North America

As political tensions around income inequality rise, so too does pressure on banks to hire employees from more varied backgrounds. While some have been early adopters of diversity, there is much still to do.

The final ruling on Section 385 has been made, with significant dispensation to allow corporates to continue with cash pooling.

Has Jamie Dimon been taking public speaking lessons from Donald Trump? Watching a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington recently, where he sat alongside Mike Corbat and James Gorman, you'd be forgiven for thinking so.

Global banks are in retreat. Some countries stand on the brink of exclusion from the conventional financial system.

The topic of Brexit was never going to be far from the minds of delegates at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the Institute of International Finance, both being held this week in Washington, DC. And on Friday afternoon, delegates got a chance to hear the views of three vocal US bank chief executives — Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, Mike Corbat of Citi and James Gorman of Morgan Stanley.

CEO John Stumpf may yet be forced out; analysts split over stock prospects.

The Wells Fargo scandal has once again put ethics at the heart of the debate about the future of banking. Regulation is clearly not working. Now an eclectic group of behavioural scientists, moral psychologists and spiritual leaders are stepping in to solve the problem. Will anyone on Wall Street listen?

US bank winds down GCF business; concern over BNY Mellon dominance.

White House report baffles community bankers; a quarter of small credit unions closed.

The brutal grilling of chief executive John Stumpf before the Senate banking committee is just the beginning of investigations that will embroil Wells Fargo and damage its peers.

For decades the world’s banks followed their multinational corporate customers across borders and built up international networks to finance trade and serve surging capital flows. Now those cross-border flows of traded goods lag even weak global GDP growth. Nationalism is on the rise. The era of the global banks may have already ended with the financial crisis. Is the entire concept of global banking at risk too?

Goldman Sachs almost certainly made a good investment when it paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 for three speeches.

Unlike the contrarian investors who would welcome some creative disruption to market certainties, most bankers seem to fear the turmoil that could well follow an election victory for Donald Trump.

The market had anticipated the Fed would use its last speech before its September rates decision to prep the ground for a hike, but the audience was instead given a list of reasons for the Bank not to act. The market reaction underlines the diminishing returns of ultra-loose monetary policy.

Predicting interest rates is not an Olympic sport, but the job of discerning what the Fed has planned is arguably as taxing as anything Rio is serving up. With economic signals strikingly mixed, and forward guidance offering little additional insight, economists appear to have little conviction in their predictions regarding the Fed's intentions.

S&P at record highs, while IPOs are 60% down year on year; disconnect between stock market and new issues.

China and India dominate market; US corporates begin to take note.

Vampire squid or bank of the people? Goldman Sachs wants to win over middle America.

UBS oncology fund raises $471 million; banks turn to foundations to collaborate.

Profit windfalls from GSEs evaporate; SoFi approved to become seller and servicer.

MetLife wins right to ditch Sifi label; US insurers consider options.

Trading the weakest link; firm ‘needs restructuring’.

Performance varies widely; Clients still boosting allocations.

The North American banking and treasury market is highly evolved but technology offers many routes to further sophistication.

US digital infrastructure far from ready; alternatives to mobile payments here to stay.

This column’s author had an inside view of the Chemical/Chase merger 20 years ago.

Loan production offices instead of branches; tech tie-ups lead to nationwide presence.

California’s new treasurer picked his target when he made an example of the foreign bank but the domestic players have been warned.

Barclays has suffered the biggest blow in the latest round of billion-dollar regulatory fines for rigging currency markets, with a penalty of almost $2.4 billion from five regulators, with the spotlight shifting to FX options.

So far in 2015 we have been witnessing death by a thousand policy rate cuts around the world. That is turning the US Federal Reserve’s dream of rate normalization into a dystopian nightmare.