North America

Crowdfunding platform Kiva is an example to everyone in finance who wants to make systemic impact.

Thoughts of a possible Democrat victory in 2020 are already giving some concern to investors.

Corporates often perceive options as an expensive means of hedging FX risk compared with forwards, but a number of market developments have increased their attractiveness as a tool for reducing currency exposure.

The ridesharing company’s foray into financial services is a questionable decision given the company’s dismal financial results.

The political and regulatory backlash has driven leading payments companies out of the Libra association, but a new version of the revolutionary stablecoin may yet appear.

The desire to bring secondary-market trading to illiquid private equity is growing.

The failure of the We Company IPO and the poor performance of Uber and Lyft suggest that investment banks have lost their ability to price IPOs. But it also raises deeper questions. Were the elevated paper valuations of private companies a fantasy of wealth creation that could never be realized? Is the new private equity capital market, which seemed to be maturing into institutional-grade infrastructure in the last 18 months, broken?

While the IMF highlights mispriced corporate debt as a systemic danger, so too is misvalued unlisted equity.

The SoFi co-founder’s second act involves eliminating ‘rent seekers’ from the capital markets. Securitizing blockchain-originated loans will go some way towards demonstrating if it can be done.

A mixed third-quarter earnings result showed how Goldman Sachs’ investments in new ventures are dragging on returns, but CEO David Solomon argues they will pay off over time.

A new approach to going public has so far been tested by only two firms, but the people who did those deals see them as the start of something bigger.

The bank's head of treasury and trade solutions, EMEA, says: 'In transaction banking, we see exponential growth.'

The EMEA treasury director at CBRE says: 'Treasury can be truly transformed by introducing technology.'

The head of channels, analytics and innovation for treasury services and head of blockchain initiatives for corporate and investment banking at JPMorgan says: 'The boundaries between technological innovation and product development are blurring.'

Sustainable finance initiatives are great, but now is a good moment to take stock of the progress on commitments already made.

Climate is no longer the only risk in town: thanks to a loud call from the scientific community, nature has finally been given a seat at the table with finance ministers, regulators and central bank governors.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, clean up water supplies, prevent the loss of biodiversity, mitigate fire and flood risk and meet the nutritional requirements of a growing population the world must improve its regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices – new tools and support from the financial services industry are needed to fund that transition.

Carbon markets, particularly offsets, are shaking off their past and becoming a vital instrument for reaching CO2 reduction goals, protecting and conserving biodiversity at scale, as well as meeting many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They need to succeed.

As in financial advisory, so too in asset management: data scientists are the new talents Lazard is seeking to bring in alongside its portfolio managers and analysts.

The winners in M&A advisory are supposed to be the firms with the best-connected and most-knowledgeable industry experts to advise chief executives, but Lazard’s CEO wants more data scientists to help advisers upgrade their tools for predicting how shareholders will respond to takeover deals.

It was just what the regulators didn’t want: another surge in Sofr just as the timetable for transition away from US dollar Libor enters its critical phase.

Investors fearful of higher geopolitical risk and lower economic growth may be making a mistake if they consider private assets as the best way to generate returns.

It might not happen, but if the US president were to stop Asian firms listing in the US, it would help a sector that has watched business slip through its fingers.

Three-quarters of fund managers that responded to a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey think that Mexico is going to lose its investment grade status.

A presidential snub adds to Wells Fargo's woes.

Automation and artificial intelligence are transforming the payments industry into one of the most dynamic sectors of transaction banking. But there are still many teething problems in an industry that has been catapulted onto centre stage.

It has just received a very public vote of no-confidence from non-bank liquidity providers, but concerns around transparency are yet to outweigh the perceived benefits of last look.

Europe’s banking sector’s investment in fintech and ESG merits more confidence than their exposure to negative European Central Bank rates might suggest. On these counts, the US banks may be lagging.

The US Business Roundtable has changed its statement of purpose to indicate that shareholders’ ambitions for profits have to be balanced with society’s goals, but what is it that these chief executives plan to do?

Bankers in Europe have discussed pooling resources across different institutions for some years, as the threat from bigger US rivals has become painfully obvious.