Michael Lafferty


Michael Lafferty was a Financial Times journalist and is now the Chairman of Lafferty Group and former co-chairman of Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.

Education

Lafferty was educated at St. Nathy's College in Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon, before qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1972 and later becoming a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Career

A former banking correspondent, accounting correspondent and LEX columnist with the Financial Times, Lafferty received the Wincott Foundation's Young Financial Journalist of the Year award in 1977.
In 1981, he founded Lafferty Group, which has come to occupy a preeminent position in the global financial services industry and received The Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1988. Lafferty is recognised internationally as an expert in the areas of retail banking, cards, payments and accounting and financial reporting and is often featured in the press worldwide.
He was involved in the formation of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, a global organisation and joint venture with his former Financial Times colleague, David Marsh which goes to the root of the challenges confronting the world economy by providing a convenient yet discreet means for high-level financial market dialogue aimed at controlling risks and enhancing prosperity. OMFIF's activities are crystallised around two essential areas: improving the effectiveness of individual public sector institutions through better asset and liability management; and increasing the cohesiveness of the new supervisory and regulatory architecture for international banks and capital markets after the shocks of 2007-09.
In 2011, he was instrumental in setting up the International Academy of Retail Banking, an organisation that aims to professionalise the retail banking industry with its own certification programme and code of ethics. The IARB's Certified International Retail Banker designation received accreditation from the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland in December 2013.