Hester Bais talks extensively about her fight for a better financial system

Hester is the founder of law firm BAIS Legal and specialises in financial law. She has also worked for AFM, at the stock exchange and a clearing company.

In this episode, her book "Worst Bank Scenario" is central and Paul and Hester deal with several points. In the first part, they discuss the background of the book, the rise of interest rate derivatives among SMEs and semi-public institutions with the associated collateral obligations. She explains why banks did not comply with their duty of care. Based on this analysis, they take a closer look at the victims and how Hester assists these clients. Partly as a result of Hester's work, a uniform recovery framework was eventually created from which certain customers were (partially) compensated by the banks. I

In part two, Paul and Hester talk about the liquidity problems (collateral) at banks, the European guarantee fund and the balance sheet corrections made by SNS Reaal, ING and ABN, among others. Hester has reported this to no avail through politicians, FIOD and AFM. They also discuss the money laundering investigations into these banks and Hester's proceedings before the US SEC. Finally, they discuss Hester's latest findings on European developments and how centralization of collateral goes hand in hand with the European debt union.

In the third part, Hester talks about how she envisions the future of the financial system and what reforms she thinks need to be done. Everything has to be simpler, more transparent and with fewer perverse incentives. She also elaborates on the possible arrival of CBDCs, the role of IMF in this, and whether Nexit might be the solution.