Year: 2012

On Wednesday, Barclays announced that it had hired Hector Sants as head of the bank’s new compliance and government relations team, a position that had not previously existed.

Analysts were pleased with this news, as it may mean that Barclays is finally going to take compliance more seriously and, in doing so, will avoid the hefty regulatory fines and reputational damage that have plagued it in recent years. Sants certainly is qualified–he served as chief executive of the Financial Services Authority until June– and Barclays has set up a structure that should give him some real power.

At its recent investor seminar Rio Tinto warned of an uncertain and volatile short-term outlook, nothing new there, though with an expected fourth-quarter pick-up in Chinese fixed-asset investment. Longer term, Rio remains bullish on global commodity consumption with China remaining the key driver until at least the mid-2020s.