one of the few businesses that fulfill Warren Buffett's ideal holding period of forever," Barrick chairman John Thornton said in 2016.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway shocked investors when it revealed a $546 million stake in Barrick Gold last quarter, after Buffett warned against investing in gold for more than two decades.

The bet isn't quite as bewildering as it seems.

Barrick's bosses have emulated Buffett's management style for years, and modeled their company culture and structure on the famed investor's conglomerate. As a result, the gold miner is probably a better fit for Berkshire's portfolio than its peers.

Here are some of the key similarities between the two companies, based on an analysis of company transcripts on Sentieo, a financial-research site:

• Barrick's late founder and CEO, Peter Munk, said on an analyst call in 2014 that trust within the company was key to its success. He compared his colleagues' bond to the "seamless web of deserved trust" that Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, has underscored as critical to Berkshire's outperformance.
• Chairman John Thornton outlined a slew of structural changes in Barrick's 2014 annual report that moved the company closer to the Berkshire model. You can see them below (bold text is what Barrick did, italic is Berkshire's strategy):
  • It expanded its partnership plan to 35 leaders, granting them stock options to incentivize long-term performance. It also vowed to strike fair deals with external partners such as governments and local communities, potentially sacrificing short-term revenue to build relationships and secure future projects.
  • Buffett views Berkshire stockholders as his partners in the company. "Charlie and I are working for our shareholder-partners," he said in his 2018 shareholder letter.
  • Barrick appointed two co-presidents, giving its operations chief and corporate-affairs boss a stake in each other's success.
  • At Berkshire, Buffett works in partnership with Munger, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler co-manage its investment portfolio, and Ajit Jain and Greg Abel split responsibilities for the insurance and non-insurance operations respectively.
  • Barrick decentralized its operations, halving the size of its headquarters and removing management layers between its Toronto headquarters and its mines. Its goal was to minimize bureaucracy and allow the head office to focus on allocating people and money across Barrick's operations.
  • Thornton summed up the shift with a Buffett quote: "Hire well, manage little."
  • Berkshire owns scores of businesses — including Geico, See's Candies, and the BNSF railway — and employs close to 400,000 people worldwide. Yet it only has a couple dozen employees in its headquarters, and Buffett and his team allocate capital across the company.

That's not where the similarities end, however.

Thornton vowed in Barrick's 2015 annual report that the miner wouldn't succumb to the "institutional imperative" among companies to "mindlessly imitate" their peers, a problem that Buffett identified in 1989. Barrick differentiates itself by aiming to enrich not just its owners but its employees and local communities as well, he said.

The chairman also proclaimed his desire for Barrick to be one of the world's best companies at the miner's annual meeting in 2016, adding that he wanted it to be worthy of Buffett's investment.

"It is our intention to become one of the few businesses that fulfill Warren Buffett's ideal holding period of forever," he said.

Moreover, Thornton invoked Buffett's 1989 warning against plowing excess cash into increasingly subpar projects and acquisitions at an investor day in 2018. He vowed that Barrick would be disciplined in its investments and not fall into the trap.

Based on those comments, Barrick shares Berkshire's cultural values of trust and partnership, subscribes to its decentralization model, and heeds Buffett's advice to act independently and spend intelligently.

Those similarities undoubtedly factored into Berkshire's decision to invest. Thornton's goal to have Barrick live up to Buffett's standards is now a reality.

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