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BBVA could have bought Banco Sabadell much more cheaply in 2020. Sabadell’s CEO César González-Bueno has since turned his bank around. But BBVA’s return to the negotiating table comes at a time when European banking may be moving to a new and more confident phase.

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.

Restructuring HSBC, like painting the Forth bridge, is a never-ending job. While Noel Quinn has done well, the board must not make another ham-fisted transition.

A lack of consensus on whether recent under-performance of Asian currencies will impact China’s willingness to let its own currency weaken is leading to disparate views on near-term valuations.

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.

As banks focus more on climate adaptation across their businesses, are they conceding that mitigation efforts are futile?

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.

The two European banks are both trying to de-emphasise their investment banks and want to build up areas where they see weakness. Barclays is later to this party than Deutsche, but both will have found encouragement in the first three months of 2024.

Digital negotiable instruments offer the prospect of improved working capital and better liquidity, but they face implementation challenges.

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.

The Brazilian neobank is growing its number of clients faster than perhaps any financial institution on earth. Combine this with static unit costs and the operational leverage potential is big. CFO Guilherme Lago explains how its business model is now focused on the next five to 10 years as open banking generates unprecedented price transparency, customer portability and opportunity.

The standards-setter has come under fire for announcing plans to allow companies to offset Scope 3 emissions as part of net-zero targets. But this kind of compromise has always been inevitable.