North America

Virtu’s agreed bid for KCG shows the pain from persistently low equity volatility hurting even the new breed of market makers.

Continental European banks have long looked with envy over the English Channel – more than ever since the eurozone crisis – but with UK banks facing Brexit and a more advanced economic cycle, and as a degree of inflationary confidence returns to the eurozone, could the tables be turning?

Many voters now equate environmental protection with job losses, but investing in sustainability can boost employment.

At first quantitative easing offered palliative care to the global economy – now the patient is finally reviving.

Two technology firms say they have pushed the boundaries of trading latency a step closer to the limit with a solution that cuts tick-to-trade latency from 250 nanoseconds to just 120.

As treasurers in the US are left guessing about the outcome of potential policy changes, keeping hold of their cash looks to be their preferred option.

Goldman Sachs badly underperformed other US banks in first-quarter fixed income results, setting off a frenzy of speculation about trading positions that could have led to the disappointment.

The news that former president Barack Obama has agreed to speak at a Cantor Fitzgerald healthcare conference for a fee of $400,000 raises two important questions.

The central bank found a way to enforce the rule just before lawmakers attempt to dismantle it.

Know your customer (KYC) registries and utilities were created to comply with rising regulatory requirements. However, as a trusted source of counterparty information, they are finding additional uses across business lines.

CLS has responded to calls to expand the scope of its forthcoming netting service, CLSNet, to include less liquid EM currencies. From next year, currency traders will be able to net off trades in more than 140 currencies, regardless of whether they settle on CLS, in a move that is set to enhance liquidity across the FX market.

Lloyd Blankfein’s swingeing cost cuts at Goldman Sachs really hit bankers where it hurts in March: their phones. No longer will their employer simply pick up the tab for their smartphone usage – Goldman bankers now face the indignity of having to itemise their monthly bills and (good grief!) claim their money back.

To keep the spirit of impact investing, it is worth opening up the terminology to be more inclusive of a myriad of strategies.

There just aren’t enough bankers in the US government, said no one ever… oh, except the American Bankers Association.

The European leveraged loan market is in overdrive, offering unprecedented terms to borrowers and pushing leverage to uncomfortable levels. Cash-rich non-banks are breaking out of the mid market and into syndication. But stoking competition for assets exposes their Achilles’ heel: the yields they have promised their own investors.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein seems to be on a comfortable glide path towards maximizing the value of the performance stock units that will provide most of his future compensation.

Changes to US banking regulation will focus on specific targets rather than wholesale legislative reform.

Goldman's new incentive scheme for its top management has some curious quirks.

HSBC sees new lending opportunities in the increasingly digital exchange of purchase orders and invoices between big companies and their smaller suppliers.

Demand for FX algos is on the rise as asset managers seek to take greater control over order execution, according to a JPMorgan survey.

It is tough to create a franchise in global finance, but over the last five years Christian Meissner has mixed a potent cocktail at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s global corporate and investment bank. Can it build its relationships with key clients to the point where it becomes a true challenger to JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs?

Global FX trading has fallen between two consecutive triennial surveys for the first time since 2001, according to the BIS, with declines in spot trading accounting for most of that decline – but measured in other ways, FX liquidity remains robust.

In-house banks offer the prospect of more efficient management of FX exposures for corporations, but putting the necessary infrastructure in place presents a considerable implementation challenge.

As Europe improves, corporate investment is rising – with one glaring exception.

The provider of cloud-based wholesale bank operating systems has grown fast in the US, starting with SME lending for community banks and growing to a key partner of the country’s biggest commercial lenders.

Banks might want to stop blaming regulators for delays in opening accounts for businesses and the high costs of international payments and FX, because if they don’t do a better job, challengers will.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected an exchange’s request to list what would have been the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), but it might not be long before such a digital currency fund becomes reality, say commentators.

The traditional request-for-quote method of FX trading is far from going the way of the typewriter, even as volatility has boosted activity in all-to-all liquidity providers, whose transparency makes the practice of last look impossible.

Lloyd Blankfein may think that Goldman Sachs’ bankers have a monopoly on doing God’s work, but HSBC seems to be giving the US firm a run for its money.

The 30-year bull run in bonds is far from over.