CIBM admits 13 foreign institutions; HSBC issues Rmb 1mln panda bond.

“As soon as you have climbed one regulatory hill then the next one is already looming”

Places and events where you can guarantee to bump into the elite of the banking industry are not that frequent: there’s the IMF and Davos, of course, and the Chelsea Flower Show, and certain members’ clubs in London; plus, we should not forget to mention, Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence dinner.

What’s in a name? Plenty, it seems, if it’s similar to one on a sanctions list.

"It’s got nothing to do with the market. It’s the fact that our f***ing governments haven’t got their f***ing acts together to make the necessary f***ing planning to address climate change and have spent 20 years p***ing in the wind wasting our money on lawyers in Paris"

Few people can say they have devoted almost 40 years of their life to the service of one company, Very few indeed can claim that they’ve overseen the development of that company from having one niche product to being a company of 50 businesses worth in excess of £1 billion. But that’s exactly what Richard Ensor, who retired as chairman of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC at the end of September, has achieved.

When it comes to succession planning, there are fantastic successes and spectacular failures. But get it right and the rewards for private – and investment – banks can make it all worthwhile.

After years of crisis, a quiet revolution is happening in Italian banking. A mountain of bad debt and a government and regulator intent on reform have ended a fundamental tenet of the cooperative system – with implications for the vast tracts of cooperative banking elsewhere in Europe. Will the reform and a wave of mergers succeed in bringing Italian capitalism out of the regions and into the 21st century?

The search for liquidity has driven many bank treasurers to explore greater diversification in their funding programmes.

Bank treasurers are trapped in a nightmare of never-ending regulatory challenges. From second-guessing capital treatment to understanding new rules on liquidity, their work is more important than ever to the overall health of the banks they serve. The one bright spot: at least funding markets are open to them.

The bull market that began in March 2009 is flagging, but the overwhelmingly negative narrative from many strategists and commentators is overdone.

Fintech firms and foreign adoption of faster payments are revealing what many have long known – US consumer banks have resisted innovation in favour of profits. Now they face a death by a thousand cuts unless they embrace change.

Malaysia’s political leaders are besieged by the fall-out from the 1MDB scandal. A whispering campaign is trying to drag in the hitherto-unsullied, long-serving central bank governor, Zeti Akhtar Aziz. She staunchly defends her reputation, but is far more concerned about the potential disruption to her long-term economic planning.

The US Federal Reserve has harmed its credibility by postponing a rate hike.

A tsunami of tastelessness; measuring Moynihan’s brand equity; best wishes to Blankfein.

Cuts capital reserve requirement; currency still under pressure.

Overall clarity still lacking; US financial system firmly out of bounds.

RBS veteran hired to run innovative unit; Greece in frame after first deal in Italy.

Limited opportunity under military junta; domestic banks have retail dominance.

Pressure from large investors to lower costs; performance flat but few alternatives.

Beijing plan to privatise slew of SOEs: Analysts fear concentration of power.

Tier-3 debt faces contractual hurdles; FSB accedes on structure disparities.

Stress tests and China hurt bids; new mandate for management.

Survey pulls in 27,000 responses from across financial institutions and non-financial institutions.

Many banks now say cash management is the heart of their business, not just for the returns it can generate in its own right but also for the opportunity to pump other products and services through their networks. Euromoney’s survey reveals banks still have a lot of work to do to turn aspiration into reality

View the results of 27,000 survey responses from treasury professionals.

If only winning a transaction services mandate were as simple as filling in the RFP document – though even that is getting ever more complex. Success requires a full understanding of the business you are trying to win, and the soft skills to make the relationship work. Plenty can go wrong along the way.

Colombia, more than any other Latin American country, has used the favourable winds of recent years to prepare for the rainy days ahead. But has finance minister Mauricio Cárdenas done enough to ensure Colombia stays afloat if there is a prolonged emerging market downturn?

US digital infrastructure far from ready; alternatives to mobile payments here to stay.

Pools data to improve accuracy and transparency; could disrupt ratings industry.