Your Top 2020 Story Picks

The pandemic raised new questions and fresh challenges for the banking industry – and fueled readers' thirst for information. A scandal and several big names dominated this year's headlines.

Working from home, split office, quarantine: these terms entered the canon of the financial services industry when the coronavirus hit Europe in March. A scramble by banks to send their staff home was the second-most rest story of this year, according to a statistical analysis of finews.com's reader data.

A surge in demand for fast, reliable information fed monthly circulation to more than 500,000 unique users for the first time. Stories including a collage of more than 30 CEO of Swiss banks working from their kitchen nooks or dining room tables (pictured below) was also a top-read piece.

Other popular topics included neobanking, with start-up Revolut grabbing the top spot in finews.com's most-read stories of 2020 (click here to read the piece).

Big names like that of Boris Collardi whose legacy as CEO of Julius Baer was sullied by a wide-ranging sanction on the bank in February, or Tidjane Thiam, who faced enormous pressure amid a spy scandal before exiting as CEO of Credit Suisse in February, also figured prominently.

Big Names, Major Themes

Thiam's former deputy, Iqbal Khan, made waves when he replicated elements of Credit Suisse's strategy after defecting to UBS, while a profile of the Swiss giant's top U.S. banker, Jason Chandler, profiled a wealth management heavyweight who is virtually unknown in Europe. A peek behind the curtain of UBS' elite squad of more than 100 top bankers including Chandler rounded out the top ten.

The death of Quintet CEO Juerg Zeltner, who until 2018 ran UBS' private bank, hit a nerve with many readers. Meanwhile, themes like a Swiss vote on corporate responsibility and the fickleness of the ultra-rich were also major hits.

The ten most popular pieces of 2020 on finews.com: