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LATEST ARTICLES
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The Brazilian neobank is growing its number of clients faster than perhaps any financial institution on earth. Combine this with static unit costs and the operational leverage potential is big. CFO Guilherme Lago explains how its business model is now focused on the next five to 10 years as open banking generates unprecedented price transparency, customer portability and opportunity.
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A private credit market growing so fast, away from the oversight of bank regulators, may be a new source of systemic risk. With smaller investors taking greater exposure to an asset class whose high returns and low losses look almost too good to be true, there could be trouble ahead.
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Intesa Sanpaolo’s Isybank is the latest in-house neobank to run into trouble. But the desire to migrate core-banking systems onto the cloud is still encouraging other banks to follow this strategy.
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When clients talk to the world’s biggest listed hedge fund, market complexity, the use of technology and the need for customised solutions loom large in the conversation. Man Group’s president Steven Desmyter tells Euromoney how the firm’s evolving structure and approach reflect the priorities of the asset allocators it serves.
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Isbank’s chief executive Hakan Aran sees embedded finance and an innovative approach to bank branches as the future as the Turkish bank looks to rebuild on a better market environment for its 100-year anniversary.
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XP has succeeded in Brazil by using its technological efficiencies to win on digital experience and price. But now the incumbents are catching up and XP chief executive Thiago Maffra is focusing on developing service beyond pure online delivery.
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The Greek bailout fund’s exit from Piraeus Bank last month was the country’s biggest post-crisis privatization. The bank’s chief executive, Christos Megalou, tells Euromoney that this is more than a capital-return story. It’s also about growth: in the economy, in wealth and asset management, and, thanks to neobank Snappi, internationally.
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After a decade of restructuring, EFG International ramped up hiring last year – above all from Credit Suisse. Chief executive Giorgio Pradelli talks about the firm’s scope to lead a wave of Swiss-bank consolidation, while doubling down on new wealth from the Middle East and Asia.
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The paradox of Itaú is that it has maintained its leadership of Brazil’s banking sector with an ease and assuredness in recent years that belies the radical and continual transformation going on under the surface. The bank’s CFO, Alexsandro Broedel, tells Euromoney that its management’s only real constant is to view every new player as an existential threat – and react accordingly.
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Credit Suisse’s domestic bank was arguably the failed group’s best and strongest division. One year after the rescue, UBS is not the only one trying to feast on its domestic wealth-management and corporate-banking leftovers. Other Swiss and international players also hope to benefit from the longer-term fallout in Switzerland. Will the rush to pick up the remnants of the fallen champion pay off?
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The decision by the US SEC to drop mandatory Scope 3 reporting weakens global emissions reporting standards. However, many corporate issuers are already using Scope 3 performance targets on sustainability-linked transactions for non-regulatory reasons. Are the debt and equities markets leading companies onto ESG ground upon which regulators fear to tread?
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Stock market reform has not only revitalized the country's capital markets but has also permeated the real economy. Countries like Korea are quickly following suit. Interestingly, China also seems to be drawing inspiration.
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Global money is flooding into India to profit from high-performing stocks, a booming economy, and the ease of investing via Gift City, a growing financial hub in Gujarat. Local wealth is flowing the other way, notably to Dubai. It’s a gold mine for private banks, and the process has only just begun.
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Norwegian wealth manager Formue has been growing revenues and assets since opening in 2000. It has done this by financially educating people who never gave much thought to wealth planning and by getting people to like it.
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A wall of liquidity among investors has helped to drive a busy start to the year for bond issuers, as they rush to capture tight spreads.
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The German lender’s decision to put its chips on southeast Asia is paying off handsomely. Under the leadership of Asia CEO Alexander von zur Mühlen, Deutsche Bank has doubled its capital in Vietnam and Indonesia, with more to come, moved a host of global roles to the region, and has seen Asean eclipse its India and China business in terms of growth and absolute numbers.
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For a deeply unpopular government with little room to manoeuvre, the chance to bribe voters with a cheap offer of bank shares is irresistible. The bank in question is now well-run and profitable while its stock still trades at a discount. But the great NatWest share offer will do little to revive UK capital markets.
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The leading neobanks in Brazil seem to have hit their stride in terms of profitability just as some of the traditional banks have stumbled. Are these firms the future of Brazilian banking?
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Investors and staff at Societe Generale are slowly starting to understand chief executive Slawomir Krupa’s brutally honest approach to the bank’s many challenges. Taking them with him as he embarks on his restructuring plan may prove a more delicate task.
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There was a big rise in the number of respondents to Euromoney’s Trade Finance Survey 2024 who received an increase in credit from their trade banks last year – 45.7%, up from 41.8% in 2023.
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More than 60% of respondents to Euromoney’s 2024 trade finance survey expect an increase in use of trade financing over the next three years.
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Some 50.6% of respondents to this year’s Euromoney Trade Finance Survey say the cost of credit from their trade banks has increased over the past 12 months, compared with 45.4% in 2023.
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A private debt hangover in real estate is threatening middle-class retirement savings across Germany. Local banks, which focused more on senior loans, should be safer. But are these lenders ready to finance the recovery in commercial property that the German market so badly needs?
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Bankers in the Middle East are intensifying their focus on succession planning as the first wave of intergenerational wealth transfer looms.
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No industry will be more overwhelmingly affected by new forms of artificial intelligence – both generative-AI and other technology to come – than banking. Costly but cost-effective, it is up to banks to make AI work for them, not the other way around.
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After a dire couple of years, the hope had been that the only way was up for US regional bank M&A. But this week’s trauma at New York Community Bank has demonstrated some of the problems that can catch out the unwary as expansion takes them into new regulatory territory.
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It is not hard to find short-term worries over global markets’ state of readiness for the US’s transition to one-day settlement in late May. But even if the UK, Europe and those Asian markets still using two-day settlement can adapt to the shift in the longer term, they will also face intense pressure to lessen their dislocation from the US cycle by copying its move. Many also fear the ultimate end-game of same-day or even instant settlement.
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Corporate and development banks want their capital to reach the smallest and most impactful of SMEs in frontier markets. Traditional credit ratings and risk assessments can get in the way.
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Record regional bank profits, plus strong capital ratios in Western Europe, have fuelled hope for more bank acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe. The uncertain effect of recent court rulings on Swiss franc mortgages, however, is a big obstacle to deals in Poland.
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They already dominate the investment banking business in Europe, and now the leading US banks have their eyes on an even bigger prize. They see their vast investments in the digital technology transforming payments and transaction services and their retained global presences as the keys to winning even greater revenues from Europe’s midsize corporates.
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It has become fashionable to describe private credit as an opaque and fast inflating bubble that could bring crisis to the global financial system. But in Asia even banks and regulators hope it will grow to bridge the yawning financing gap.
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Many factors explain Japan’s renewed allure to global corporate and financial institutions. Inbound FDI is rising, with local stock prices regularly hitting record highs. Is the economy’s long-awaited renaissance a passing phase or here to stay?
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Collaboration between national banks has seen widespread adoption of mobile payments schemes. The French and German-led approach of focusing on a single European scheme could therefore be seen as a distraction. But is it the only real way of keeping US payment companies at bay?
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Morgan Stanley has for years touted its expertise and adherence to confidentiality as reasons to choose it over rivals for equity block trades. But charges brought by regulators over leakages of confidential information by the bank’s former head of US equity syndicate and another employee now make its historic claims look embarrassing.
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With its economy embattled and investors fleeing in droves, getting good data on China has never been more important. There are some great analysts and research shops out there. But too many China-facing reports suffer from a lack of imagination, groupthink brought on by a fear of irritating Beijing and an over-reliance on state data. That must change.
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Brazil’s banks have been talking a good game about capturing the outperformance of smaller, privately held companies in the country. Now a new banking advisory firm – packed with senior bankers – has made this segment its entire business strategy.
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After overseeing radical transformations at Bawag and Hamburg Commercial Bank, Cerberus Capital Management now has ultimate control of HSBC’s French retail bank. Former UniCredit banker Niccolò Ubertalli is running the new business, and reveals a very different strategy to the private equity company’s German-speaking antecedents in European banking.
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Recently, investors have welcomed Turkish USD debt with open arms. As 2024 approaches, prospective borrowers will be hoping that the renewed interest can last.
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A securitization of pay-as-you-go electricity bills to fund wider access to electricity in Côte d’Ivoire could spark copycat social bonds for affordable housing, telecoms, electricity access and more.
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Outside Switzerland, European banks largely escaped the banking turmoil last March. That hasn’t prevented supervisors using it as an excuse to ratchet up the pressure. Ahead of its 10th anniversary as a supervisor, is the ECB – as some bankers suggest – getting too intrusive?
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BR Partners grew steadily up until its successful IPO in 2021. However, tougher markets since that float have led to a period of relative consolidation. Will 2024 see a resumption of chief executive Ricardo Lacerda’s ambitious empire building?
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The annual Senate quizzing of US big bank chief executives threw up all the usual favourite partisan arguments, but little else. If this is oversight, it often lacks insight.
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The appointment of Marcelo Noronha as chief executive of Bradesco should probably have taken place five years ago. Is he still the right man for the job?
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National Bank of Ukraine governor Andriy Pyshnyy talks to Euromoney about stabilizing the country’s financial system after the invasion, how rapid shifts to cloud-based banking can work and why cyber risks mean other countries are now seeking Ukraine’s advice about keeping banks running when national electricity infrastructure is down.
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The 28th Conference of the Parties starts in Dubai tomorrow. Dubbed the finance COP, conflicting priorities could turn it into a fossil fuel investor roadshow.
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Kenyan authorities have cleared Flutterwave of wrongdoing following an anti-money-laundering case in the East African nation. Nevertheless, industry confidence in the Africa-focused payments company remains mixed.
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While the dollar’s international supremacy is unchallenged for now, the wider landscape is shifting. Companies are raising more funding in renminbi and the currency’s use in international payments and settlements is growing.
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When Kevin Gartside was medically discharged from the British army in 2012 after three tours of duty in Iraq, he was unsure what to do next. He saw cross-over appeal in banking, an industry with a surprisingly flat operating structure that prizes punctuality, teamwork, adaptability and decision making.
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Standard Chartered’s corporate and institutional bank can increase its profitability even when rates fall, divisional head Simon Cooper tells Euromoney. After reaping the benefit of investments in cash management, he is now turning to the financial markets business, especially credit – reinforcing efforts to grow clients in Europe and the Americas.
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Jane Fraser, chief executive of Citi since March 2021, has a mighty task on her hands. Like so many of her predecessors, she faces the puzzle of how to articulate an identity for a bank that always seems to be trying to do too much at once. So far, she has focused on redefining the scope of the firm and most recently on adapting its structure to fit that. The hardest part – fixing the bank’s woeful returns – is still to come.
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The war in Ukraine has suddenly ramped up demands on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development after the institution spent years searching for a new role. President Odile Renaud-Basso talks to Euromoney about the bank’s strategy and plans to boost its capacity through a €4 billion capital increase.
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Data hoarding, ESG illiteracy and credit risk are roadblocks for regional banks looking to establish sustainable supply-chain financing programmes in the Gulf, just as COP28 approaches.
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Mongolia’s five big lenders have successfully completed their IPOs, doubling the size of the local stock market. But the challenge of attracting more foreign institutional investment remains.
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Private banking clients have begun exploring alternative asset allocation strategies in Brazil. Euromoney talks to the founders of a startup that is tapping into this demand with a strategy focused on special situations.
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Singapore’s big-three lenders – UOB, DBS and OCBC – have won Euromoney awards for best SME bank in Asia each year since 2016, two of them taking the global award as well. Why?
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New technology ventures and trading platforms promise compressed settlement times and improved liquidity in a secondary loans market increasingly dependent on non-bank investors.
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The risk of a new war with Israel will derail any fledgling economic recovery for Lebanon as it attempts to convince private-sector investors of its gas and renewable energy potential.
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Latin America has been a relative backwater for private equity firms. Could better equity market conditions in the region drive an uptick in activity?
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While banks have accelerated digital solutions across business lines, accomplishing end-to-end digitalization of global trade remains far beyond their reach. The complexity of supply-chain finance remains a challenge, and banks continue to hunt for scalable solutions. Embedded finance could be the answer.
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In one of his last interviews in office, Ignazio Visco sets the record straight on his controversial 12 years as Italy’s central bank governor: a period of almost constant crisis. Today, the country’s NPL problems seem cured but, as he acknowledges, simmering risks remain.