Over the course of three days at the 8th International Science and Practical Conference in St. Petersburg, approximately 400 international scholars, executives, and professionals from financial institutions and central banks discussed the current state and future of banks and the global financial system under the title:
“The Architecture of Finance: The Illusion of Global Stabilization and the Prospects for Economic Growth.”
On behalf of the University Executive Board of the St. Petersburg State University of Economics (UNECON), the Dean, Prof. Dr. Veronika G. Shubaeva, invited Prof. Dr. Clemens Renker from Zittau to serve as the keynote speaker at the main event. Under the topic“ Демоны над немецкой банковской системой - Проблемы , последствия и решения” (Demons Haunting the German Banking System—Problems, Consequences, Solutions), Professor Renker outlined ten challenges that are occurring simultaneously for the first time in the history of German credit institutions. Using concrete analyses and figures, he highlighted the consequences for the banks’ earnings and equity positions. It thus became clear to everyone that the credit institutions’ current business models cannot ensure their survival. For savers, the question of whether their deposits are losing value in real terms has long since ceased to be an issue. Rather, German savers are now faced with the question of how large their losses will be—or whether they might even suffer a total loss—if these business models are not completely transformed in a timely manner.
In another speech delivered in the grand ballroom of the Central Bank of Russia at the invitation of Director Prof. Dr. Nadezhda A. Savinskaya, Professor Renker once again emphasized—drawing on the insights of great Russian writers—that conventional ways of thinking and behaving are unsuitable for addressing this historically unprecedented set of circumstances. Leo Tolstoy explains the factors of success in the first two sentences of *Anna Karenina* and concludes, in essence, that everything is in disarray and confusion in the Oblonsky building—“Все смешалось в доме Облонских .” In his poem “The Demons,” Alexander Pushkin observes:“‘Сбились мы . Что делать нам !’—We have lost our way. What are we to do!” Similarly, Fyodor Dostoevsky emphasizes the need for a complete overhaul of the financial system and the banking sector in his great works *Crime and Punishment* and *The Possessed*: We need the gradual renewal of humanity, the renewal and transformation into banks of true value.
To achieve this, we need the“great ” ideasbehind new business models.
