North America

February’s volatility has shown that the markets may not always be there for the financing that corporates want to do and that the borrowers may not always be there for the financing that the markets want to do. Financing could be about to change – a lot

The plight of the unbanked in the US’s poorest regions is a modern-day scandal in the world’s richest nation. Southern Bancorp is one bank seeking to address the problem. Euromoney goes to the heart of the battle to beat financial exclusion in rural America.

It has been the busiest first quarter ever for M&A announcements. Deal makers are becoming exuberant amid strong growth synchronized across the developed markets. But rising protectionism in the biggest M&A market of all could yet turn a banner year into one to forget. Should investment bankers fear the new Trump effect?

After a much-needed spike in volatility during the first quarter, FICC bankers reacted with cautious fist-bumps rather than fist-pumps. They hope it will continue, but how quickly this will translate into better revenues and profitability remains to be seen.

Ride hailing app raises over $1bln directly; banks may test regulation with lower-rated credits.

The cat is out of the bag: the public is aware that if you want to stop something, you have to stop the financing. Right now in the US, that something is guns.

A sale of NEX will generate close to a billion dollars for brokerage founder Spencer. Will it also bring him closer to the aristocratic title he craves?

If Michael Spencer manages to sell NEX at a price that places a high value on its core FX and electronic bond dealing platform, he will have pulled off an impressive slow-motion brokerage trade.

Finance ministers and central bankers at the G20 have called for greater global coordination in their approach to cryptocurrencies, but that looks a remote prospect when different regulatory bodies in the same country cannot agree a strategy.

New sole president’s success in building non-traditional strengths put him ahead of rival Schwartz

As US rate rises become a reality, Latin American markets face another home truth: have they actually become a standalone asset class, or is a sell-off inevitable?

Comments at Las Vegas conference suggest banks ‘should have the right to do the leveraged lending that they want’.

Transaction automation and open banking can help banks to strengthen customer relationships, especially as fintechs are encroaching on their traditional services – but the sector has been slow to adapt.

We review the options...

When banks get around to reporting first-quarter 2018 results in April (the US banks) and May (the Europeans), it is already safe to say that their fixed income, currencies and commodities numbers will look particularly good.

Outsiders struggling to make sense of the investing tactics of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son can take some comfort: his own directors often seem just as puzzled.

Have banks finally learned not to hold their customers in contempt?

After a year in the recovery ward, 2017 results show some banks are healing. The most serious illness, negative rates, is stubbornly resistant however. The danger remains that banks may not recover before another disease –financial or technological – strikes.

Euromoney looks at the approach taken by regulators to encouraging fintech innovation in North America, after the announcement of a formal information exchange arrangement between the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Treasurers are naturally cautious investors, but in a time of low returns they are being pushed towards riskier opportunities.

February’s bout of extreme volatility in financial markets is likely to herald the end of the easy credit era. But that could be just the beginning of the fall-out.

Comments made by the US regulator at an FX industry event in Miami in February have raised the hackles of some market participants over the thorny issue of ghost or phantom liquidity.

The recent price collapse shows how far bitcoin and the rest have veered from working like currencies, but one cryptocurrency just wants to be used to pay for stuff.

The XIV note blow-up highlights risks lurking in the opaque market in structured notes, but also obscures potential benefits for a wider group of investors and issuers if the market could be opened up.

MarketFactory chairman James Sinclair sets out the reasons why FX liquidity could fragment further, in a new white paper.

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein wants to remind everyone of the importance of non-static resource commitments – and how they can move in both directions.

The findings of JPMorgan’s 2018 e-trading survey underlined yet again the importance of effective execution policies and systems.

Blackstone-owned GSO Capital’s provision of financing for building firm Hovnanian, on condition that it defaults on debt in order to trigger a payout on default swaps, highlights the reputational risks for investors as they supplant banks in setting the agenda for the credit markets.

The recent disclosure that rare wine worth more than $1.2 million was stolen from Goldman Sachs co-president David Solomon, allegedly by a personal assistant, raises questions about which other Wall Street titans may have suffered the indignity of losses they would rather not discuss.

Tax changes are likely to boost their performance far beyond US domestic markets.