In between writing Net Interest, I write a column for Bloomberg Opinion. The content is similar – reflections on the finance industry, buttressed by 25 years of experience investing in the sector – but the pieces are shorter, which means good stuff often hits the cutting room floor.

This was one of those weeks. I wrote about the demise of global banking through the lens of HSBC and Citigroup but, zoomed out, the piece was also about the demise of globalisation through the lens of global banking. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a reassessment of the benefits of globalisation and, for those entities that shaped their business models around it, that creates a challenge. For years, these banks struggled to convince investors of the value of their global networks; now their task is much harder. To understand the depth of the challenge, we need to go back in time to the days of Frank Vanderlip, the architect of Citi’s global strategy…

Vanderlip’s Vision

Today, Citigroup and HSBC are…