North America

Not long ago, Miami was known as a place middle-class Americans went to retire. Today, it is a burgeoning financial hub full of high net-worth families, private equity firms and hedge funds – and it is busy pulling in capital and private wealth at a record rate.

It is turning out to be an equities year for the big investment banks, as fixed income revenues fall or stall and fees from dealmaking recover slowly.

Direct lending may have benefitted from the resurgence in US private equity buy outs in the first half of the year, but there may still be a return to syndicated markets.

Bullish US companies are looking beyond historically high interest rates and tight lending standards when it comes to commercial lending.

Nearshoring has become a topic that is discussed so often – and applied to so many issues – that it seems to be everywhere, and nowhere at once. Euromoney talks to banks operating in the Mexican market to find specific examples of new business being generated by nearshoring.

Its acquisition of Citi’s retail banking business in the Philippines has proven to be a challenge. It has put pressure on the bank’s capital buffers, while Citi’s high-end customers have shown a preference for international players.

Huge international debt capital market issuance in September and October is forecast as investors may seek to take any US Treasury benefit through wider spreads.

Alongside UniCredit’s recent acquisition of Polish financial technology company Vodeno, the US private equity takeover of VeloBank is another sign of renewed optimism in Poland.

The spike in bitcoin after the shooting at a Donald Trump election rally was a reminder that for all the claims of increased maturity, the world’s largest cryptocurrency remains unpredictable.

S&P’s regional bank index has just pushed past its March 10, 2023, level, reflecting where these stocks were immediately before the collapse of SVB last year. Those stocks are rising sharply and investors are seeing huge profits, so is this a sign that regional banks have finally emerged from their crisis?

Tyler Dickson’s departure from Citi must rank as one of the most predictable moves in investment banking this year, even if where he has ended up is perhaps less obvious. Elsewhere, Citadel Securities is apparently set to make an offer that some of the Street might find difficult to refuse.

Basel-endgame pushback has reduced the urgency for US banks to relieve capital, but investor appetite for significant risk transfer trades is spilling over to Europe.

Donald Trump is now likely to win the US presidential election after a disastrous debate performance by incumbent Joe Biden. Trump 2.0 may bring complications as well as benefits for Wall Street.

Derivatives structurers are thriving, but regulators aren’t convinced the biggest Wall Street banks have a firm grasp of their complex exposure.

It is getting tougher for investors to execute block trades of more than €2 million in Europe’s fragmented equity markets. Matching buyers and sellers needs a return to negotiation and away from pure electronic trading.

The absence of staking and the earlier approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have sucked much of the excitement out of the SEC’s surprising decision to greenlight spot Ethereum ETFs.

For the US to come out in support of voluntary carbon markets even while arguing for their reform is an important step in the drive to seek better standards for what are vital – albeit flawed – mechanisms. But more guidelines on how to certify and trade offsets are no substitute for the real thing.

John Mathews, head of UHNW Americas for UBS in New York, tells Euromoney why the US’s private banking model is so successful, why the Swiss firm is really in the life counselling business, and explains why it has targeted US ultra-high net worth clients.

As securities markets shift to T+1, repo is already going intraday with DLR the first of what may be many digital trading platforms to offer JPM Coin for the cash leg.

By starting from a blank sheet of paper, Royal Bank of Canada hopes its new US cash-management platform will allow it to capture a greater share of wallet from existing clients while not being held back by legacy technology.

The prospect of interest rate cuts from the Fed in 2024 is disappearing. Japan and Korea are among those feeling the heat.

Anything except a brief stay on as chairman would cast a baleful shadow over the chief executive’s successor at JPMorgan.

Naz Vahid is to leave Citi after nearly four decades as one of the US bank’s most effective and innovative wealth managers.

UOB’s acquisition of Citi’s consumer assets in four southeast Asia markets strengthens its status in one of the world’s fastest growing regions. The Singapore lender’s CEO Wee Ee Cheong talks to Euromoney about why this matters and what comes next.

Exactly one year ago, San Francisco-based First Republic Bank was sold by regulators amid a US regional banking crisis. Citizens Financial Group, which had seen the sale as a chance to turbocharge its private banking ambitions, lost out to JPMorgan. But far from being the end of the story, that failed bid was just the beginning. Within weeks the bank had announced First Republic’s Susan deTray as the head of its new private bank, a unit that is now at the heart of a fast-growing wealth franchise.

Recently rebranded and expanded, Wealth at Work is Citi’s most dynamic generator of wealth revenues. Its leader, Naz Vahid, sits down in New York with Euromoney to explain her vision for its future.

The body responsible for settling about $6.5 trillion of global daily FX trades has decided against extending its deadlines to accommodate non-US participants who still want to use its next-day settlement service. But it expects the impact to be limited – far too limited to justify the complexity that a change would impose on its members.

Direct lenders to risky borrowers take comfort from their seniority in the creditor hierarchy. But stressed borrowers could jeopardise this as they struggle to attract new funding.

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.

Junior bankers should relax about the threat to their jobs from AI and lean into opportunities to bluff their way to Wall Street glory.